Within Li Fan's sea of consciousness, a Terminal Disc glowed with a faint, somber light, weaving a protective camouflage around his true mind.
This was to guard against any potential prying by the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
And upon the towering tree before him, Li Fan saw numerous visions—vastly different, yet seemingly sharing the same origin and root.
All of them were potential outcomes derived from the deduction of the Reverse Five Elements Creation and Annihilation Sword.
Some amplified the "annihilation" aspect, pushing its lethal, slaughtering might to the absolute peak.
Others placed greater emphasis on the "creation" aspect; in addition to healing wounds in the blink of an eye, they could even conjure matter out of the void and create living beings.
Still others brought the focus of the deduced divine ability back to the "power of the five elements." Whether through the convergence of the five elements or their mutual generation and overcoming, countless further possibilities unfolded.
The data of the divine abilities that had abruptly surfaced all at once was immense.
Even with the strength of Li Fan's divine sense, attempting to take in the entire "divine ability tree" at a glance caused a faint, bloated pressure in his mind.
Whenever his thoughts touched upon any specific divine ability, detailed feedback corresponding to it would immediately surface in his head.
After gaining a general understanding of the whole, Li Fan glanced up at the ticking countdown at the top of his field of vision.
Only then did he realize with a start that, without him noticing, half the allotted time had already passed!
With less than five shichen remaining, Li Fan pondered briefly before swiftly making his choice.
It was one of the possible branches stemming from the fusion of the five elements. Its essence could be summed up in sixteen characters: "Convergence of the five elements, limitless waxing and waning; its power ceaseless, the divine soul indestructible."
Indeed, the divine ability Li Fan desired was a marvelous secret technique capable of protecting the divine soul!
The power of mutual generation among the five elements could drastically enhance a cultivator's bodily circulation and restorative capacity. It could reach a state where, even without external assistance, their internal spiritual energy could achieve perpetual motion, while ordinary physical injuries could heal in the blink of an eye.
In the Heavenly Profound Mirror's deductions, akin to the power of mutual generation, once the five elements converged into one, there was a certain probability of falling into a wondrous state of limitless waxing and waning.
Through the ebb and flow of waxing and waning, just as a person's inhalations and exhalations supplied the fountain of life, an endless stream of power would be generated to nourish and strengthen the divine soul.
Blessed with such power, even if the divine soul suffered grievous injury, it could slowly recover entirely on its own.
...
"Ordinary offensive divine abilities are of little practical use to me," Li Fan mused to himself.
"Those weaker than me can be easily suppressed with the Insect Binding divine ability. For those somewhat stronger than me, the Sky-Breaking Heart Sword and Silk Pulling Life Reduction are more than enough to match them.
"And if I truly encounter a foe so overwhelmingly powerful that resistance is futile, I can simply use True Reversion.
"For me, the more life-preserving secret techniques I have, the better—especially those concerning the divine soul."
The inexplicable influence Mr. Bai had exerted on his clone had instilled in Li Fan an immense sense of crisis. He had no choice but to take it with the utmost seriousness.
Without any lingering hesitation or second-guessing, Li Fan—firm in what he needed—locked onto his target in his mind.
In an instant, the luxuriant divine ability tree before him began to fade, starting from the tips of its branches and leaves.
All the other demonstrated divine abilities vanished in a flash, leaving behind only a single bare branch standing erect between heaven and earth.
Then, transforming into a streak of radiance, it shot straight toward Li Fan's sea of consciousness.
*Boom!*
It was as though an earth-shattering explosion had detonated in Li Fan's mind.
Accompanied by a blazing light too dazzling to look upon, countless intricate details of the divine ability surged forth simultaneously.
It felt as if someone were violently stirring his sea of consciousness with a wooden stick.
Li Fan felt as though his skull would burst apart at any second, and the unimaginable agony wrenched an involuntary grunt from him.
Yet this was the world of the Heavenly Profound Mirror, composed solely of myriad black and white lines representing rules, where sound possessed no physical existence.
To an outsider, then, Li Fan's stick-figure body merely appeared to have suffered a violent jolt, swaying and fluttering erratically.
What was more, Li Fan noticed that every now and then, one or two black lines would break away from his body under this turbulent upheaval, dissolving and dissipating into the surrounding space.
With each one that vanished, Li Fan felt inexplicably weakened.
His heart tightened. Centering his concentration, he exerted every effort to absorb and process the data the Heavenly Profound Mirror was pouring into his mind.
Yet the complexity of this divine ability went far beyond his expectations.
Even with his current divine sense, after processing it for a long while, the redundant data showed no sign of diminishing.
"The sheer volume of data contained in this divine ability is too vast. If this goes on..." Li Fan's heart sank.
In just this brief span, nearly half of his stick-figure body had already dissolved.
"Must I abandon this divine ability and try again next time?"
In a flash, Li Fan suppressed this instinctive thought.
Though alarmed, he was not panicked; a better solution occurred to him.
Beneath the Terminal Disc, the crystal of the Dao Transformation Stone, under Li Fan's control, suddenly erupted with an intense azure-blue radiance.
Much like the white light generated when the Heavenly Profound Mirror had infused the divine ability earlier, it swept through Li Fan's entire sea of consciousness in an instant.
Within the blue brilliance, the divine ability's data was drawn in entirely.
Like surging waves relentlessly crashing ashore, it washed away the cluttered footprints upon the sand.
As the blue light flickered, the torrent of divine ability data cramming Li Fan's sea of consciousness was steadily absorbed into the Dao Transformation Stone.
"With the Dao Transformation Stone here, there is no need to rush. I can simply store it all first and study it at my leisure later."
With the crisis gradually resolved and his thought processes returning to normal, Li Fan let out a quiet breath of relief.
Once all the data for the divine ability he named the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method had been completely swallowed by the Dao Transformation Stone, Li Fan observed the stone, which seemed to be verging on some sort of capacity limit, and could not help being startled.
The originally crystal-clear blue Dao Transformation Stone had lost its transparency. Its blue hue seemed on the verge of overflowing, visibly churning and undulating within.
Moreover, faint, hairline fractures were discernibly etched across the crystal's surface.
"This..."
"Didn't they say divine abilities deduced here cap out at the Soul Formation realm at most? How could the amount of data be so horrifying?"
Li Fan felt a surge of doubt and unease.
Although he was unsure what divine abilities of other Soul Formation cultivators were like, Li Fan was certain that his Limitless Waxing and Waning Method was by no means comparable to an ordinary Soul Formation divine ability.
"Could it be that the Heavenly Profound Mirror noticed something and left behind some sort of backdoor?"
A tremor went through Li Fan's heart as the suspicion arose.
Yet it was merely a guess after all; he might just be alarming himself needlessly.
After mulling it over, Li Fan chose to sit tight for the time being.
He neither began cultivating the Limitless Waxing and Waning Method nor deleted the stored data.
Snapping out of his contemplation, Li Fan first glanced at the two cultivators nearby.
Deng Mingqian still appeared to be choosing which divine ability to deduce.
Wang Wan, on the other hand, was already in the midst of comprehending his.
Chapter 765