With the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven as a foundation, even if the marrow of Heaven Hongxi extracted upon reaching Soul Formation had been utterly mediocre, his accomplishments would still have far exceeded what he was capable of today.
Had he simply not wanted to do so?
He had merely been unable to.
If one spoke of wonders of heaven and earth or techniques born of heaven and earth, a cultivator might still barely manage to strive for one or two through sheer personal diligence.
Yet by the time one reached the Nascent Soul and Soul Formation stages, relying solely on diligence to obtain a powerful, rare grotto-heaven world or marrow of Heaven was completely useless. Without a clan's background and resources, and lacking sufficient fortune of one's own, how could one possibly compete against other cultivators?
For an ordinary cultivator, merely finding a single resource and successfully breaking through was already a blessing. Where would they ever get the chance to be picky?
Take Diyi Jinglun, who had resolutely cast aside the chance at Dao Integration in the face of the anima of Heaven and Earth's temptation. Granted, it was partly because of his own peerless talent and his disdain for such a weak anima of Heaven and Earth. Yet how could it not also be because he held a high position within the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals, commanding resources and information far beyond what any ordinary cultivator could match?
The strong were able to choose meticulously and deliberate endlessly for their future path, so the strong grew stronger.
The weak could only seize hard-won opportunities for advancement and force breakthroughs, and so the weak remained weak.
Thus, from the Nascent Soul realm upward, the disparities in individual strength grew ever more pronounced.
Even in battles between cultivators of the exact same realm, instant kills were not unheard of.
Now that Li Fan had broken through with the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven, he could already be considered the absolute ceiling of the Nascent Soul realm.
Yet regarding how to find a marrow of Heaven that matched it, he was still completely at a loss.
What truly was the marrow of Heaven?
Long Jiuyuan had achieved Soul Formation with Tianling Approaching Thousand Waters.
Hongxi had broken through by relying on Taihua Approaching Thousand Mountains.
From the information revealed in the heavenly proclamations following their deaths, one could perhaps discern a few clues.
The marrow of man made blood; the marrow of Heaven made laws.
When a law manifested within the Xuanhuang Realm, its concrete expression was "a shift in heaven and earth."
In Tianling Province, several thousand years hence, thousands of rivers and streams were destined to be born.
In Taihua Province, several thousand years hence, thousands of mountains were destined to rise.
These were predetermined changes about to unfold in specific provinces of the Xuanhuang Realm over the coming ages.
Extracting the marrow of Heaven and Earth meant extracting and stripping away the laws that drove these very shifts.
By taking the magnificent, immense power of heaven and earth and bestowing it upon oneself,
one achieved an immense leap in cultivation and combat prowess.
At the same time, the initial fusion of worldly laws into one's own physical body laid the groundwork for offering sacrifice to the anima of Heaven and Earth when later achieving Dao Integration.
"The shifts of heaven and earth unfold over tens of thousands of years at a time. With a cultivator's sensory faculties, they normally cannot be easily perceived. Yet the Heavenly Venerable's new method allows one to sense their most subtle shifts, tearing open a breach before continuously and rapidly siphoning and absorbing the primal driving force originally meant to be slowly released over millennia.
"Though this act is no different from severely draining the world's potential, for a cultivator, it enables a dramatic leap in personal strength."
Li Fan's thoughts churned as he pieced together everything he knew, pondering constantly.
"A Five Elements Grotto-Heaven forms a self-contained cycle, blending into a seamless whole. Such a thing can only be chanced upon, never sought. If I am to achieve Soul Formation and extract the marrow of Heaven, the most fitting choice would naturally relate to this.
"However, once the five elements manifest in the world, they disperse. A single marrow of Heaven will likely correspond only to a specific attribute.
"And achieving multiple laws at the Soul Formation stage, as one did with a Golden Core, is not so easy."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes slightly.
Beyond generating laws, the marrow of Heaven also possessed a mechanism akin to immunity and resistance.
Once a cultivator already harbored one type of heavenly marrow, attempting to extract another would be detected, resulting in a degree of rejection.
"The more one grasps, the greater the force of repulsion becomes. With each additional type, the difficulty increases almost exponentially. Thus, for the vast majority of cultivators in this world, extracting a single heavenly marrow is already the absolute limit.
"Even peerless talents like Long Jiuyuan, who could battle the anima of Heaven and Earth single-handedly and advance to Dao Integration, were no exception. That alone shows how difficult it is.
"At most, I might only be able to accommodate two kinds of heavenly marrow simultaneously..." Without indulging in blind self-confidence, Li Fan evaluated his limits.
"If I wish to achieve a flawless breakthrough, then unless..."
A sharp glint flashed in Li Fan's eyes. "Unless I simultaneously extract five different attributes of heavenly marrow, using the principles of mutual generation and restraint to bring them into self-sustaining balance."
This was undeniably a wildly fanciful notion.
Setting aside where one could ever find the opportunity to extract five marrows of Heaven at the same time, even if encountered, the probability of success would be minuscule.
Any rational cultivator would never choose to do such a thing.
Yet for Li Fan, it might not be impossible to attempt!
Inside his mind, the Dao Transformation Stone crystal continuously emitted a faint blue glow, steadily integrating and processing all the information he had ever absorbed, gradually deducing methods that might bring his vision to reality.
***
More than a dozen days later, Li Fan sensed Liu San's awakening aura. With a flicker of movement, he appeared before him.
Having seemingly spent a considerable amount of time within the Fallen Immortal Realm, Liu San still looked somewhat disoriented upon returning to the real world.
A trace of confusion lingered in his eyes.
Yet that bewilderment vanished swiftly the moment he saw Li Fan.
"Young Master!" Liu San rose to his feet, his expression returning to normal.
"How was it? Did you meet any cultivators of the Medicine King Sect from back then?" Li Fan asked warmly.
Liu San shook his head.
"Strange as it sounds, the scene I experienced upon entering the Fallen Immortal Realm this time was not the ancient cultivation world you described, Young Master. Rather, it was a time and space I have never heard of.
"There, immortal methods were entirely severed, and practitioners of the Dao no longer existed in the world. People could only grasp supernatural power by resonating with various Dharma artifacts left behind from antiquity. They called them 'God Armament wielders' or something of the sort...
"And the vessel I possessed this time was a mere child of seven or eight years old."
As Liu San reminisced, he recounted his experiences to Li Fan.
"In the end, after enduring untold hardships and countless bloody slaughters, I finally succeeded in achieving resonance with the legendary strongest God Armament.
"The Immortal Slaying Sword..."
Saying so, Liu San produced a longsword that radiated seven-colored light while seemingly harboring boundless baleful aura.
Li Fan's gaze focused on it, but after examining it closely, he chuckled derisively.
Liu San said, "It boasts quite a grand name. But in truth, it was merely the natal flying sword refined by a Nascent Soul sword cultivator.
"It was only because it was tainted with a wisp of that fallen cultivator's remnant soul that it stood out like a crane among a flock of chickens amid a pile of so-called God Armaments."
Liu San glanced at the flying sword before him, appraising it with a touch of disdain. "Crude refining technique, and the materials were utterly ordinary. Pure garbage."
With that, he applied a slight bit of force.
In an instant, this so-called strongest God Armament, the "Immortal Slaying Sword," vanished into ash and smoke.
Chapter 650