Of course, they were only identical in appearance.
On the surface of the spirit stone, the restrictions jointly engraved by the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association were something Li Fan could not replicate for the time being.
"For now, creation is limited to simple objects like spirit stones, which are purely composed of spiritual energy.
"If the structure becomes even slightly more complex, I am powerless."
Even so, Li Fan was extraordinarily delighted.
This meant a promising beginning.
Once his realm continued to climb and his cultivation deepened day by day, creating things out of nothing might not remain impossible.
Breaking through to the Nascent Soul realm brought a tremendous leap in strength.
Yet now, a pressing issue lay before Li Fan, becoming an urgent matter.
He had no technique left to cultivate.
The Mountain-Sitting Art he had secretly learned from He Zhenghao was merely a Golden Core realm technique.
After stepping into the Nascent Soul realm, the feedback cultivation that had once flowed like a clear brook was now almost imperceptible.
Clearly, it offered him no further assistance.
Although the tribulation body cultivation he had accumulated previously had thoroughly stabilized the realm he had just attained, meaning there was no immediate rush to cultivate,
this matter could not be delayed for too long. Naturally, the sooner it was resolved, the better.
However, Li Fan had already devised plans to address this.
The intermediate option was naturally to obtain a chance to use the Yanfa Jade through Immortal Venerable Jicheng's bounty, deducing the subsequent portions of the Mountain-Sitting Art.
Yet in his previous life, Immortal Venerable Jicheng had reached the end of his lifespan only after falling into an ambush by a Dao Integration cultivator of the Five Elders Association during the Alliance's execution of the Virtual-Real Heavenly Venerable Plan to flush out hidden spies.
In this life, Li Fan could not guarantee that this event would definitely happen.
Therefore, he had also prepared an inferior option.
The Law-Audience Jade Plaque was indeed exceptionally precious, bestowed only upon cultivators who rendered great service to the Alliance.
Even so, it was neither unique nor priceless.
Given Li Fan's current wealth, if he were truly willing to expend an astronomical amount of contribution points, buying one was not out of the question.
Yet doing so would be rather ostentatious and prone to exposing his identity or drawing unwanted attention.
He would likely have to use True Reversion to flee the moment the technique was in his hands.
Thus, it remained merely a last-resort backup.
Those were the intermediate and inferior options.
As for the superior option…
That depended entirely on fortune and opportunity.
Namely, Li Fan comprehending it himself.
Having cultivated the Mountain-Sitting Art across multiple lifetimes, if Li Fan called himself second in his understanding of this technique, none in the world would dare claim first.
During the process of cultivation, whenever he received feedback cultivation, fleeting specks of insight would surface in Li Fan's heart.
Bit by bit, they accumulated. When it came to how to "sit atop the mountain and enjoy the fruits," Li Fan had already formed a unique perspective of his own.
With his accumulated foundation, given a little time, it was entirely possible for him to comprehend the subsequent portions of the Mountain-Sitting Art on his own.
Ultimately, the Yanfa Jade's ability to deduce techniques tailored to an individual relied purely on extrapolating endless possibilities.
Perhaps when it came to cultivation techniques, it could analyze and create with absolute thoroughness and peerless clarity.
Yet toward Li Fan, it could never know everything.
Nor could Li Fan ever lay bare all his secrets to a miraculous object that remained faintly subject to the Dharma-Transmitting Heavenly Venerable's control, had to constantly deduce techniques every day, and could barely secure its own safety.
"How it turns out will depend on how matters unfold.
"During this process, I might even lend a quiet hand. Isn't the Alliance looking for traitors? I can use this opportunity to…"
Li Fan narrowed his eyes, scheming inwardly.
Only after a long while did he slowly stand up.
Having broken through, his inspection of his physical changes was complete for now.
As for the limits of his physiological age and psychological age doubling on the True Reversion panel, in Li Fan's eyes, it was already a trivial detail not worth mentioning.
As long as his cultivation continued to advance, they would naturally increase alongside it, so there was no need to worry.
He would likely only pay attention to them again when facing the chasm between Dao Integration and the Longevity Heavenly Venerable realm.
Compared to the numbers of his age limits, Li Fan was more intrigued by the label beside it: Heaven's Detestation.
Probing it carefully, according to True Reversion's explanation, Li Fan learned that while the theoretical upper limit of his physiological age was nine hundred and ninety-nine years,
due to the hatred of this world's Heaven and Earth will, the actual time a cultivator could survive was far less than that number.
This also matched the current reality of cultivators in the Xuanhuang Realm that Li Fan knew.
Yet he was unconcerned.
With his style of stirring up wind and rain, in whichever lifetime it might be, he generally wouldn't live anywhere near an ordinary cultivator's average lifespan.
His true lifespan was his psychological age.
Therefore, utilizing the time in each lifetime with maximum efficiency was what suited him best.
"Heaven's Detestation…"
Li Fan sneered inwardly.
Thinking no further of it, he opened his mouth slightly.
Li Fan transferred all the items from his storage ring into his grotto-heaven.
Leaving only ordinary items in the ring as camouflage, he then quietly departed from the underground chamber.
Instead of rushing back to Congyun, he remained in Tianling Province, asking around about the Zhang Debiao he had heard of earlier.
Indeed, Li Fan had also set his sights on the mangled corpses of cultivators across the Tianling Province battlefield.
Not because he harbored any peculiar predilections, but to unlock a new True Reversion anchor.
Previously, Li Fan had used a Golden Core fragment to fully charge the preceding anchor.
Yet afterward, no matter how he tried, True Reversion seemed to despise the quality of the fragments, remaining completely unresponsive to those purchased from the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
Li Fan guessed that anchoring the next point likely required a complete Golden Core to unlock.
Yet what Golden Core cultivator would willingly sell their own core?
Neither the Heavenly Profound Mirror nor the folk markets offered such an item for trade.
Consequently, Li Fan had never had the chance to unlock a new anchor.
Now, however, might be the ideal moment.
In the Battle of Tianling Province, countless cultivators had perished.
Even if they were not the core fighting force, the number of fallen Golden Core cultivators was substantial.
Golden Core cultivators were unlike Nascent Soul cultivators, who were sustained by a grotto-heaven domain and could reshape their fleshly forms.
If vital areas such as the head or heart suffered sudden, severe injuries and they failed to react in time to sustain their vitality with spiritual energy and receive prompt treatment, they would die just the same.
Therefore, the likelihood of intact Golden Cores remaining inside those corpses was quite high.
Zhang Debiao was profiting from the dead; one could tell at once that he was driven purely by avarice.
Buying several Golden Cores from him should not be difficult.
Li Fan's calculations were clear and thorough, yet at the very first step, he ran into trouble.
Searching all across Tianling Province, he could not find Zhang Debiao anywhere.
Supposedly, the man had still been in Tianling City a few days ago.
Yet over the past few days, he had vanished without a trace, and no one had seen him since.
According to rumors, Zhang Debiao had previously bragged triumphantly to his confidants that he had taken on a massive order.
No one knew whether he had gone off to tend to that very business.
Chapter 583