Li Fan carefully surveyed the hollow cavern.
Above, numerous buildings seemed to grow out of the cave ceiling, hanging upside down in midair.
Li Fan also spotted stone statues shaped like cultivators.
Their feet were fused into the structures, suspended overhead just the same, their hands outstretched in helpless despair as if pleading for rescue.
Yet their bodies were frozen forever at that very instant, their faces etched with terror.
"This must be one of the mountain peaks of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect, swallowed into the belly of this Guiyuan Toad by some bizarre twist of fate."
"Judging by its state, it was likely swallowed only after complete petrification."
Raising his guard, Li Fan flew up toward the top of the cavern.
Paying no mind to the petrified cultivators, he darted through the ruins, heading straight for the most prominent stone tower.
"The Tower of Heaven Scrutiny—a vital site used by the Heavenly Mechanism Sect to divine the heavenly mechanism."
Arriving before the stone tower, Li Fan found that even after thousands of years, a faint glow still shimmered upon it.
"The restrictions still linger, but unfortunately, they are mere shells of their former selves."
Meeting virtually no resistance, Li Fan stepped inside the Tower of Heaven Scrutiny.
"Hmm?"
The instant he entered, Li Fan's expression shifted.
For he felt a gaze glaring viciously in his direction.
Li Fan looked toward where the gaze originated, only to see a cultivator standing before him with hair draped wildly over his shoulders.
His face was hideously contorted, and one of his eyeballs bulged so far outward it seemed ready to burst from its socket, locked in a deathly glare upon Li Fan.
Just like the Heavenly Mechanism Sect disciples outside, the cultivator's lower body had turned to stone.
Yet his upper body appeared to still be caught in the middle of petrification, presenting a grotesque blend of living flesh and mottled stone.
"Dead or alive?"
Taking no chances, Li Fan swiftly unleashed a Five Elements Annihilation Sword.
*Bang!*
The sword of black light struck the cultivator dead-on.
Piercing through the chest, it blasted the body into shattered fragments that scattered across the floor.
Only that half-petrified eyeball remained suspended in midair, its pupil still fixed unwaveringly on Li Fan.
As Li Fan slowly approached, he continuously shifted positions.
He discovered that the eye seemed able to sense his presence, its gaze locked onto his location wherever he moved.
Standing before the petrified eye, he waited for a moment, but it showed no further reaction.
Li Fan took it in hand and inspected it closely.
"So it isn't a genuine eye after all, but something implanted into this deceased cultivator's body while he was alive."
"Strange. I don't recall Xiao Heng and the others obtaining this..."
"Did they fail to discover it? Or did Linghu Chang pocket it for himself?"
Li Fan turned it over in his hand for a while, finding no discernible use for it.
Tucking it into his robes for the time being, Li Fan continued exploring the tower.
The Tower of Heaven Scrutiny had nine floors in total.
From the second to the fifth floor, jade slips and magical artifacts lay strewn across the ground.
Most, however, were already damaged beyond repair.
After finding a storage ring among the debris, Li Fan happily stowed away everything that was still intact.
*Taiwei Heavenly Calculations*, *Nine Heavens Unified Qi Art*, *Incarnation of Heavenly Will Formula*, *Records of Thousand Mechanism Enigmas*...
There were cultivation techniques as well as treatises investigating the heavenly mechanism.
In the end, Li Fan gathered a total of twenty-six cultivation techniques and forty-eight books.
Among them were seventeen Golden Core stage techniques and nine Nascent Soul stage techniques.
"What an absolute windfall. I just wonder how many of these are unique copies."
"Still, of these techniques, only two indicate that anyone is actively practicing them. The Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals likely holds only a small fraction of them."
Reining in his delight, Li Fan continued upward.
The sixth to eighth floors held an assortment of peculiar objects.
For instance, a lotus whose petals cupped a human face.
An unknown fruit shaped like a flood dragon.
A rectangular stone naturally patterned with intricate veins.
...
These strange curios seemed to have once been cloaked in some unique power.
Yet with the passage of time, that power had entirely dissipated.
Now, they were merely odd to look at.
"These must have been the objects the Heavenly Mechanism Sect used back then to sense the heavenly mechanism," Li Fan mused thoughtfully.
The Heavenly Mechanism Sect believed that the qi mechanisms of Heaven and Earth resonated with one another, manifesting in the mortal world in myriad ways.
