"The laws of Heaven Fiend and Hanhai."
"If I continue refining them like this, it won't be long before I can achieve the Golden Core using these two laws."
Li Fan felt a flicker of joy.
Yet the moment that thought crossed his mind, a sudden sense of impending doom welled in his heart.
It felt just like when he had faced that enigmatic Heavenly Physician.
The sheer weight of the threat made his heart pound with unfathomable dread.
"Hmm?"
Li Fan's deep cultivation was abruptly broken.
His expression turned grim, filled with quiet suspicion.
"This premonition... where is the danger coming from?"
Li Fan had always been exceptionally confident in his instincts.
They had saved him from mortal catastrophe multiple times in the past.
Faced with this sudden premonition of peril, he could not afford to take it lightly.
True Reversion shifted continuously, keeping the embryonic laws of Heaven Fiend and Hanhai, which had been so difficult to condense, from completely dispersing.
Halting the Core Formation process, Li Fan fell into deep thought.
Yet, after turning it over and searching his mind for a long while, he still could not pinpoint the cause.
Instead of foolishly courting death by forcing Core Formation, Li Fan began contemplating a solution.
"Heaven Fiend and Hanhai—I cannot form a Golden Core purely with just the two of them."
"Though I don't know why yet, there must be a deeper underlying reason."
"Better to set aside the cause for now and treat 'inability to form a Golden Core solely from the laws of Heaven Fiend and Hanhai' as an established fact."
"If two won't do, then three..."
The Blue Flame phantom spirit suddenly materialized from his sea of consciousness.
Gliding before Li Fan, it pressed a finger against his dantian.
The law of Blue Flame was steadily drawn into the Core Formation process.
As time passed, the laws of Heaven Fiend, Hanhai, and Blue Flame formed a tripartite balance.
The embryonic Golden Core gradually stabilized.
At that moment, Li Fan once again entertained the thought of completing the Core Formation.
The sense of crisis struck once more.
Only this time, it was far fainter than before.
"It seems my method works."
"So what is the cause?"
"Are the laws of Heaven Fiend and Hanhai toxic and need dilution?"
Recalling that Hanhai was an anomaly and Heaven Fiend had been trapped by Azure Wind, Li Fan could only arrive at this hypothesis.
"If my guess is right, I only need to introduce another law during Core Formation."
"With my current capabilities, maintaining four laws simultaneously during Core Formation is my limit."
"As for the remaining choice..."
"Azure Wind, Crimson Flame..."
Li Fan shook his head inwardly.
Between those two, one was a warden and the other a stoker.
Whether in terms of sheer might or hierarchy, Li Fan felt neither stood on the same level as Heaven Fiend or Hanhai.
As for Blue Flame, although it seemed somewhat weaker, its ability to preserve absolute rationality was why Li Fan prioritized it.
"It is now Anchored Year 16."
"In this lifetime, Crimson Flame's manifestation and Mo Sha's total annihilation should still occur in Anchored Year 28."
"It's only twelve years. I can afford to wait."
Pondering this, Li Fan resisted the temptation of breaking through and temporarily abandoned Core Formation.
The law powers he had worked so hard to condense within his dantian slowly dispersed.
Li Fan felt not the slightest regret.
No cultivator could refuse the terrifying power of Mo Sha, which eradicated everything.
Even as a weakened Golden Core version, it would undoubtedly be formidable.
Waiting twelve years for it was entirely worthwhile.
"The day Mo Sha destroys Congyun will be the day I achieve the Golden Core."
"However, my cultivation realm won't be able to advance during this time."
"The feedback cultivation from the Mountain-Sitting Art will go to waste."
"Su Xiaomei and Zhang Haobo breaking through to Foundation Establishment is basically a foregone conclusion."
"After that, there might even be massive cultivation feedback from Ye Feipeng reaching Dao Integration..."
"Hiss, this won't do."
Li Fan felt a sudden pang of heartache, picturing mountains of grain rotting away uselessly.
"I must find a way to store this surplus cultivation."
Just as he was about to search for a solution in the Heavenly Profound Mirror, a chime abruptly rang out, its tone entirely different from usual and steeped in chilling martial severity.
"Effective immediately, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals has entered Grade B combat readiness."
"All protective grand arrays across all provinces are fully activated."
"All cultivators are strictly forbidden from traveling between provinces."
"All alliance personnel within the system must return to provincial cities as soon as possible and await instructions."
"Any outside cultivators discovered are to be executed on the spot, dead or alive."
...
Li Fan's eyelid twitched, and he stood up abruptly.
"What is going on?"
"Why the sudden combat readiness?"
"Grade B..."
"Have we already gone to war with the Five Elders Association?"
In an instant, several thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind.
This sudden development was entirely outside his expectations.
He had no idea what had gone awry to trigger such a massive event that had never occurred in his previous lifetimes.
Suppressing his stray thoughts, Li Fan promptly began inquiring among his contacts.
By now, he possessed a wide circle of friends and an extensive network.
He sent out inquiry messages one by one.
"Wait, why is this star...?"
Within the Ten-Thousand-character communication talisman, among the stars representing various cultivators' identities, one was bright yet rendered in a lifeless, ashen gray.
This meant the cultivator had fallen.
Li Fan tapped the star, and the deceased cultivator's identity instantly appeared in his mind.
"Congyun Sea, Medicine Hall's Chen Ying."
Li Fan's heart jolted.
"Him? How could a Nascent Soul cultivator fall so easily?"
"Besides, didn't he go to the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven...?"
"Wait. Could this battle be connected to the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven?"
In that split second, a realization struck Li Fan.
Back in his twelfth lifetime, in Anchored Year 16, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had discovered four other hidden grotto-heavens near the wood-attribute grotto-heaven.
The five grotto-heavens corresponded to the elements of metal, wood, water, fire, and earth, faintly forming an interconnected array as if they were a single entity.
The discovery of these Five Elements Grotto-Heavens had drawn the covetous gaze of the Five Elders Association.
A great battle had erupted between the two sides, costing the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals a Soul Formation powerhouse.
The casualties of the Five Elders Association were unknown, but they had ultimately been repelled.
"If my guess is right..."
In the span of a lightning flash, Li Fan pieced together the origin of the situation.
In his twelfth lifetime, the Five Elders Association had merely known that the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals discovered a Five Elements grotto-heaven.
They likely had no idea what was actually inside it.
Thus, after making an attempt and yielding no results, they had given up and retreated.
In this lifetime, however, the Spirit Mist Grass incident had caused such an uproar that the Heavenly Profound Mirror had been forced to step forward to reassure the public and stabilize the market.
While its announcement had quelled the storm with a single decree, it had also laid bare the situation inside the wood-attribute grotto-heaven.
"...The scale of this grotto-heaven is exceptionally vast, its wood-attribute spiritual energy is exceptionally dense, and its spiritual plants and medicinal herbs are exceptionally abundant..."
Recalling the Heavenly Profound Mirror's exact phrasing at the time, Li Fan's expression turned remarkably colorful.
Using "exceptionally" three times in a row spoke volumes about how rare and extraordinary that grotto-heaven was.
If just one wood-attribute grotto-heaven of the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven was that valuable, the treasures residing in the remaining four were simply unimaginable.
Having untangled the crux of the matter, Li Fan felt a wave of clarity.
"No wonder we suddenly entered a state of war readiness."
"The Five Elders Association must have gone all out this time."
Chapter 243