"I will wait here for you to come out."
"Yanfa Jade must be used one at a time, though I know not who among you will go first."
"In any case, we shall meet back here once the derivation is complete."
The black-robed cultivator spoke concisely.
Seeing the passage ahead take shape, Han Yi merely gave a slight nod, acknowledged the instruction, and impatiently dashed inside.
"Thank you for your trouble, Senior." Li Fan bowed to the black-robed cultivator before stepping forward at an unhurried pace.
Ximen Yue followed Li Fan's example, being the last to enter the black stele.
The black-robed cultivator watched as the multicolored light on the stele was gradually swallowed by black once more. His body remained motionless, standing before the black cuboid stele like a stone statue.
***
"Applicant for Yanfa Jade: Xiao Fan."
"Number: 17. Clearance Level: Nascent Soul."
"Please wait here patiently. Estimated remaining wait time: seven days and six shichen."
As light gradually returned to his vision, a languid voice sounded in Li Fan's ears.
Looking around, he found that he was currently inside a sealed chamber.
The space was not particularly spacious, and its decor was rather simple.
It contained only a single set of table and chairs, a few potted plants, and a bookshelf.
On one of the walls, Li Fan's application information and the countdown were displayed.
Han Yi and Ximen Yue were nowhere to be seen. Li Fan guessed that each applicant was placed in their own separate chamber.
Inside this space, the spiritual energy within his body remained dormant, rendering him unable to cultivate.
Seven days was neither too long nor too short.
With nothing else to do, Li Fan walked over to the bookshelf and examined the volumes placed upon it.
Unlike jade slips, which could be scanned with divine sense, these books appeared to be purely paper products that had to be turned by hand.
However, Li Fan had originally started out as a scholar, so reading was second nature to him.
He immediately picked up a few books, sat down, and began to read through them at his leisure.
*Instructions for Using Yanfa Jade*, *Ten Treatises on Dharma Derivation*, *The Separation of Person and Object: On the Differences Between Dharma Derivation by Yanfa Jade and by Cultivators*...
Time slipped quietly by as Li Fan immersed himself in his reading.
As he finished several books, he gained a general understanding of the Yanfa Jade he was about to meet.
As a supreme treasure of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the very foundation of the Protector Hall, Yanfa Jade bore the responsibility of creating and deriving new methods.
At every single moment, brand-new cultivation techniques previously unknown to the world were being deduced.
Moreover, this derivation process could not be interrupted.
However, cultivation techniques were divided by rank, and the difficulty of deducing a Dao Integration technique versus a Foundation Establishment technique was naturally worlds apart.
When Yanfa Jade derived low-grade techniques, she operated at low energy consumption and had the spare capacity to assist cultivators with deriving techniques.
When Yanfa Jade was deducing high-grade techniques, cultivators had to wait patiently.
Depending on the grade of each Law-Audience Jade Plaque, the amount of derivation time an applicant could request also varied.
A Dao Integration grade allowed around two days, whereas a Nascent Soul grade like Li Fan's plaque basically permitted only three shichen of usage.
Cultivators using Yanfa Jade had two modes to choose from.
The first was to provide only the technique's general attributes and requirements, allowing Yanfa Jade to derive it spontaneously from nothing.
Although this "creating Dharma from nothing" incurred no material cost, the final product might not entirely meet expectations.
Furthermore, if the requirements were set too high and the time needed by Yanfa Jade exceeded the limit, one might end up with only a flawed version of the technique.
The second method was to provide a foundational blueprint technique, allowing Yanfa Jade to derive an advanced technique based upon it.
The advantage was that it allowed for far more precise customization, yielding the ideal technique one desired.
In addition, the time needed for Yanfa Jade's derivation was drastically reduced.
Once the first version of the technique was generated, if the applicant was unsatisfied with the result, Yanfa Jade could be asked to make adjustments until time ran out.
The drawback was that the rank of the blueprint technique could not be lower than the technique being derived.
Otherwise, derivation efficiency would drop drastically, becoming virtually no different from "creating Dharma from nothing."
Techniques derived through personal applications were taught directly to the applicant by Yanfa Jade herself.
They were not cataloged in the Alliance's technique repository.
The cultivator possessed complete autonomy over their disposition.
Moreover, there were no restrictions on the origin of blueprint techniques, and they would likewise not be recorded or reported to the technique repository.
***
Having read through all the necessary precautions in detail, Li Fan adjusted his original plan.
A moment later, he had arrived at a final decision on how to use it in this lifetime.
"Still, in these instructions..."
Li Fan's expression turned slightly peculiar.
He had keenly noticed that whenever the books referred to Yanfa Jade, words like "she" and "herself" were used.
"Could it be that the Alliance's Yanfa Jade is actually a cultivator?"
"That is rather unexpected."
Li Fan glanced at the countdown on the wall.
There were still three days left.
He began reading other books concerning theories of Dharma derivation.
Most were treatises and recorded reflections written by renowned Dharma-derivation masters within the Alliance after using Yanfa Jade.
Li Fan had previously spent nearly twenty years fusing techniques and insights to derive the *Intent Spirit Illusion Art*.
He could barely be considered half a law-weaver himself. Reading these now, he found them thoroughly engrossing and not at all tedious.
Time flew by.
Soon, the alert from before sounded again:
"Cultivator Xiao Fan, your turn is approaching. Please prepare yourself."
Li Fan returned the book to the shelf, took a deep breath, and focused his mind.
The countdown on the wall slowly reached zero.
Everything in the chamber turned ethereal,
dissolving into motes of light that drifted off in a certain direction.
Floating in the void, Li Fan paused for a moment.
Looking left and right, he found himself amidst a vast, boundless expanse of nothingness.
A sudden flash of intuition struck him, and Li Fan followed the drifting motes of light, flying forward.
Before long, he saw an immense sphere composed of countless characters.
The characters upon the sphere shifted in endless, ceaseless permutations at every instant.
Occasionally, an entire section of characters on the sphere would pause for a brief moment, then flash with a brilliant glow
and vanish from sight,
before the endless permutations and derivations resumed once more.
Beneath this colossal sphere, a desk floated in the void.
A little girl who looked to be only five or six years old was sprawled across the desk.
She was staring listlessly at the lines of text constantly surfacing on the desktop.
"She is Yanfa Jade?"
Li Fan flew closer at an unhurried pace, only to discover that upon reaching a certain distance, he could advance no further.
Seeing that the little girl paid him no attention whatsoever, he had no choice but to clear his throat lightly.
"May I ask if..."
"What kind of technique do you want to derive? What are your requirements? Dharma from nothing, or Dharma from a blueprint?"
"Write it down yourself first."
Without even looking up, the little girl spoke in a childish, milky voice.
She then patted the desktop with her chubby little hands. After a flash of light, a sheet of paper instantly appeared.
Picking up the paper, the little girl tossed it over to Li Fan.
Li Fan sized up Yanfa Jade, feeling increasingly bemused.
Yet he did not dawdle. Taking hold of the paper, he focused his thoughts, and lines of writing promptly surfaced upon the sheet.
"Blueprint techniques: *Golden Chapter of Thousand Mechanisms and the Jade Cosmos*, *Stealing Heaven Changing Sun Art*. Reference secret technique: *Appearance Shifts with the Heart*."
"Derive a cultivation technique that allows for complete transformation into another person."
Chapter 337