“A single gaze mirroring ten thousand years, forming a realm of its own after falling?!”
“How is that possible?”
Liu San was utterly shocked by the incredible truth Li Fan described.
“How could there have been a True Immortal in the Xuanhuang Realm? Why have we never heard of this before?”
Even as a Dao Integration powerhouse, upon hearing of the Fallen Immortal Realm's existence, Liu San fared no better than Li Fan once had.
Li Fan smiled and said, “Elder Liu need not doubt it. This matter is entirely true; I have already experienced it firsthand.”
“What I saw with my own eyes was just as it was back then. Truly worthy of a True Immortal’s handiwork.” He shook his head, sighing with emotion.
With Li Fan putting it this way, Liu San was completely convinced, though the shock in his heart only deepened.
Suddenly, as if struck by a thought, a flicker of excitement flashed in his eyes: “Young Master, you said just now that the Fallen Immortal Realm is an authentic projection of the ancient Xuanhuang Realm. Then does this mean that the Medicine King Sect of that time still exists within it?”
“The Old Sect Master, even you and I, and all the other cultivators of the Medicine King Sect...”
“Could we encounter them when exploring it?” Liu San asked slowly, his voice trembling slightly.
Li Fan pondered for a moment, nodded, and gave an affirmative answer.
In the history of the Xuanhuang Realm, there had indeed been instances where slumbering ancient cultivators entered the Fallen Immortal Realm and encountered another version of themselves.
However, no bizarre phenomena such as “the two cannot meet” or “mutual resonance” occurred. In the final analysis, once an ancient cultivator arrived in the present day, everything from the past was already behind them. The figure in the Fallen Immortal Realm was merely a projection of their past self at a single instant. Beyond feeling melancholy and sighing over the passage of time, seeing another version of oneself was no different from meeting any other being.
Likewise, the “natives” within the Fallen Immortal Realm would never mistake a cultivator entering from the outside world for their former projection. Even if their appearance and aura were completely identical to their past self, it made no difference. The natives would only assume it was a disguise crafted through some divine ability.
However, Li Fan had once seen a discussion in the Seeking Immortals forum of the Heavenly Profound Mirror. It posited that if a cultivator survived from ancient times until now and cultivated to an unimaginably profound realm, they might achieve the state of “reflecting all eternity, enjoying Eternal Freedom.”
The so-called Eternal Freedom meant that once a cultivator transcended the river of time, they could exist simultaneously across past, present, and future. At every point in time, she would be her transcended self. In that case, the projection within the Fallen Immortal Realm might indeed be regarded as one and the same as the true self.
Although this was merely a fantasy, it represented the ultimate pursuit of cultivators on the Great Dao, and so it had been discussed with great relish.
Yet other cultivators countered that if such an entity truly existed, they would have long since reversed cause and effect and woven spacetime into a closed loop. How could they ever be captured into the Fallen Immortal Realm by a mere True Immortal’s single gaze? Therefore, the conjecture that a projection in the Fallen Immortal Realm could be identical to the true self in the real world was, in the end, a paradox.
...
Li Fan roughly explained all this to Liu San. Though Liu San nodded on the surface as if coming to terms with it, he was still impatient to enter the Fallen Immortal Realm and experience it for himself.
Seeing this, Li Fan did not mind. He merely gave an amused shake of his head and then carefully instructed him on the ritual’s steps.
“Blessings arise, Xuanhuang Heavenly Venerable!”
Without the slightest guard, Liu San activated the ritual right in front of Li Fan and entered the Fallen Immortal Realm.
Li Fan, meanwhile, narrowed his eyes slightly and looked up toward the sky.
Perhaps because of having upgraded to the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation, Li Fan’s perception was far sharper than before.
The moment Liu San’s wisp of divine sense vanished, Li Fan distinctly sensed a faint shadow sweeping across the firmament of the real world.
“Not an illusion. The Fallen Immortal Realm...?”
The shadow appeared for only a fraction of an instant before fading from his perception, yet Li Fan’s gaze did not shift away for a long time.
Having spent a long time browsing the Seeking Immortals forum, Li Fan knew that many cultivators in the world had attempted to find traces of the Fallen Immortal Realm in the real world. But reportedly, without exception, all of them had failed.
They only knew of its existence and the method of entering it.
Yet they simply could not observe it.
Yet now Li Fan, possessing only Nascent Soul cultivation, had unexpectedly broken this rule.
“My previous experiences in the Fallen Immortal Realm were already abnormal, constantly looping and repeating a certain scene. I never knew the reason before. But now, it seems it likely has something to do with the Xuanhuang Incantation.”
“A True Immortal’s legacy, a True Immortal’s remnant thought... Perhaps there really is some connection between the two.”
“It has been a long time since I last entered the Fallen Immortal Realm. I hope that with the blessing of the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Incantation, it can bring me some pleasant surprises this time.”
Li Fan pondered to himself.
Next, he was in no hurry to act. While waiting for Liu San to awaken, he took a stroll around the Valley of Longevity.
The valley was divided by formations into separate individual sections used to cultivate various spiritual plants and medicinal herbs. Truly worthy of a secret realm sealed for a millennium; even with array formations partitioning the land, Li Fan could still feel the vibrant life force radiating from the crops in the spirit fields.
From time to time, Medicine King Sect cultivators moved among them, using secret techniques to select and harvest suitable ingredients for pill refinement.
In the distance, on an open clearing, one could faintly make out the rough frameworks of several buildings that were close to completion.
Those were the new sect grounds of the Medicine King Sect being built by the disciples under the direction of Fang Zaiji.
“It actually has quite an imposing aura,” Li Fan praised with a nod.
With the matters in the Congyun Sea settled, he now needed to consider his future plans.
There were two primary objectives.
First, find a way to obtain the portion of the Mountain-Sitting Art beyond the Nascent Soul realm.
Because in this life, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had not yet enacted the Virtual-Real Heavenly Venerable Plan to draw out lurking spies, the Five Elders Association had never taken the risk of sending Dao Integration powerhouses to probe them. Consequently, the grand battle between both sides, in which Immortal Venerable Jicheng was ambushed and his lifespan was pushed to its brink, had not occurred.
Therefore, if he wanted to obtain the Law-Audience Jade Plaque that granted an audience with the Yanfa Jade, he would have to devise another way.
However, Li Fan had long prepared for this, so it was not a major issue.
Second, accumulate experience and insights for ascending to the Soul Formation realm. The entire Nascent Soul realm was a process of nurturing and perfecting one’s own grotto-heaven domain. And Nascent Soul and Soul Formation marked the crucial watershed that separated a cultivator’s actual combat strength.
Take Immortal Lord Hongxi, who had just fallen in the Congyun Catastrophe, as an example.
He had achieved his Dao Foundation with the Five Elements Mountain and formed his Golden Core through the five methods of Metal, Wood, Water, Fire, and Earth.
His talent could hardly be called lacking, and his beginning could hardly have been smoother.
Yet, in the two stages of “seizing the essence of Heaven and Earth to form the Nascent Soul; extracting the marrow of Heaven and Earth to attain its spirit,” the promising situation took a steep turn for the worse.
Things like the Hundred Ranges Grotto-Heaven and Taihua Approaching Thousand Mountains sounded distinctly inferior by more than just a notch.
This also caused the actual combat strength Immortal Lord Hongxi displayed to be mediocre and unremarkable. For his entire life, he was trapped in this marginal corner of the Congyun Sea; making another step forward had been extraordinarily difficult.
Looking at it the other way around: if Immortal Lord Hongxi had been able to achieve the Nascent Soul realm with the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven like Li Fan, what would his future have been like?
Chapter 649