From "Refining" to "Immortal"—a difference of a single character, yet as vast as the gulf between heaven and the abyss.
The path ahead in the Xuanhuang Realm had been severed for countless years. An "Immortal" had long become an unreachable goal, existing only in ancient texts for cultivators to revere and daydream about.
Yet now, Li Fan was looking at a technique that might be tied to a "True Immortal"!
"The legacy of a True Immortal?" Just the thought of it sent a surge of emotion through Li Fan's chest. That stirring excitement was something he had felt only once before—back when he first met Kou Hong and Dao Xuanzi and finally confirmed that cultivators truly existed in this world.
"No wonder this Xuanhuang Incantation has sat at the very top of all my cultivated techniques from the beginning. Even the Dao Integration realm Cloud Water Illusory Dream Technique taught by Qin Tang couldn't surpass it! It turns out to be an authentic transmission of an immortal!"
"The immortal path is not severed; the immortal path shall not end!"
Li Fan was stirred beyond measure, unable to calm himself for a long time.
Even with his current realm of mental cultivation, it took a good while before he gradually settled down.
After carefully contemplating this so-called "Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation," however, he discovered that perhaps because it was still incomplete, it did not seem substantially different from the previous Heart-Refining Incantation.
Or perhaps Li Fan's current level was simply not high enough to detect the difference between the two.
Li Fan carefully recalled the origins of the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation.
Its earliest origin was a method widely circulated and ubiquitous throughout the Xuanhuang Realm, used to purge the body of miasma: the Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation. Because the Heart-Clearing Incantation provided no other benefit to cultivators beyond removing the immortal-mortal miasma, virtually no cultivators in the world continued practicing it once they succeeded in guiding Qi into their bodies.
Back then, however, Li Fan had been constrained by his poor aptitude and struggled endlessly to purge the miasma from his body. Thus, while waiting for an opportunity to enter the Purifying Spirit Pool, he practiced the Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation diligently day and night. Furthermore, because he had the True Reversion status panel, which allowed him to clearly observe the slightest changes in himself, he was firmly convinced that the Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation truly worked. Therefore, he never gave it up.
Inside the Purifying Spirit Pool, during the excruciatingly painful process of having the immortal-mortal miasma forcefully purged from his body, even when he nearly lost consciousness and blacked out, Li Fan's heart in pursuit of the Dao never wavered for a single instant, remaining steadfast throughout. Moreover, the confidence granted by True Reversion—allowing him to reincarnate and start over again and again—freed his heart from worry and fear, making him heedless of life and death. In the end, when Li Fan successfully transformed from a mortal into a cultivator at the Qi Condensation stage, the Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation transformed into the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation.
Along the cultivation path across a hundred reincarnations, Li Fan gradually discovered the true method of cultivating the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation through continuous trial and error: the reverse cultivation of the Dao heart. Like a massive millstone, it ground down all the fixations in his heart, turning them into nourishment for his divine soul. Its miraculous nature was far beyond anything circulating in the present-day Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Li Fan had originally thought this was the limit of the Xuanhuang Incantation. He never expected that after unleashing the "Chaos" formula by chance in this lifetime, the Heart-Refining Incantation would activate on its own in the face of the backlash—the fleeting shadows of myriad lifetimes—finally shedding its outward disguise to reveal its true form.
"Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation..." Li Fan muttered the name repeatedly in his mind.
Without question, this was an unimaginably powerful technique.
As the saying went: "Mortal dust and worldly affairs degrade immortals and gods." No matter how powerful a cultivator was, plunging into the swirling mortal realm would inevitably damage their Dao heart.
Those fleeting shadows of myriad lifetimes had been virtually identical to experiencing thousands of reincarnation cycles in reality. Countless scenes and emotions had erupted all at once in his mind. Had Li Fan not experienced a hundred reincarnations himself, possessing a mental resilience far beyond ordinary men, he likely would have suffered a psychotic breakdown on the spot, driven utterly mad.
Without the aid of the Immortal Heart Incantation, no matter how extraordinary Li Fan's mental fortitude was, trying to break free of the effects brought by those fleeting shadows of myriad lifetimes on his own would likely have taken decades.
Yet with the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation, the result was completely different. In virtually an instant, those poignant emotions and vivid memory scenes were all dissolved and absorbed.
"To undergo ten million lifetimes of reincarnation in an instant, yet the immortal heart remains unchanged..."
"Is this the might of an immortal?" Li Fan could not help but feel a surge of yearning.
"With an immortal method like this, I could probably take all the various illusions in the Xuanhuang Realm in stride." A sharp glint instantly flashed in Li Fan's eyes.
The first thing that came to his mind was when Senior Sister Zhao had pulled him into the Dadao Sect.
"Armed with the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation, I might be able to preserve my true self in that real illusion. Retaining my own consciousness and acting with subjective agency, I might be able to pry into even more secrets."
"In the next lifetime, I can give it a try."
After pondering for a long while, Li Fan shifted his attention to the character "Incomplete" that followed the Immortal Heart Incantation.
"Right now, this immortal technique is still incomplete. To complete it, one must use the experiences and memories of hundreds or thousands of lifetimes as raw materials. Originally, unleashing the Chaos formula and utilizing the resulting mental backlash would have been the best method."
"However..."
Li Fan frowned slightly.
He was still rattled by the colossal divine sense that had appeared afterward. His intuition told him that the owner of that divine sense had likely tagged the "Chaos" formula. If he unleashed it again, he would probably be detected in an instant.
"The reason I escaped disaster earlier may have been that the world hadn't seen Chaos for many years."
"It works once, but cannot be repeated..."
"No matter." Thinking of the extraordinary treasure he carried, Li Fan smiled faintly.
"Even if I only have one opportunity to catch them off guard per lifetime, for me, that is virtually an inexhaustible supply!"
"I fear neither the one who deliberately concealed the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation back then, nor the owner of that colossal divine sense so keenly fixated on Chaos, could ever imagine that an anomaly like me exists in this world!"
Reflecting on his past experiences, Li Fan knew all too well how difficult it was to restore the Xuanhuang Mind-Clearing Incantation step by step back into the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation.
On top of that, there were powerful figures watching like hawks, monitoring everything unceasingly.
Even if some lucky soul managed by sheer fluke to replicate it, they could never remain permanently within the blind spots of those mighty figures, completely undetected, as Li Fan had done.
"Among countless futures, so long as a sliver of hope exists, I can find it—turning the impossible into the possible."
Once again, Li Fan felt a profound appreciation for just how terrifying True Reversion was.
At the same time, he felt fortunate.
If he did not possess such an extraordinary treasure, then no matter what kind of genius he might be, he would never have been able to achieve transcendence from this Xuanhuang Realm.
Amid his emotional musings, Li Fan searched within the Heavenly Profound Mirror for any scrap of information concerning the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation.
"Thinking about it, it makes sense. The immortal-mortal miasma was formed by defying the principles of Heaven and Earth; how could a technique capable of purging it possibly be simple?"
A flicker of enlightenment passed through Li Fan's mind.
With Li Fan's current clearance level, he could view plenty of content inaccessible to ordinary cultivators.
Yet regarding the origins of the Xuanhuang Heart-Refining Incantation, opinions varied wildly, and there was no definitive answer.
Chapter 639