Eternal Lingering Thought

When Soul Formation cultivators clashed without restraint, the fallout was enough to bring catastrophic devastation to an entire province. The emergence of the Tianyang puppet had, as expected, drawn out Immortal Lord Hongxi of Wanxian Island. The earth-shaking battle between two Soul Formation experts drew the eyes of countless cultivators in the vicinity. Having fled in disgrace all the way to safety, Xiao Heng and Ye Feipeng now gazed at the spectacle from afar, their faces faintly pale. Even at such a great distance, the passing aftershocks of the clash made it hard for the two minor Qi Condensation cultivators to keep their footing. One could well imagine how terrifying the power behind every single strike of a Soul Formation cultivator truly was. Thinking back to how he had recklessly sparred with that puppet not long ago, Xiao Heng swallowed hard with difficulty. "Fatty, next time, don't call me along for this sort of thing. I'd still like to live a few more years," Xiao Heng said slowly, casting a faint, gloomy glance at Ye Feipeng. Ye Feipeng looked equally crestfallen, as if mourning his own parents. "Yours truly finally worked up the courage to tie his head to his waistband and charge in." "Yet I didn't find a single fortuitous encounter." "You're a big shot at the Soul Formation stage at least—did you really have to be so damn broke?" The chubby youth sighed dejectedly, watching the Tianyang puppet roaring proudly in the distance. "Did you really find nothing at all?" Xiao Heng asked, somewhat skeptical. Ye Feipeng bristled in exasperation. "When did you get so suspicious?! You don't even believe my words anymore?" "Besides, why would I bother lying to you?" With that, he tossed over his storage ring. "Look for yourself! We're already this broke—I've got nowhere else on me to hide anything." He grumbled further, "That cave abode was truly stripped bare down to the bedrock. Aside from the skeletal remains of a child, there wasn't a damn thing." "I searched back and forth several times, and the result was always the same." "Then you were yelling outside, and the Tianyang puppet was about to appear. Sticking to the creed of never leaving empty-handed, I grabbed that skeleton on a whim before fleeing in a panic." "Sigh, after all that fuss, all I got was a bag of bones. What bloody rotten luck!" After scanning the storage ring, Xiao Heng also showed an expression of disdain. "If you didn't find any treasures, so be it, but why did you bring out this skeleton?" "Who knows how many years he's been dead. Judging by the looks of it, he died even younger than us." "Wonder what connection he had to that Soul Formation puppet." Saying this, Xiao Heng returned the storage ring to Ye Feipeng. Ye Feipeng suddenly had a whimsical thought. "Maybe we can feed it to that old skull to nourish him." "They're both skeletons anyway. Who knows, if he eats it, it might actually speed up his recovery." Xiao Heng's expression turned stern. "Don't make jokes about Senior!" Seeing how serious Xiao Heng was, Ye Feipeng curled his lip, though he didn't argue. Tilting his head and pondering for a moment, he suggested, "We caused quite a stir this time. We'd better head back to the deserted island to lay low for a while. We can decide what to do once the dust settles." Xiao Heng nodded upon hearing this. "Yeah. Shortly after we fled the cave abode, that second Alliance expedition you mentioned seemed to have just entered." "One Nascent Soul and over a dozen Golden Cores—just gone, like that." "If not for the celestial phenomenon appearing in the sky, probably no one would even know how they died. Tsk tsk," Xiao Heng remarked with a sigh. Ye Feipeng was taken aback. "Really? I was so busy running for my life back then, I didn't pay attention to what was overhead." "Still, so that group really couldn't escape death. Even though I tried my best to do it earlier, we still ran into them..." The chubby youth seemed to have had a moment of realization, lowering his head in deep thought. As Immortal Lord Ziyun intervened, shifting Tianyang and Hongxi elsewhere, the Congyun Sea returned to calm. The two quietly returned to the deserted island. Yet Ye Feipeng remained somewhat distracted and absent-minded the entire way. "By the way, Fatty, give me the skeleton you found," Xiao Heng said suddenly. "Oh." The absent-minded Ye Feipeng subconsciously retrieved the skeleton from his storage ring. Only after handing it to Xiao Heng did he snap back to reality, finding it baffling. "What do you want this thing for? I was planning to check its hardness later and see if it could be polished into a dharma artifact." Xiao Heng answered solemnly, "I thought about it, and what you said earlier actually made some sense." "Heh heh, yours truly has always been—" "Wait, you're not actually planning to feed this skeleton to that skull, are you?" Ye Feipeng realized, immediately looking at Xiao Heng as if he were an idiot. "Who knows?" Xiao Heng replied nonchalantly, urging, "Come on, Fatty, hurry up and don't be stingy." Ye Feipeng felt faintly reluctant inside, his expression turning hesitant. Seeing this, Xiao Heng grew slightly annoyed. "Look at you being so petty. What kind of