If the blending of mountains and seas was the trend of the times, then the fusion of the three Daos was a miracle unprecedented in the mortal domain of the Mountains and Seas. Perhaps the Mountains and Seas itself, or even Trueness, was quietly looking forward to the outcome.
Resisting the Dao Annihilation brought by the blending of mountains and seas was already unimaginably difficult, to say nothing of the tribulation of three-Dao fusion.
Once one entered a state of fusion, it was virtually impossible to break completely free without power that transcended the three Daos—even with the aid of Trueness.
Even though Li Fan had spat out fresh essence blood to dilute the power of the Great Dao of Longevity within his body as much as possible, he still could not reverse the trend toward fusion. Any thought in his mind that touched upon "fusion" would immediately cause that trend to resurge.
"Drawing out essence blood treats the symptoms, not the root cause. Only by finding and firmly believing in a more correct path can I sever this habitual momentum.
"Only..."
Li Fan frowned slightly.
Forget him—even the Three Sages probably had no answer right now.
"I can only take this one step at a time and see."
Calming his emotions and pressing down the myriad thoughts in his mind, Li Fan put aside the distant road ahead and focused solely on what lay beneath his feet.
Within his mind, an extraordinary cauldron seemed to materialize. All of his past knowledge and attainments became refining materials. As Li Fan systematically organized and sorted through them, they were slowly cast into the cauldron.
His consciousness served as the flame, refining them steadily. Like unraveling a cocoon to draw out silk, Li Fan analyzed the essence of countless divine powers, stripping away their outward appearances and leaving only their core essentials within the pill he sought to concoct.
Watching the divine power grand pill gradually take shape before him, Li Fan felt a clarity unlike anything he had ever experienced.
"Seeking externally is not as good as seeking within oneself.
"I have been bitterly pursuing the True Immortal transformation of Trueness, yet I almost forgot why Trueness has always resided within me in the first place."
Li Fan seemed to see that beyond the cauldron in his mind, besides the "pill materials" of the many divine powers he had mastered across his cycles of reincarnation, there was also a gemstone—one he had overlooked, yet was the most dazzling of all!
"Infinite Spirituality..."
The other materials all came from the Mountains and Seas and the mortal dust. No matter how brilliant his concoction techniques were, he could never refine a pill that surpassed the mortal realm of the Mountains and Seas. Only this gemstone came from beyond the Mountains and Seas.
If incorporated into the pill, it might truly turn the mundane into the miraculous!
Li Fan's mind roared, and the cauldron trembled.
In that instant, the brilliant gemstone erupted with dazzling radiance.
It flew straight into the cauldron.
All the original materials inside parted of their own accord. The gemstone glided smoothly into the very center of the cauldron, as if that was where it had belonged all along.
Countless ingredients circled this radiant stone like a field of stars.
Bathed in the glow emanating from the gem, the materials themselves began undergoing mysterious transformations.
"Infinite Spirituality is not merely what Trueness thirsts for. It can play a vital role in the Great Daos of the mortal Mountains and Seas as well."
Like a flash of lightning illuminating the darkness, Li Fan instantly grasped another potential use for his Infinite Spirituality.
"The Array Dao."
Guided by sudden inspiration, Li Fan infused a wisp of Infinite Spirituality into one of the ingredients in the cauldron. Almost instantaneously, he felt a mild dizziness.
Immediately after, countless scenes surfaced before his eyes in rapid succession.
They were scenes of "Li Fan" after "Li Fan" delving into and analyzing the Array Dao.
There were faltering first steps taken at the Foundation Establishment stage, and there were groundbreaking innovations forged at the True Immortal realm. Though their cultivation realms differed, every one of them poured their life's blood and devotion into researching the Array Dao. Undistracted, pouring their hearts and souls into it, they persisted until their dying breath. Without exception, they were pure seekers of the Dao, with no pursuit in life other than arrays.
As each Li Fan's life flared and faded, Li Fan felt as if he had personally lived through that figure's lifelong devotion to the Array Dao.
Though it vanished like a fleeting dream or a burst bubble, leaving no specific memories behind, Li Fan could feel that his innate familiarity with the Array Dao had not faded in the slightest.
The phantoms flickered and skipped at an accelerating pace, and the Array Dao in Li Fan's eyes underwent an astounding transformation alongside them.
Arrays became increasingly familiar, intimate, and simple.
They were like close companions he had walked alongside for uncounted years, their hearts already linked in seamless, wordless understanding.
