"When the Xuanhuang Realm was first forged, it already implicitly contained the supreme Dao of Alchemy within it."
"Xuanhuang's capacity for self-evolution, its ability to reforge immortal artifacts, and even its power to conceive Mo Sha—all of them are bound by countless threads to this innate Dao of Alchemy."
Li Fan's gaze swept across the Xuanhuang world.
In his vision, ordinary landscapes like mountains, rivers, lakes, and seas no longer appeared.
Instead, there were crisscrossing Great Daos weaving together.
Such a sight had often surfaced before when Li Fan comprehended the Dao. However, what he had seen in the past was the Great Daos of Heaven and Earth in Xuanhuang resembling an all-encompassing, colossal net. But now...
All the principles of Dao twisted and converged.
Ultimately, they transformed into an indistinct pill that seemed both present and nonexistent!
The imagery of the pill shattered with a roar, and the scenery in Li Fan's eyes returned to normal. Yet Li Fan knew in his heart that what he had just seen was by no means an illusion. Rather, it was a glimpse of Xuanhuang's true essence that he had captured during this process of alchemically refining Xuanhuang.
*From the look of it, Sun Piaomiao was also involved in the construction of the Lanke Dao Sanctuary...* A flash of realization crossed Li Fan's mind.
As the reincarnation of a detached True Immortal, Sun Piaomiao had an unfathomable origin. The items he left behind were capable of resonating with Trueness and possessed numerous wondrous functions. For instance, the Three-Forked Tree could trigger a Trueness simulation deduction; the Downcast Servant Puppet could raise Trueness's maximum charge capacity and serve as a death-substituting shield; and the Broken-Winged Gray Bird indicated a specific interval of time within the Lanke Dao Sanctuary.
There was also the Square Alchemical Stone concealing the *Medicine King Dao Refining Sutra*.
All these clues pointed to Sun Piaomiao's extraordinary nature.
*It's just a pity that aside from these, no other artifacts could be found—even at this temporal juncture eight thousand years ago.*
*After all, the era in which Sun Piaomiao was active is far too distant. That was a grand golden age of cultivation when the immortal path had not yet been severed...*
*Perhaps only by traveling upstream another ten thousand years along the river of time can more relevant clues be uncovered.*
As these various thoughts flashed through his mind, Li Fan's refining movements never ceased for a moment.
Perhaps Sun Piaomiao had left some hidden trick within this half-formed pill that was the Xuanhuang Realm. But the present Li Fan possessed his own means to counter it!
Just as the dense, swirling mist exhaled from the mouth of the Great Heavenly Venerable immortal puppet was nearing exhaustion, and the furnace fire reached its peak yet lacked sustaining strength and was about to wane...
Li Fan's true body abruptly spat out a mouthful of fresh blood, quietly scattering it across every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm.
"The furnace seals Heaven and Earth, condensing sublime resonance..."
"With my own blood, I refine Xuanhuang!"
Li Fan's essence blood transformed into countless invisible red specks of light, enveloping the Xuanhuang Realm on all sides. As it condensed into the embryonic form of a medicinal pill, it simultaneously severed the entire Xuanhuang Realm from the outside world.
This outside world did not merely refer to the connection between the Xuanhuang Realm and the Lanke Dao Sanctuary.
It referred even more to the sea, the mountain, and the mortal world!
Yet with Li Fan's current strength, he was able to achieve this...
All because this single spit had nearly drained him dry of his essence blood. The power belonging to the Great Dao of Longevity, concealed within his essence blood, was also slowly refined and transferred into the Xuanhuang world alongside it!
In his previous life, Li Fan had suffered the calamity of the fusion of the three Daos. Though sheltered by Trueness and barely escaping with his life, the price he paid had been immense.
Setting aside how Trueness had fallen dormant, the most critical issue was that Li Fan had never fully decoupled from that state of the fusion of the three Daos.
In this life, being able to achieve immortality from a single drop of blood even with a mortal body was the clearest proof.
