There was no solid evidence.
It was merely a feeling that had suddenly welled up within Li Fan as he looked at Zhang Zhiliang, silent and half-shrouded in darkness.
Yet Li Fan had always possessed supreme confidence in his premonitions.
*Could it be that witnessing the tragic deaths of the Formation Planning Hall's other two formation grandmasters on the battlefield traumatized him?* Li Fan could not help wondering.
He did not press the matter, only committing it firmly to memory.
Bowing in farewell, Li Fan quietly withdrew.
Returning to the Heavenly Profound Mirror, he carefully read through the contents of the Divided Spirit Jade Slip.
The second slip was far more profound than the first, even beginning to touch upon the heritage of Zhang Zhiliang's Infinite Method.
Unhurried, Li Fan incorporated it into the multi-threaded cultivation process of Spirit Unity with Dao Transformation.
Half a month later.
His true body continued cultivating as usual.
Meanwhile, his clone, Lin Fan, had achieved modest success in researching the human body's secret treasure.
Synthesizing countless archival records, experimenting ceaselessly on his own body, and drawing upon numerous descriptions in the Heavenly Physician Immortal Scripture regarding the body's secret treasure, the clone stimulated the boundless vitality dormant within day and night to temper and strengthen his physical form.
Now, without relying on spiritual energy or spells and solely through brute bodily strength, the destructive force he could unleash was already comparable to the late Qi Condensation stage.
Because there was no special secret to it—merely the most fundamental mobilization of the secret treasure's power to forge himself like a furnace—Li Fan named it the Creation Furnace Technique.
It barely had anything to do with a furnace, and nothing at all to do with creation.
Still, when picking a name, one naturally aimed for something as domineering as possible.
Li Fan was very satisfied with the name "Creation Furnace Technique."
At present, the clone's cultivation of the Creation Furnace Technique had reached its first critical phase.
From head to toe, inside and out, the initial overall tempering was complete.
The physical toughness had reached the intended target.
The next step was to draw upon the vast, boundless power of the secret treasure within, using it like a colossal hammer to vigorously pound the physical body.
Just like hundred-tempered steel, as the flesh was continually hammered, it was simultaneously reinforced.
This was what Li Fan termed the Initial Tempering of the physical body.
*Boom!*
*Boom!*
Faint, muffled rumbles echoed from within the clone's body.
Each time the sound rang out, a peculiar flush of blood-red surfaced on Li Fan's face.
Then, as if his body had truly become an incandescent furnace, red tinted his entire frame.
His body temperature climbed higher and higher.
It was as though he were being roasted by flames, pushed to the absolute limit and liable to melt entirely at any second.
Yet every time he reached the brink, the secret treasure within promptly surged with a burst of pure, vigorous vitality, neutralizing the fatal damage.
This was not something Li Fan consciously directed.
Rather, it was the body's instinctual reaction whenever a deadly crisis arose.
Under these steady, hammering blows, Li Fan's physical body gradually grew formidable.
Quantitative change steadily accumulated.
After an unknown amount of time, accompanied by an even heavier boom, Li Fan's body trembled slightly.
The blazing red light fully receded.
His physical toughness had finally advanced to a new tier.
Circulating spiritual energy, he shaped it into a blade and sliced at his left forearm.
*Clang!*
It actually produced the sound of metal striking stone.
Li Fan continuously adjusted and increased the strength of his spiritual energy until he exerted force equivalent to the mid Foundation Establishment stage.
Only then was a bloody scratch finally etched into his arm.
"The first tempering has finally succeeded."
"I have completed the stage equivalent to Foundation Establishment."
"Next is to mobilize the power of the secret treasure within and subject the physical body to the furnace tempering once more."
"Repeating this step endlessly: one tempering, a hundred temperings, a thousand temperings..."
"According to my projections, if there were no constraints, tapping the human body's secret treasure to the absolute limit would allow one to affect and distort laws with a mere wave of the hand using purely physical strength."
"It would border on being untouched by ten thousand dharmas, indestructible through all tribulations."
"Regrettably, in this Xuanhuang Realm, that path is severed."
"Perhaps the restrictions in the surrounding small worlds might be somewhat weaker."
Li Fan exhaled deeply, and the scratch on his arm vanished in the blink of an eye.
"Still, my expectations aren't that high. As long as I can forge a path where the physical body can contend with the Golden Core realm, that will be enough."
"That will be my clone's next objective."
With a single thought, the power of the secret treasure within burst forth like water through an opened floodgate, washing through and tempering his physical body.
*Now that the Initial Tempering has succeeded, this tempering has become as instinctual as breathing, a natural bodily function.*
*There is no need to remain in secluded cultivation at all times anymore.*
*I can investigate methods to increase the efficiency of the hammering...* Li Fan mused inwardly.
Right at that moment, his communication talisman chimed with an alert.
It was Jiao Xiuyuan pouring his heart out in grievance again.
Over the past few years, Li Fan had grown entirely accustomed to it.
According to the original plan, he was supposed to hold the first auction in Anchored Year 18 to build momentum for the Small Medicine King Cauldron.
However, the sudden outbreak of the war in Tianling Province and the unexpected promotional discount from the Heavenly Profound Mirror had forced him to postpone it.
To use Jiao Xiuyuan's words: "Every cultivator went off to buy cultivation methods; they're all broke! There's no fat left to skim!"
"If we hold an auction now, we probably won't even make our costs back!"
Thousand Li Hall's business had also been rather dismal these past few years.
To describe it as Li Fan would have before transmigrating: during an economic downturn, nobody had an easy time.
Even so, Li Fan believed that with the macro-level market control of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, along with the presence of the Longevity Heavenly Venerable who made people forget calamity, cultivators would ultimately bounce back very quickly.
After offering a few perfunctory replies, he put away the communication talisman, and the clone once again immersed itself in studying the human body's secret treasure.
While Li Fan's true body and clone were both cultivating bitterly, Ye Feipeng on the deserted island was beginning to feel somewhat lost.
Over the past few years, although he considered himself to have cultivated diligently enough, the gulf between reality and his ideals was simply too vast, dealing him a heavy blow.
According to the history in his memories, it would not be long before Zhang Haobo, with a False Core cultivation, would be herding wind to lord over ten thousand immortals.
Yet he, Ye Feipeng, had only just broken through to the late Foundation Establishment stage.
Golden Core remained a distant, hopeless dream!
*Could it be that the gap in talent between me and true chosen prodigies is truly this enormous?*
It was not just Zhang Haobo; the few on this deserted island were each more monstrous than the last.
Su Xiaomei was gradually growing up, and her cultivation speed only grew faster.
Catching up from behind, she had reached the late Foundation Establishment stage alongside Ye Feipeng.
Yet when it came to actual combat prowess, bolstered by her horrifying talent, she thrashed Ye Feipeng handily.
In sparring matches, Ye Feipeng could only rely on his increasingly astonishing speed to dodge continuously.
Xiao Heng was not inferior to him either.
Even Su Changyu and the Yin sisters, who cultivated somewhat slower, each had their own strengths that forbade anyone from underestimating them.
When it came to raw talent, he simply could not compete.
Although Ye Feipeng had previously formed a clear understanding of this, he had still possessed the foresight of a reincarnator to lean on back then, so he had not panicked overly much.
Yet now, even that modest crutch was steadily growing unreliable in his eyes.
All of this stemmed from a recent occasion when he had overheard passing cultivators discussing the great war in Tianling Province that had erupted several years ago.
The more he listened, the more alarmed he felt.
Because in his past life, no such monumental event had ever occurred.
Chapter 247