useful artifact could you possibly forge out of bones? Forget it, count it as a favor I owe you this time. When there's a chance in the future, I'll gift you a proper, top-notch weapon myself!" Stung by the provocation, Ye Feipeng felt his pride challenged. Feigning generosity, he said, "Hmph, I was just making conversation. It's just a useless skeleton—would I, Ye Feipeng, care about something like that? What a joke! It's yours!" Chuckling, Xiao Heng accepted the skeleton, initiated the ritual, and headed into the White Bone Vanguard Realm. Though Ye Feipeng felt a faint sense of loss, he was young after all and did not dwell on it. Turning around, he immersed himself once more in his earlier realization regarding being "unable to escape death." In the Vanguard Realm, Xiao Heng carefully set the skeleton down and softly called out for Senior. Unfortunately, he received no reply. Though a bit disappointed, Xiao Heng did not take the skeleton back. Instead, he left it where he had first discovered Senior Skull, hoping it might be of some help to Senior. Then, he quietly departed. Not long after Xiao Heng left, Li Fan's clone manifested. Looking at the skeleton lying quietly on the ground, Li Fan could not help but feel amused. "Does that kid really think this thing is useful?" After all, Li Fan had kept Ye Feipeng under close watch with Formless Killing Intent the entire time. From the vantage point of heaven and earth, he had seen clearly that this was indeed nothing more than an utterly ordinary human skeleton. "Still, the intention was genuine. As always, this kid has a pure heart." "Compared to him, that fatty Ye Feipeng is far more obnoxious." Thinking not to let the boy's good intentions go to waste, Li Fan intended to put away the skeleton and dispose of it somewhere later. However, the moment his clone made contact with the skeleton, Li Fan's expression shifted slightly. "This feeling is..." With a solemn look, he examined it closely once more. Yet after turning it over and examining it for a long while, he still found nothing unusual. "Strange..." "Where on earth is this stirring in my heart coming from?" Li Fan frowned, murmuring to himself. Unwilling to give up, he studied it repeatedly for half a day, yet still came away with nothing. "Purely the skeleton of a cultivator—there's absolutely no mistaking that. It isn't some heavenly treasure in disguise." "Yet the strange sensation in my heart couldn't have arisen without cause." "So where is the issue?" Li Fan laid the skeleton down, placed a hand lightly upon it, and closed his eyes to carefully sense the feeling in his heart. Only after a long while did he slowly discern a hint of its nature. "This sensation is actually somewhat similar to when I first encountered the anima of Heaven and Earth back then." "It's..." "Hunger?" "No, it's not that I'm hungry. Rather..." Li Fan realized what it was, a strange brilliance flashing in his eyes. "[True Reversion] is hungry." Inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror, Li Fan's true body, who had been in seclusion cultivating, abruptly rose to his feet. He set up the ritual in an instant, and in the next breath, arrived in the White Bone Vanguard Realm. The moment he touched the young cultivator's remains, the crisp chime of [True Reversion] promptly sounded in his mind: "Absorbable item detected: [Eternal Lingering Thought]." "Absorb?" A surge of immense joy instantly welled in Li Fan's heart. Since discovering more than six hundred years ago that wonders of heaven and earth could charge [True Reversion], Li Fan had finally found a second kind of item useful to [True Reversion]. "Wonders of heaven and earth can advance True Reversion's anchor charging progress and unlock additional anchors." "I wonder what purpose this Eternal Lingering Thought serves." Taking a deep breath, Li Fan suppressed the urge to absorb it immediately. Storing the remains away, he returned to the Heavenly Profound Mirror. After making some preparations, he quietly departed Wanxian Island. In his previous life, the Heavenly Physician's act of forcibly breaching the Heavenly Profound Mirror had left quite a psychological scar on Li Fan. Yet it had also made him realize that inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror was by no means absolutely safe. If [True Reversion] caused any unusual commotion while absorbing the Eternal Lingering Thought, it would actually be far more dangerous inside the Heavenly Profound Mirror, which teemed with cultivators. It would be safer to randomly find an isolated, deserted spot outside to go into seclusion. Ordinary daily cultivation was one thing, but whenever [True Reversion] was involved, Li Fan decided he had to exercise even greater caution. Randomly selecting a teleportation array, he left Wanxian Island. Leaving the garrison island behind, he flew for over half a day. Upon arriving at an uninhabited stretch of sea, Li Fan plunged headlong into the water. Activating a Trace-Extinguishing Talisman, he transformed True Reversion into the [Seven-Apertures Exquisite Heart] and ran the secret technique [Appearance Shifts with the Heart]. Having altered his face and form, Li Fan searched the seafloor for a deep oceanic