Were anyone else to obtain this divine power of Longevity, they would undoubtedly be overjoyed. Yet Li Fan, having already suffered a hidden loss once, wished for nothing more than to rid himself of it as quickly as possible!
After all, the Great Dao of Longevity ultimately belonged to the Mound-Guarding Lord. Even if he had earned the Mound-Guarding Lord's approval and received a share of this divine power of Longevity, he was merely a "guest."
Since he saw no hope of turning the tables and becoming the master for now, Li Fan chose simply to discard it directly.
*As long as Trueness remains in my grasp, even if the Great Dao of Longevity is a genuine Great Dao capable of standing shoulder to shoulder with the mountain and the sea, I won't feel the slightest reluctance!*
The Mound-Guarding Lord's Great Dao of Longevity truly lived up to being one of the greatest creations between the mountain, the sea, and the mortal world. Even though Li Fan had undergone the fusion of the three Daos and only a faint imprint lingered within him, it still held unimaginable divine abilities.
At this moment, the essence blood within Li Fan's body was drained dry. Yet Li Fan himself felt not the slightest discomfort. In merely the span of a single breath, essence blood brimmed with vitality and power regenerated from every part of his body.
Perhaps it was this complete emptying that genuinely stimulated the remaining power of Longevity within Li Fan.
The newly born essence blood coursed through his body, roaring like dragons and tigers, displaying a momentum that far surpassed what came before.
After expelling all of his essence blood to alchemically refine Xuanhuang, Li Fan not only showed no signs of weakened vitality, but instead felt as though he had enjoyed a deep, restorative sleep and consumed a mountain of nourishing tonics. He grew even more vigorous and full of vitality.
"Is this Longevity..."
Feeling the latent vitality within his body resembling a boundless ocean, Li Fan could not help but let out a cold snort.
He had attained this Great Dao of Longevity in a single stroke, yet attempting to expel it was proving exceedingly difficult.
*The fusion of the three Daos is a bane, not a blessing, for me.*
*By using this endeavor of refining Xuanhuang as an immortal pill, even if I cannot completely eradicate it, I can still minimize its influence as much as possible!*
Li Fan had long wished to resolve the hidden peril of the fusion of the three Daos. Only after prolonged contemplation had he temporarily devised such a method to kill two birds with one stone.
Without further hesitation, he actively spurred his power again, and his body's essence blood surged forth in a torrent.
It scattered across every corner of the Xuanhuang Realm.
To the Xuanhuang Realm, the essence blood spawned by the power of Longevity was an even greater tonic than the vitality and immortal spiritual energy beneath the star sea.
After absorbing it, the overall strength of the Xuanhuang Realm climbed at a nearly exponential rate.
While spraying his own essence blood, Li Fan precisely operated the art of alchemical refinement.
*My essence blood surpasses all heavenly treasures in the world. It is more than enough to thoroughly reinforce the foundation of the Xuanhuang Realm.*
*It truly is the Great Dao of Longevity, standing on equal footing with the mountain and the sea,* Li Fan secretly marveled.
Expelling essence blood, condensing the pill, refining it.
Over and over, the cycle repeated.
After three times, the Xuanhuang Realm's strength had already surpassed that of the former Sublimation Immortal Territory.
After five times, it far exceeded the Untamed Immortal Realm of his previous life.
Yet Li Fan noticed that his extraction of the Great Dao of Longevity from his body had only just begun.
However, as the Xuanhuang Realm steadily grew stronger, the power of Longevity within Li Fan's body showed a faint yet remarkably steady downward trend.
Li Fan therefore had abundant patience.
*It is merely slow, grinding work.*
With the Great Heavenly Venerable standing guard, Li Fan sat cross-legged above the Xuanhuang Realm.
Between breaths, mists of blood erupted, nourishing Xuanhuang.
In this manner, a century quietly slipped by.
The Xuanhuang Immortal Pill had yet to be fully formed; all the changes remained condensed within the interior of the pill and had not yet formally manifested across the Xuanhuang Realm.
Between Heaven and Earth, only a scant few beings could faintly discern the world's shifts.
Yet even exhausting their imaginations, they could not truly peer into the future of the Xuanhuang Realm.
