"White, green, blue, red, purple... Even among mortals, my luck belongs to the most pitiful tier."
Li Fan narrowed his eyes slightly. Faced with this disheartening reality, his heart barely stirred with a ripple.
So-called luck was merely one factor capable of influencing the trajectory of a person's fate and the opportunities they encountered. For Li Fan, who could endlessly reincarnate, if opportunity did not come to him, he could simply seek it out himself. As long as it was not the black calamity luck that invited all manner of misfortune and volatile mishaps, it had little impact on him.
Li Fan cultivated for nearly half a day following the method of Destiny Is Mine. Then, frowning slightly, he stopped.
"After all, I am relying on only a single feather. Compared to a true Profound Bird, the progress is far too slow. Without someone of noble fortune like Xu Ke from whom to siphon luck, just foolishly cultivating like this, I probably wouldn't nurture anything substantial even in several centuries."
"Luck, huh..."
His cultivation thwarted, Li Fan pivoted his thinking in an instant.
"With True Reversion assisting me, I possess foreknowledge—I have no need for luck at all."
"Fortune and fate entwine, resonating with the heavens and circulating through the world. Displaying it openly is actually a flaw. Who knows if one day a cultivator adept in this dao might scheme against me..."
A thought stirred in Li Fan's mind, and an idea took shape.
Circulating the divine ability, he did not choose to nourish his own luck this time. Instead, he channeled the entirety of his already threadbare luck back into the Feather of the Profound Bird within his body.
From Li Fan's perspective, a small whirlpool seemed to form upon him. The wispy white pillar of smoke struggled for only a moment before it could resist no longer, sucked straight into it.
Perhaps because his own luck was exceedingly thin to begin with, Li Fan did not feel the slightest discomfort even after it was completely absorbed.
Now, even when Li Fan channeled the divine ability of the Heavenly Destiny Profound Bird, he could no longer see any pillar of luck above his head.
It was as though he had become a legendary "person without luck."
"No good fortune or opportune encounters will come my way, but conversely, without luck backlash, the likelihood of encountering calamities is also greatly reduced."
Examining the Feather of the Profound Bird in his dantian once more, after absorbing Li Fan's luck, it seemed a sliver brighter than before.
"After all, I am not truly someone without luck. Even if my luck dissipates for a time, it will regenerate with daily activities. But I can use this feather to continuously absorb it."
"At critical moments, I could even unleash all the luck accumulated within the profound feather at once, which might well turn the rotten into something miraculous."
His thoughts raced as he straightened out his strategy. Li Fan was very pleased with the gains from this trip to the Fallen Immortal Realm.
Probing with his senses, it seemed more than a year would have to pass before he could enter again.
"Heavenly Sword Sect..."
"In the first two scenarios, Mr. Bai faintly played an important role. I wonder what connection he has with the Heavenly Sword Sect forging their sword."
After a moment, Li Fan suppressed his thoughts.
While he had been immersed in the Fallen Immortal Realm, Liu San had already informed all the cultivators in the sect of the method to enter it.
Hearing that they could return to ancient times through an unorthodox method, the disciples were all immensely excited and eagerly tried it for themselves.
The spaces and times they entered were bizarre and varied, encompassing everything imaginable.
Once they awakened, Liu San ordered designated people to collect and compile their experiences one by one. In Liu San's view, the Fallen Immortal Realm was practically a vast treasure trove, a cost-free trial realm. If utilized properly, it could greatly accelerate the Medicine King Sect's revival.
When Li Fan emerged and learned of this, he also compiled the "guides" he had read on the Seeking Immortals forum and distributed them to everyone, making the disciples' explorations far more efficient.
As for the gains obtained in the Fallen Immortal Realm, Liu San had once proposed having the disciples surrender everything uniformly for Li Fan to centrally allocate.
However, Li Fan rejected the idea.
Robbing people of their opportunities was like murdering their parents. Bloodline Transfer had not reached the level where others could be treated as outright slaves. To incite rebellion among the disciples for petty gains would truly be not worth the loss.
"In all things, stability comes first," Li Fan instructed Liu San once again.
Amid Liu San's flattering praise of "Young Master's character and temperament are far beyond my own," Li Fan quietly departed the Valley of Longevity.
Shuttling through the white mist, just as he was about to return to the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' standard territory, he suddenly discovered a team of Nascent Soul cultivators on vigilant patrol outside the White Mist Barrier.
Evidently, this was due to the Five Elders Association's relentless harassment and attacks earlier.
With a faint smile, Li Fan bypassed them soundlessly and headed straight for Luoyan Province.
His destination was none other than Han Yi, who had already turned into a stone statue.
Li Fan did not know what changes had occurred to Han Yi, but the stone statue he had turned into was truly somewhat sinister.
Earlier, Li Fan had inquired through the Heavenly Profound Mirror. Though a long time had passed, countless cultivators had walked right past him.
Yet remarkably, not a single cultivator had been able to discover Han Yi's presence.
Let alone notice that the stone statue he had become was continuously devouring the luck of surrounding living beings.
Judging by the various clues gathered, the range of Han Yi's influence was slowly expanding.
It was foreseeable that if he never woke up, one day perhaps the entirety of Luoyan Province would be affected.
Previously, even knowing of this matter, without a means to resist that luck-draining effect, Li Fan would not have risked himself to investigate.
Now that he had obtained the Heavenly Destiny Profound Feather and could wield the Profound Bird's divine abilities, he could give it a try.
More than ten days later, Li Fan arrived at the mortal town from his memories.
It was not far outside this very town that Han Yi had been glared into a stone statue with a single glance from Yufu.
At this moment, this mortal city was clearly within the range of Han Yi's stone statue.
Looking out, Li Fan saw that atop the heads of the mortals, regardless of quality, their pillars of luck were all wrapped in a dense smear of blackness.
The physical manifestation was that the mortals in the city were plagued with misfortune, thwarted at every turn.
Tripping and hurting themselves for no reason while walking was considered mild. Choking to death while eating or suffering financial ruin and family ruin in failed business ventures were far from rare. Some mortals had already sensed that something was amiss in recent days and sought to flee.
Yet often, halfway on their journey, they perished miserably from all kinds of bizarre reasons.
Li Fan observed from midair for a while. When a mortal died, the pillar of luck above their head instantly collapsed and scattered.
Taking advantage of this moment, the entwining blackness feasted greedily, swallowing it whole. After gorging itself, it vanished abruptly, its destination unknown.
"Interesting."
Just as this thought crossed Li Fan's mind, a chill suddenly ran down his back, as if something were hurtling toward him at breakneck speed.
His expression shifted slightly. He dodged in an instant, barely evading a ray of sword light.
"Fellow Daoist, watch out!"
The sword light brushed past Li Fan and bombarded the mortal city below.
Boom!
In an instant, the entire city was obliterated by the sword light. Before the mortals filling the city could even let out a single wail, every last one was dead.
Chapter 656