trench and dove into its depths. He did not go all the way to the bottom. Instead, he carved out a large cavern along the trench wall. He bored thousands of meters deep into the bedrock before coming to a halt. After carving out a living space deep within the earth, Li Fan turned back and sealed up the excavated tunnel. Nor did he forget to employ secret arts from the Stealing Heaven Changing Sun Art to mask his tracks. Returning to the hollow chamber, he laid down protective formations all around. Only after everything was properly arranged did Li Fan take out the skeleton once again. "Absorbable item detected: [Eternal Lingering Thought]." "Absorb?" The notification chime of True Reversion sounded once more. This time, Li Fan selected yes. The surrounding space instantly turned illusory. The skeleton on the ground gradually broke down into crystalline white light, which Li Fan absorbed. The instant the remains vanished completely, Li Fan's mind shuddered with a thunderous roar. "Throughout my life, I, Tianyang, will be second to none!" The stubborn voice of a young child echoed repeatedly in his ears. Then, darkness fell before Li Fan's eyes, and he lost consciousness. He had no idea how much time had passed before he slowly awoke. His gaze was vacant at first, but clarity soon returned. Just now, he seemed to have had an intensely realistic dream. No, rather than calling it a dream, it was more like he had truly possessed another person, living through a long life from that person's perspective. Throughout the process, he could only watch and listen, unable to control the body to make a single move. Moreover, his own mental activity had been suppressed to the bare minimum. From beginning to end, Li Fan had not even realized that anything was amiss. Yet once Li Fan awakened, everything he had experienced ebbed away like a receding tide. He could not remember any specifics of what he had lived through. There were only some hazy images, and even those were rapidly fading from memory. Li Fan did not obsess over trying to recall what had happened during his contact with the [Eternal Lingering Thought]. For [True Reversion]'s prompt had already appeared once more: "Mortals may perish, but lingering thoughts endure forever." "[Eternal Lingering Thought] (Master Tianyang) absorption complete." "Current available uses: 3." At the same time, a flood of information surfaced naturally in Li Fan's mind. Narrowing his eyes, Li Fan carefully absorbed it. "Expending a use allows the simulated reconstruction of memory scenes within the [Eternal Lingering Thought]." "Everything within the scene is indistinguishable from reality." "However, bringing items or information from the scene back to reality requires resolving the obsession that sustains the [Eternal Lingering Thought]..." "Why does this manifestation resemble the Fallen Immortal Realm so closely?" Li Fan was slightly taken aback. "Fallen Immortals, lingering thoughts..." Li Fan pondered for a moment, faintly forming a reasonable conjecture. "Resolving obsessions, is it? Perhaps next time I enter the Fallen Immortal Realm, I can try tackling it from this angle." Setting those thoughts aside for now, Li Fan continued to absorb the information returned by True Reversion. "Within the simulated scene, one will exist entirely in place of the lingering thought's owner." "At the same time, one will synchronously inherit the relevant memories and abilities of the thought's owner." "Mm... that too matches the Fallen Immortal Realm." "Once the uses are exhausted, the [Eternal Lingering Thought] will vanish completely." "Perhaps it can be understood this way: [True Reversion] uses the energy contained within the [Eternal Lingering Thought] to simulate and construct a miniature Fallen Immortal Realm." "Each simulated construction consumes energy." "Once the energy runs out, the Eternal Lingering Thought dissipates." "However..." A thought stirred in Li Fan's mind. According to True Reversion's prompt, the [Eternal Lingering Thought] could not serve as a bound item. Yet after every reset, finding the vessel of the [Eternal Lingering Thought] again and absorbing it would allow him to reuse it repeatedly. "Perhaps other cultivators in this realm have methods to use this [Eternal Lingering Thought]." "But for them, the number of uses is limited. If they fail to bring the opportunities back to reality within the allotted uses, the [Eternal Lingering Thought] is as good as wasted." "For me, however, its number of uses is..." "Infinite." With that thought, Li Fan hesitated no longer and activated True Reversion's [Simulation] function. A familiar sensation washed over him. As if a burlap sack had been thrown over his head, darkness fell before his eyes, and he instantly lost consciousness. ... "Tianyang! Tianyang!" A somewhat aged voice called out softly beside Li Fan's ear. "Tianyang, time to take your medicine..." A bowl of strange-tasting decoction was poured into his mouth. As if a fireball had ignited in his stomach, the intense agony instantly jolted Li Fan awake. Weakness. Utter weakness. A frailty so extreme that he felt on the verge of drawing his last breath at any moment. That was the first sensation Li Fan felt upon waking.