At the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals headquarters, Chuanfa looked up at the sky, his mind uneasy.
A century ago, he had learned of his ancestor, Heavenly King Xuan, from "Grandpa Ancestor." He had also received the heritage of the *Supreme Dao Scripture*. He had intended to use this to sweep across the Ten Sects and avenge the past.
Yet unexpectedly, the war had dragged on for a hundred years. Though the Ten Sects repeatedly fell into a disadvantage, they had never been completely defeated.
This caused the normally steady Xuanyuan Tuo to gradually grow restless.
"If I cannot even cleanse a mere Xuanhuang Realm, how can I ever follow in my ancestor's footsteps?" Xuanyuan Tuo sighed deeply.
Theoretically speaking, he had inherited Heavenly King Xuan's profound resonance and possessed the aid of the *Supreme Dao Scripture*. His strength and divine abilities had long transcended the mundane world; the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao should have been beaten to the point of having no power to retaliate.
In fact, that had indeed been the case at first.
Wherever the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals marched, the Ten Sects fled upon hearing the wind.
They virtually abandoned all their outer territories, shrinking back solely into their own sect grounds and a few critical grotto-heavens.
Back then, destroying the Ten Sects and unifying the Xuanhuang Realm seemed only a single step away.
Yet one day, the situation abruptly changed.
Overnight, the Ten Sects seemed to undergo a complete shift in temperament, launching a fiercely violent counteroffensive against the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
As though they had been stifled for too long, the killing intent of all the Ten Sect disciples was astonishingly fierce.
The delicate rabbits, once thought to possess no resistance whatsoever, transformed in an instant into man-eating tigers. Caught off guard, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals suffered grievous casualties.
In virtually a single month, all the accumulated momentum of victory from the preceding years was lost.
Only by relying on the exceptionally robust vitality of the new cultivation method practitioners did they manage to barely hold on.
Regarding the Ten Sects' bizarre shift in attitude, Xuanyuan Tuo remained thoroughly baffled.
What gave him an even greater headache, however, was that he had continually failed to take the final step of the new method.
Without attaining Longevity, despite possessing wondrous arts and divine abilities, he remained an Integration cultivator in the end.
He could stand against ten, but not against a hundred.
The Ten Sects had profound foundations; relying on him alone, he simply lacked the power to overpower them completely.
Xuanyuan Tuo gazed toward the firmament of the Xuanhuang Realm. "Defying the principles of Heaven and Earth to attain Longevity..."
"Given the number of peak new cultivation method practitioners in the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, I should have attained Longevity long ago. Yet I have continually failed to succeed."
"I originally thought that something unseen was obstructing my path to the Dao."
"Yet after a century of contemplation, I have finally realized."
"It is not that there is a problem with the new method I deduced. Rather, the Xuanhuang world itself is constantly growing stronger as well."
"And the speed at which it grows stronger far outstrips the sum of all new method practitioners."
"Though the world's cultivators can devour Heaven and Earth using my technique, the rate at which they devour is far from keeping up with the rate at which Heaven and Earth expands. Even if the number of new method practitioners were multiplied tenfold, it would still be a drop in the ocean."
A trace of dread flashed through Xuanyuan Tuo's eyes. "Just what..."
Such a circumstance had already far exceeded the bounds of his understanding.
After hesitating for a long time, Xuanyuan Tuo ultimately abandoned once more the idea of seeking help from "Grandpa Ancestor."
He gritted his teeth in secret. *I haven't reached the end of the road yet. There must be another way!*
*Since Heaven and Earth has changed, then the new method must change as well!*
As if returning to the day he first realized the new cultivation method, Xuanyuan Tuo felt a stir of inspiration and sat cross-legged to ponder once more.
Xuanyuan Tuo had fallen into confusion, and the members of the Ten Sects of the Immortal Dao were no different.
"Brother Xingji, what is the verdict? The Mother Stone has been deducing for so long—has there been any result?" The tone of Fang Dingge, Sect Master of the Dadao Sect, revealed an anxiety that was exceptionally rare for him to display.
