Li Fan sensed Dongfang Yao's departing silhouette through the Formless Killing Intent and thought to himself:
"Dongfang..."
"Not bad."
After slowly withdrawing his gaze, Li Fan quietly made his way to a rather secluded stone forest.
This place was situated in Zhuhuai Province, an area sparse in resources. Furthermore, it had already been scouted and confirmed to hold no entrances to pocket worlds or grotto-heavens, so very few cultivators ever came here now.
It suited Li Fan perfectly.
Like Dongfang Yao, he too needed to set up contingencies across the Xuanhuang Realm over the coming period.
Descending thirty thousand feet underground, he carved out a hidden space.
Li Fan brought out a pile of broken puppet components.
They closely resembled the guard puppets from Master Tianyang's cave abode back then—fragile as ceramics, their surfaces alternating between black and red.
Looking closer, the red threads on each puppet part seemed to form strokes of a specific character.
This was the method Li Fan had devised to dismantle the Luan Formula!
He laid down an array formation and placed the puppet core in the center.
Then, one after another, he arranged the puppet components in jumbled order throughout the formation.
"When a specific condition is triggered, the array will activate the puppet core and reassemble it in an instant.
"The Luan Formula will become complete.
"Then the puppet will self-detonate, serving as the energy to unleash the divine power."
As these thoughts crossed Li Fan's mind, the disordered placement of the puppet was complete.
Fine slivers of silver light in the array threaded through the puppet components serving as nodes, connecting the entire formation into a unified whole.
Li Fan tapped lightly, and the array lapsed into silence, not a shred of aura leaking out.
"This spot is done.
"Crude though it may be, the cruder it is, the harder it is to detect."
Li Fan nodded with some satisfaction. Without even bothering to set up a concealment array, he quietly departed.
In any case, he had forged no fewer than a thousand of these Luan puppets.
Even if a few happened to be discovered, it would be no real loss and would not affect the overall situation.
Climbing out from underground, Li Fan surveyed his surroundings to ensure no one was trailing him.
He then buried Luan puppets in two other locations across Zhuhuai Province.
With everything arranged properly, he headed for the neighboring Shouyi Province.
He planned to bury three or four in every province belonging to the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
"When the time comes and all the 'Luan' characters trigger together, even a Longevity Heavenly Venerable will have their attention drawn and their vision obscured."
Li Fan moved swiftly.
Once he had systematically completed the arrangements in his thirty-fifth province, however, he suddenly halted.
"Is he finally about to break through to Soul Formation?"
Li Fan looked up toward the distance.
The travels of Sacred Embryo Xu Bai across the Xuanhuang Realm had at last reached their conclusion.
The final about-to-be-born change of heaven and earth he absorbed into his grotto-heaven was the Tianling Flower About to Be Born.
"I once thought that after being tainted by baleful energy, the scenery of the Tianling Flower was lost forever, but it turns out it will eventually reappear in this world.
"It seems the self-restorative power of this Xuanhuang realm's heaven and earth is truly extraordinary," Li Fan pondered.
As Sacred Embryo Xu Bai absorbed this change of heaven and earth, a spring breeze seemed to blow through his grotto-heaven world.
Cluster upon cluster of magnificent flowers bloomed in succession, stunning to behold.
Even Li Fan, hundreds of millions of li away, could seemingly catch the floral fragrance wafting from Sacred Embryo Xu Bai's grotto-heaven.
As if the final piece of the puzzle had been put in place, the entire grotto-heaven finally sublimated to the status of a pocket world.
A strange energy began circulating through the pocket world, flowing from the firmament to all creation, down into the thick earth, and then cycling anew.
Faint rumblings echoed from deep within the earth.
Muffled thunder, mingling with the patter of rain, the whistling of wind, and the chorus of insects and birds inside the pocket world, together composed a grand, vibrant symphony of life.
Li Fan could almost envision the future process of this pocket world continually expanding and sublimating.
Sacred Embryo Xu Bai stood in the void above Tianling Province.
Although no other cultivator discovered his presence, the quiet shift he caused in Tianling Province was nonetheless perceived by a select few.
For instance, Sun Qi, who was in the middle of reporting his progress in cultivating the Record of Inverted Qiankun Derivation to Sun Liancheng, suddenly paused and looked up at the sky outside the building.
"What is it?" Sun Liancheng followed Sun Qi's gaze, but noticed nothing out of the ordinary.
Sun Qi knitted his brows and, after a long silence, shook his head slightly.
"Perhaps it was just my imagination.
"For just that instant, I seemed to sense heaven and earth reviving.
"It was only for a fleeting moment, though.
"The feeling is gone now."
Sun Qi spoke slowly, emphasizing each word. Judging from the lingering doubt in his eyes, it was clearly more than a mere illusion.
"Heaven and earth reviving..." Sun Liancheng narrowed his eyes, his thoughts unreadable.
Meanwhile, sensing the scene from Sun Qi's side via the Formless Killing Intent, Li Fan grew somber.
He alone knew that Sun Qi's intuition was correct.
The transformative power of Tianling Province's impending revival had been extracted by Sacred Embryo Xu Bai and channeled into his own grotto-heaven world.
Deprived of this impetus, Tianling Province would require much more time to build up the power needed to return to its former flourishing state.
Tianling Province's power of revival differed slightly from that of the Congyun Sea.
The Congyun Sea underwent a creative change from life to death, from destruction to rebirth.
Tianling Province, on the other hand, represented a standard cycle of vitality moving from desolation to abundance.
With the addition of this change, the grotto-heaven within Sacred Embryo Xu Bai completely finished its evolution into a pocket world.
Sharing the same source, Li Fan was able to take in every panoramic detail of this nascent pocket world.
His divine sense swept rapidly across the expanse, looking down upon the sprawling, vibrant land below.
A sudden wave of familiarity washed over him.
"This topographical distribution..."
"It feels like I've seen it somewhere before."
To verify his suspicion, he quickly located several iconic mountain ranges and river systems.
"Sure enough. Exactly the same."
Li Fan felt an inexplicable tremor within.
"This is..."
"The landscape of the ancient Xuanhuang Realm?!"
Through Ximen Yu's writings, Li Fan had learned the topographical differences between the ancient Xuanhuang Realm and the realm of today.
If one stripped away the White Mist Barrier and pieced the disrupted provinces back together, the result was the Xuanhuang Realm's original, ancient form!
And that was precisely what Sacred Embryo Xu Bai had accomplished over this period!
"Ordinary Soul Formation cultivators rely on the transformation of a single province and a single change.
"Yet Sacred Embryo Xu Bai's breakthrough to Soul Formation used..."
Li Fan shuddered inwardly.
"The impending changes of the Xuanhuang Realm!
"Using the grotto-heaven world within him to rehearse the changes about to take place across the entire Xuanhuang Realm!
"The outcome of the Xuanhuang Realm's natural evolution, untouched by the interference of cultivators or Longevity Heavenly Venerables!
"This..."
The more Li Fan pondered it, the more astounded he became.
"Unless one is an incarnation of the Heavenly Dao blessed with the backing of the world itself, achieving this would be completely impossible!
"Even if I used True Reversion to try again and again, it could never be done!"
Understanding dawned upon Li Fan.
Even though he had advanced to Soul Formation, the aura surrounding Sacred Embryo Xu Bai had not changed in the slightest.
Like an ordinary mortal, he stood silently in the void.
Chapter 788