Li Fan knew that his talent in the Array Dao had reached a height far beyond the reach of countless beings across the Mountains and Seas. And that talent was still climbing!
"The Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit Grand Array..."
When Li Fan turned his thoughts to this peerless immortal array, what had once seemed immensely intricate—difficult to deduce even with the Immortal Array Dissolution Disc—was no longer so obscure and incomprehensible.
By leveraging the connections among the nine sub-arrays of the Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit Grand Array, he could even deduce the remaining arrays from the five he already knew.
"Of the nine Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit arrays, I know five: Xuanji, Myriad Spirits Returning to Numerical Order; Huangluo, Flowers Blooming in an Empty Chamber; Wuliang, Primordial Chaos Seen Square; Daoqi, Ceaseless Generation; and Yuhua, Life and Death Rising and Falling.
"The remaining four are..."
Before Li Fan's eyes, countless fine threads naturally branched out from the five arrays. Extending into the blank space beside them, they slowly filled in the unknown.
The remainder of the Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit Grand Array thus unfolded before Li Fan's eyes.
"Dingding, Treading Mountains and Suppressing Seas.
"Lingxu, Myriad Daos Piercing the Profound..."
"Ah!"
Having only just discerned two of the arrays, Li Fan was struck by a sudden, piercing headache.
The pain seemed to erupt from the deepest recesses of his soul, the very foundation that sustained his consciousness. Words could not describe even a fraction of it; all the pain Li Fan had endured across his mortal reincarnations was a mere drop in the ocean compared to this.
Within his mind, the arrays under deduction shattered in an instant, and the vision of the cauldron refining his divine powers crumbled into pieces alongside them.
Pain!
That single concept consumed Li Fan's awareness.
His divine soul, and even his physical body, seemed on the verge of fracturing under the sheer extremity of the agony!
He had no idea how long it lasted, but when the pain finally began to recede, Li Fan recovered a measure of his ability to think.
Li Fan had a premonition that this sudden event was far more than simple pain.
It was a terrifying crisis that could completely obliterate the foundation of his Infinite Spirituality.
"It seems I was reckless. Utilizing Infinite Spirituality is not as effortless and casual as I imagined. There is immense risk involved.
"Though it can rapidly amplify my talent, precipitating a large amount of spirituality in a short span shakes the bedrock of my very existence."
Still shaken, Li Fan decisively halted this rash behavior.
Fortunately, the infinite nature of the spirituality truly did exist.
Once he paused the consumption, the pain lingering in Li Fan's mind swiftly dissipated.
Everything returned to how it had been, as if nothing had happened.
However, the two newly deduced arrays—Dingding, Treading Mountains and Suppressing Seas, and Lingxu, Myriad Daos Piercing the Profound—were branded into Li Fan's mind with absolute clarity.
That, combined with a profound sense of exhaustion akin to fighting on a bed for three days and three nights, served as a ceaseless reminder that what had just occurred was no illusion.
"There were gains, but a price was paid as well."
The only thing that slightly reassured Li Fan was that his weakness was receding at a perceptible rate.
"A period of rest and recuperation will be enough to recover."
After resting with closed eyes for seven days, Li Fan finally revitalized his spirit and began testing his Array Dao talent.
Under the empowerment of Infinite Spirituality, he had been able to see through the reality of the Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit Grand Array at a single glance and deduce it at blinding speed. In his normal state, it was not nearly so preposterous, yet he still stood practically at the pinnacle of the mortal world.
There might still be some distance before he could use the Array Dao as a path to transcendence, but mastering everything effortlessly was well within his grasp.
"Even though Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit is one of the most intricate immortal arrays in the mortal world, with my current talent, dedicating a century of deduction would be enough to fully unravel it.
"Though that is on the premise of devoting my entire heart and soul, just like the lives experienced by those fleeting phantoms. In reality, I cannot remain so completely focused. After all, worldly matters like the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm still demand my attention.
"The greater the focus, the higher the efficiency. The more my mind is divided, the lower the efficiency drops. Even so, given a thousand years, I could fully dissect it."
After testing it thoroughly, Li Fan was fairly satisfied with the improvement in his Array Dao talent.
After all, without the Dissolution Disc's assistance previously, his aptitude for arrays had been merely average. If quantified on a scale of one hundred, his previous Array Dao talent had been a mere nine points, barely enough to begin cultivating.
Yet now...
It had reached ninety-nine, hovering at the near-limit.
Going any higher would reach the theoretical limit. That single-point gap was harder to cross than the entire span from one to ninety-nine combined.
