As if to confirm Li Fan's speculation, three days later, he received hush money.
Ten thousand contribution points, plus three medium Yi merits.
The condition was that Li Fan must forget everything related to Zhou Qing'ang from then on and never mention it to anyone again.
Li Fan naturally had no objections.
He accepted the reward openly.
Ten thousand contribution points was by no means a small sum.
More importantly, his permission level successfully rose to Yan-10 as a result, unlocking a new privilege.
When searching for information in the Heavenly Profound Mirror, he could now view in advance certain restricted materials that originally required a cultivation realm one stage higher than his own.
For instance, certain classified information that only cultivators at the Golden Core stage were qualified to know could now be viewed early by Li Fan, even though he was currently at the Foundation Establishment stage, simply because his permission level had reached Yan-10.
As usual, Li Fan ran a search for techniques that enhanced multitasking capability.
This time, he finally got a result. However, after carefully reading the technique's introduction, he frowned, somewhat dissatisfied.
The technique was named *One Person, A Thousand Faces*.
Once mastered, it could indeed greatly boost one's multi-threaded processing capability.
However, it had an unavoidable side effect: over time, uncontrollable multiple personalities would form within the body.
It was essentially equivalent to split personality disorder.
Li Fan naturally had no desire to cultivate a technique only to turn himself into a lunatic.
He could only give up on it with a sigh.
In truth, when it came to multitasking methods, Li Fan already had someone in mind whom he could consult.
It was none other than Jiao Xiuyuan, who practiced the Dao of Myriad Puppets.
Jiao Xiuyuan's puppet doubles were scattered throughout the cultivation world, numbering in the thousands upon thousands.
Yet each and every one of his puppets was lifelike, with expressions, gestures, and demeanors indistinguishable from a real person's.
The previous times Li Fan met him, he had been entirely unable to tell the difference.
To manipulate so many puppets simultaneously without the slightest lag certainly required a unique method.
He just didn't know whether it was due to the unique technique of the Dao of Myriad Puppets or some other secret method.
Li Fan's clone had wanted to contact Jiao Xiuyuan to ask about this earlier.
However, Jiao Xiuyuan still didn't seem to have recovered from the catastrophic losses he suffered over Spirit Mist Grass; Thousand Li Hall remained closed to visitors, and he gave no response.
Li Fan could only wait a little longer.
Having gained nothing on the technique front, Li Fan tried out his newly unlocked privilege.
Previously, he had never been able to search for information regarding the Fallen Immortal Realm. If he wanted to figure out how to bring items back, he had to disguise himself and probe around indirectly.
From now on, there would be no need for such hassle.
After searching for the Fallen Immortal Realm, countless pieces of information immediately popped up.
Li Fan discovered that all of this information originated from a relatively separate board:
[Seeking Immortals].
On Seeking Immortals, discussions were strictly limited to matters related to the Fallen Immortal Realm. Any posts touching upon reality would be immediately locked and deleted.
When posting on this board, one could use one's real identity.
One could also apply for a pseudonym account to avoid the risk of exposure.
Li Fan did not register an account and instead browsed the posts on Seeking Immortals directly.
The vast majority of the posts discussed and shared experiences within the Fallen Immortal Realm,
as well as methods for bringing items out.
There were also cultivators who had previously succeeded in bringing items out of the Fallen Immortal Realm and published detailed guides.
As long as one paid a certain fee and signed a non-disclosure contract, one could view them.
Driven by curiosity, Li Fan searched for information related to Ningyuan City.
To his surprise, although the information on Seeking Immortals was vast as an ocean, not a single entry was related to Ningyuan City.
Li Fan then searched for the Purple Cloud Sect and Zhang Qianmo.
Likewise, no other cultivator had ever encountered Zhang Qianmo. As for the Purple Cloud Sect, quite a few results appeared.
Li Fan browsed through them, only to discover that the Purple Cloud Sect encountered by other cultivators had long since turned into ruins.
Corpses littered the sect grounds, and not a single living person remained.
Only then did Li Fan realize that the point in time he entered in the Fallen Immortal Realm was different from that of ordinary cultivators.
At the point in time when senior and junior brothers Zhang Qianmo and Li Chen went to Ningyuan City to retrieve the Longevity Fruit, the new method had only just emerged and was not yet known to the world.
Meanwhile, the point in time when the vast majority of cultivators entered the Fallen Immortal Realm was after the struggle between the new and old methods had already drawn to a close.
The rule that multiple techniques could not be cultivated together had already been in effect for more than thirty years.
Order was on the brink of collapse, and a great slaughter was imminent.
"The struggle between the new and old methods took at least several decades. Then came the prosperity of the new methods, until the sheer number of cultivators pushed the limit and triggered the Heavenly Dao's backlash—which took another few centuries..."
"Setting aside being trapped in an isolated area, how could the point in time I'm in differ from ordinary cultivators by so many years?"
Countless doubts welled up in Li Fan's heart.
Thus, he searched for information related to discrepancies in time points.
He found that while such cases were rare, they were not entirely unprecedented.
Once, a cultivator had appeared in a region of the Fallen Immortal Realm where no cultivators existed at all.
That region seemed to be a world of its own—a strange space formed after all cultivators went extinct and mortal civilization evolved over thousands of years.
That was a future point in time where one might appear.
There was also another cultivator whose entry point into the Fallen Immortal Realm was in the far more distant past.
It seemed to be an earth-shattering war.
It was unknown what factions the warring sides belonged to, but the sheer number of cultivators participating was staggering.
According to this cultivator named [Bu'erren]:
"Dense and packed like ants, covering the entire space."
"The gleam of magical treasures and divine arts flashed ceaselessly."
"At every moment, countless cultivators were dying."
"Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators could only serve as cannon fodder charging the lines. Soul Formation, Dao Integration, and even Longevity Heavenly Venerables were fighting and falling."
"The earth and space itself were torn apart, and chaotic black lightning struck into the battlefield from outside space, sending cultivators plunging like rain."
"It was truly a terrifying scene like the end of the world."
Because the scene described by this cultivator was far too bizarre and he was the only one who had ever encountered it, the vast majority of cultivators believed he was fabricating nonsense and did not believe him at all.
Bu'erren swore solemn oaths that he had truly witnessed it all with his own eyes.
If there was even a shred of exaggeration, he swore he would suffer death, the erasure of his Dao, and the utter obliteration of both body and soul.
Such a vicious oath indeed stunned quite a few people.
Even so, skeptical cultivators still made up the majority.
Aside from these two, there were many other records of bizarre encounters.
Only now did Li Fan truly understand what Chen Ying had told him back then—that the Fallen Immortal Realm was a world formed from the consciousness of immortals before their fall.
Any manner of incredible things could be encountered within the Fallen Immortal Realm.
"Such a magnificent world, yet I am trapped in a tiny Ningyuan City. It really makes no sense," Li Fan could not help sighing.
"I wonder if it will still be the same the next time I enter."
Glancing casually at the Seeking Immortals board one last time, Li Fan was just about to leave when certain words caught his eye.
"Gathering." "Exchange."
Li Fan could not resist clicking in.
Chapter 203