Even when trapped in heavy encirclement on the Taiyuan battlefield in the past, he had never lost his composure like this.
Daoist Xingji sighed, and after a prolonged silence, whispered, "My Taiyan Sect has possessed the Dao Transformation Mother Stone for nearly ten thousand years, yet such a bizarre situation has never once occurred before."
"The Mother Stone's computing power is virtually drained and exhausted. Even when overdrawing itself, it cannot deduce any scenario that aligns with reality."
As soon as these words were spoken, a deathly silence descended upon the gathering.
"Bizarre. Truly too bizarre."
"We thought Heavenly King Xuan's return was merely a false alarm, but during this past century, strange occurrences have cropped up endlessly."
"Ruomu went out of control, and the Longevity status was lost. The Taiyuan Realm's astral path was inexplicably severed, plunging the Xuanhuang Realm into isolation."
"What is even more critical..." Eldest Senior Brother of the Tianjian Sect, Situ Yao, raised his wine gourd to his lips, only to set it back down dejectedly. It seemed that the aged vintage was sweet no longer.
Fang Dingge continued, "As cultivators, our comprehension and control over the Great Daos of Heaven and Earth are growing weaker and weaker. If it were just one person, it could be called an illusion."
"Yet every single one of us is experiencing this..."
The several people present exchanged glances, seeing the heavy gravity in one another's eyes.
"If this continues to worsen, I fear that one day, we won't even be able to take flight through the sky," Prison Master Xiahou Yan of Wuding Prison remarked shockingly.
"Surely it won't come to such an extreme?" Hearing this, the members of the Ten Sects looked at each other in dismay, an uncontrollable restlessness rising within them.
In comparison, the issue of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals was no longer of paramount importance.
"Fortunately, before the Xuanhuang True Immortal attained the Dao back then, he left behind numerous improved techniques for our Ten Sects. Using them as a reference is what has slowed the rate at which we lose our grasp over the Dao." The moment Jiang Yingyue of the Taishang Sect uttered these words, everyone felt a stroke of fortune.
Without exception, they found themselves reminiscing about that figure who had once stood tall upon the Taiyuan battlefield.
...
Seeming to sense the countless thoughts lingering upon him across the Xuanhuang world...
Li Fan, who had closed his eyes, concentrated his mind, and refined the pill for a century, finally opened his eyes on this day.
In his field of vision, the illusory pill silhouette that had once appeared faintly outside the Xuanhuang Realm had long since materialized as though solid.
Though condensed from countless mouthfuls of essence blood Li Fan had spat out, it was untainted by the slightest scent of blood. It merely gave off a crystal-clear, exceedingly warm, pure white radiance.
From this glow, Li Fan felt an immense familiarity, as well as an indescribably vast convergence of vitality.
Even Li Fan himself was momentarily entranced.
*To think that the power of the Great Dao of Longevity seemingly lingering within me was still this profound.*
*I drained and expelled it with every breath, repeating it ceaselessly. Yet it actually took a full century of repetition!*
Amidst his marvel, Li Fan finally gained a concrete, quantifiable understanding of the Mound-Guarding Lord and the immense might of the Great Dao of Longevity.
*Fortunately, after a century of painstaking effort...*
*The hidden peril of the fusion of the three Daos can be considered temporarily resolved.*
Having lost the resonance of the fusion of the three Daos, Li Fan's sharp perception of the boundless immortal power of the mountain and the sea, as well as Trueness's transformation of true and false, had fallen by more than a tier.
In terms of his personal manifestation, Li Fan discovered that his comprehension across all areas had significantly dropped.
It was as if, overnight, he had fallen from peerless brilliance into ordinary dullness.
Though somewhat unaccustomed to it, Li Fan felt not the slightest regret.
*Boundless are the mountain and sea; I alone am my boat.*
*Fine though the Great Dao of Longevity may be, it ultimately belongs to another.*
*Unless I can turn the tables and become the master, I am better off without it.*
Li Fan's expression remained detached, his heart not wavering in the slightest over the loss of the Great Dao of Longevity.
Chapter 1557