Even an infusion of Infinite Spirituality had not enabled Li Fan to step across that threshold.
"Those who can take that step are probably all detached figures,"
Li Fan mused with slight regret. His attention returned to the two newly deduced sub-arrays.
The arrays lived up to their names.
Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit was a tool deduced by the Three Sages to facilitate the opening of an Immortal Realm atop Mount Shangfang.
Both of these grand arrays pertained to stabilizing the Immortal Realm once it was established.
Dingding, Treading Mountains and Suppressing Seas solidified the Immortal Realm's foundation upon Mount Shangfang.
Lingxu, Myriad Daos Piercing the Profound weakened the suppressive weight of the Mountains and Seas on the living beings within the Immortal Realm. It gave the True Immortals and Nameless True Immortals the capital to comprehend the Dao without being cowed by the momentum of the Mountains and Seas.
"Both offer immense reference value for my construction of the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm." Li Fan nodded slightly.
"If all nine arrays of Xuanyuan Primordial Spirit were assembled, I could truly split heaven from earth, forging an Immortal Realm anew from nothing. With my various methods, I might even fulfill Emperor Tianluo's past ambition: forging a truly sublimated Immortal Realm and escaping the calamity of Dao Annihilation.
"Though the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm has incorporated the Great Dao of Longevity, its innate flaws mean it can at best nurture Nameless True Immortals. It is insufficient to support the birth of detached powerhouses..."
Incorporating the two newly comprehended grand arrays into the remodeling of the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm, subtle changes once again rippled across heaven and earth.
"A mere fraction of my Infinite Spirituality brought about such a massive shift..." Li Fan murmured, his eyes turning back toward the other divine power "materials" re-emerging in the cauldron of his mind.
"Mastering a hundred Daos, unobstructed in all." Li Fan whispered, as if envisioning himself transforming into the foremost prodigy of the Mountains and Seas under the empowerment of Infinite Spirituality.
"The growth of talent is by no means useless, especially when all talents rise in tandem. A rising tide lifts all boats; as the breadth of my talents is rounded out, it will surely become far easier to clearly see the ultimate path meant for me. Even reproducing and executing the transformation of true and false might become effortless."
Following this deduction, Li Fan could not help but arrive at this conclusion.
This was not baseless fantasy.
The foundation of the transformation of true and false was rooted in all existing Daos within the mortal Mountains and Seas.
If one knew everything there was to know about every Dao, grasping the Dao of True and False would naturally be as easy as turning one's palm.
However, this method of advancement held little practical meaning for ordinary people.
The difficulty of raising every talent to its absolute pinnacle far exceeded that of mastering the Dao of True and False itself!
Only the Infinite Spirituality within Li Fan could support such a seemingly impossible plan.
"Although a mishap occurred just now while drawing upon spirituality to enhance my talent, that was because I acted too hastily. If I proceed slowly and methodically, I should be able to avoid those pitfalls."
Just as Li Fan was pondering how to further develop his Infinite Spirituality, a familiar ripple manifested after a long absence.
"Trueness?" A surge of joy instinctively rose in Li Fan's heart.
Yet a moment later, his eyebrows lifted, his expression turning unreadable.
In that single instant, Li Fan grasped the meaning behind Trueness's cryptic ripple.
The reason Trueness had awakened from its severely wounded dormancy was precisely because Li Fan had mobilized his Infinite Spirituality. It had stirred to dissuade him.
As for the reason behind the warning, Trueness fell back into slumber without offering any clear explanation.
Given Li Fan's temperament, if someone else tried to dictate what he should do with his own possessions, he would simply ignore them.
Yet Trueness's counsel could not be treated lightly.
"Does Trueness wish to monopolize the Infinite Spirituality, or does using it to elevate my talent genuinely harm me?" Questions surged in Li Fan's mind.
Though he had stumbled upon this application of his Infinite Spirituality purely by chance, Li Fan did not truly understand its essence. He did not even know what it ultimately signified.
After careful consideration, Li Fan decided to heed Trueness's counsel for the time being.
He halted all attempts to use spirituality for talent enhancement.
Yet it was only temporary.
Once one grasped an enhancement method that felt almost like cheating, it was nearly impossible to resist using it whenever one confronted one's own shortcomings.
"Trueness has indeed been my reliance along the way.
"Yet I cannot simply defer to it blindly. In the end, the choice must be mine."
Having experienced the three-Dao fusion and the extraction of spirituality, Li Fan—a man who would never place complete trust in another—finally found his faith in Trueness beginning to waver.
Chapter 1561