Things that defied common sense were the fruit of violent mutual resonances in the qi mechanisms of Heaven and Earth.
With the aid of these curiosities, one could gain profound insights into the qi mechanism of Heaven and Earth.
"The same principle as when I used the Vast Sea Pearl to sense Heaven and Earth back then." Regardless of whether they were still useful, Li Fan swept them all up.
At last, he arrived at the ninth floor of the Tower of Heaven Scrutiny.
When he opened it, it proved entirely barren—there was nothing there.
"Just as Xiao Heng said." Having anticipated this, Li Fan felt no disappointment.
After conducting a thorough search and still turning up nothing, Li Fan turned to leave.
Suddenly struck by a flash of intuition, he turned back around.
He stared at the empty space of the ninth floor.
"Judging from what happened outside, the calamity that befell this peak of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect descended without warning."
"They were struck down before they could even react."
"They didn't even have time to flee for their lives, let alone move any treasures."
"Then why would the ninth floor of the Tower of Heaven Scrutiny be completely empty?"
Doubt crept into Li Fan's mind. The more he pondered it, the more he felt some secret must be concealed here.
Yet no matter how thoroughly he searched, he found nothing of value.
It seemed as though it was merely his wishful thinking.
After a moment's thought, Li Fan simply unleashed the Five Elements Annihilation Sword, shearing off the entire ninth floor of the stone tower.
Like snapping dry twigs, the black annihilating radiance obliterated the remnants of restrictions that had lingered for millennia on the tower.
Then, amid a tremendous roar, the topmost floor of the Tower of Heaven Scrutiny was swept clean into Li Fan's storage ring.
"Better to take the wrong thing than let anything slip by."
Li Fan nodded in satisfaction.
Afterward, he looted the rest of the ruins thoroughly, inside and out.
In the end, he located another four cultivation techniques within several isolated immortal's caves.
Three were for the Golden Core stage, and one for the Nascent Soul stage.
And that Nascent Soul technique was none other than the *Golden Chapter of Thousand Mechanisms and the Jade Cosmos*.
"This cave abode sits right on the edge of the ruins. Decades later, an accident must have exposed it to the outside world, which was how the Kou brothers stumbled upon it."
"Still, those two had wretched luck. If they had only searched a bit more carefully, they would have discovered the true ruins of the Heavenly Mechanism Sect just a short distance away."
"Instead, the moment Kou Hong laid eyes on a Nascent Soul technique, greed overcame him, and he ended up missing out on a whole treasury."
Having deduced the whole sequence of events, Li Fan could not help but chuckle wryly at the absurdity of it.
Reaping a bountiful harvest, Li Fan tarried no longer.
Transforming back into a Stone Spirit Worm, he bored a tunnel through the stone wall that had already resealed itself.
Emerging from Baishi Grotto-Heaven, he set off in the direction of the Congyun Sea.
...
Liuli Island.
Lately, He Zhenghao had been deeply annoyed, flustered, and anxious.
"Should I go, or should I not?"
His brow furrowed with worry, He Zhenghao let out a long sigh.
For reasons unknown, when he was practicing the *Mountain-Sitting Art* some time ago, he had suddenly sensed something.
Out of nowhere, another person practicing the *Mountain-Sitting Art* had appeared in this world!
The *Mountain-Sitting Art* was already agonizingly slow to cultivate, and now someone else was sharing the cultivation.
How could this be tolerated?
It practically rendered further progress impossible.
His primary cultivation technique, which he had practiced his entire life, had suddenly suffered such a bizarre development, leaving He Zhenghao at a complete loss.
He had chanced upon the *Mountain-Sitting Art* while exploring an immortal's cave in his youth, and had never revealed it to another living soul.
Where could the other party have gotten it?
The matter reeked of strangeness. He Zhenghao, never a particularly daring man to begin with, dared not rashly seek out the stranger to investigate, terrified of walking into a trap.
He could only hide within the Island-Protecting Grand Formation day after day, agonizing over his dilemma.
Right at this moment...
"What scoundrel dares to steal the techniques of my sect?!"
"Get out here!"
A voice like rolling thunder exploded in the sky above Liuli Island, reverberating endlessly.
He Zhenghao froze in surprise at first, preparing to head outside to see what was happening.
Then, realization dawned upon him.
*Has the other party come looking for me?!*
Feeling the overwhelming aura rolling off the visitor, He Zhenghao turned deathly pale.
"A Golden Core cultivator?!"
Chapter 421