To escape the sinking wreck of the Xuanhuang Realm, adequate technological reserves were naturally indispensable.
Li Fan obviously could not achieve this on his own.
Only by drawing upon the existing achievements of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association, and then innovating upon that foundation, would breaking the impasse become possible.
"I wonder how that Immortal Chosen Plan is progressing."
"Even if the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals harbored ill intentions from the very start, until the truth is exposed, they remain highly watched Immortal Chosen—the Alliance's stars of hope."
"They should be able to serve as inside informants to some extent."
Thinking this, Li Fan sent a reply to the Five Elders Association.
He revealed nothing of Senior Stone Slab's existence, merely claiming that an urgent notice had warned that the rendezvous risked exposure, forcing its cancellation.
As for where the problem lay, it had to be on the Five Elders Association's side.
Li Fan even urged them to investigate thoroughly, claiming they were definitely infiltrated by Alliance spies.
Although he had fabricated it on a whim, Li Fan did not care.
Spies—as long as one investigated, there would always be some.
Setting aside matters concerning the Five Elders Association for now, Li Fan calmed his mind and focused his consciousness on the Five Elements Yuanshi Grotto-Heaven within his body.
Previously, he had believed this Five Elements Grotto-Heaven had naturally evolved from the Xuanhuang Realm, so he had felt no apprehension.
Yet now, having learned from Senior Stone Slab that it was the handiwork of the Yishi Sect from thousands of years ago...
Given Li Fan's cautious and prudent nature, he naturally needed to inspect it thoroughly once more.
Fortunately, it was merely a false alarm.
After meticulous examination, there were no lingering marks left by the Yishi Sect within the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven.
This brought Li Fan some relief.
After all, the Xuanhuang Realm was fraught with peril, and any conceivable threat, no matter how slight, had to be treated with care.
"Now that the Nascent Soul is formed, the next step is to look toward Soul Formation."
"Heaven and Earth's about-to-be-born changes..."
In Li Fan's mind, the scene from his 115th lifetime instantly resurfaced: Mr. Bai wandering across Xuanhuang, assimilating the changes of Xuanhuang into his own grotto-heaven.
Thanks to Mr. Bai, Li Fan was intimately familiar with almost all usable about-to-be-born changes across the Xuanhuang Realm over the next century.
"With the Immortal-Sitting Art and the members of the Myriad Realms Association continuously feeding back cultivation to me, I hardly need to worry about the accumulation process of cultivation."
"The only causes for concern are the existence of the Heavenly Calamity, and how to harmoniously accommodate several different about-to-be-born changes."
After achieving the Nascent Soul with the Five Elements Great Grotto-Heaven, ordinary methods of Soul Formation no longer caught Li Fan's eye.
Even common animas of Heaven and Earth held little appeal for him.
Too weak!
This was not arrogance on Li Fan's part.
It was simply the truth.
Though he had yet to exert his full strength, the boundless power within him stemming from the Five Elements Grotto-Heaven placed him far beyond the scope of ordinary Nascent Soul cultivators.
Back in the Foundation Establishment stage, he could rely on various methods to drag a Nascent Soul cultivator down with him in mutual destruction.
Now his strength had swelled countless times over; crushing an ordinary Nascent Soul would be hardly harder than squashing an ant.
What was more, he possessed the Five Elements Annihilation Sword, the Seven-Colored Jade Void Flowing Light, and even the Chaos Art.
Animas of Heaven and Earth like Crimson Flame or the black mire were definitely no match for him.
Only entities on the level of Mo Sha would pose a slight challenge to Li Fan.
Yet retreating unscathed before such a foe would hardly be an issue.
With his Nascent Soul already at this level, how could Li Fan ever settle for an ordinary Soul Formation or Dao Integration path?
To be like Mr. Bai—accommodating every about-to-be-born change of the Xuanhuang Realm within himself;
Transforming the Nascent Soul grotto-heaven into an internal world;
Then extorting and subverting numerous animas of Heaven and Earth to seize the origin power of the Xuanhuang Realm on a massive scale;
This was the most ideal method to achieve explosive growth in strength.
Leaving aside for the moment whether doing so would make him a match for Chuanfa,
Li Fan believed that if he truly reached such heights, he would at least hold his own against an ordinary Longevity Heavenly Venerable without being at a disadvantage.
"Moreover, if a way to escape the Xuanhuang Realm can truly be found, this cultivation of mine will undoubtedly reign supreme among my peers in other cultivation worlds."
Cultivators of the Xuanhuang Realm devoured heaven and earth, naturally making them several cuts above conventional cultivation paths.
And Li Fan surpassed ordinary practitioners of the new method several times over.
By comparison, it would be absolute overwhelming dominance.
Yet fine as the ideal was, a problem stood before Li Fan, demanding an urgent solution.
Mr. Bai was implicitly an incarnation of the Heavenly Dao's will; taking Heaven and Earth's about-to-be-born changes and animas of Heaven and Earth was as effortless as taking things from his own home.
Naturally, he encountered no resistance.
But who was Li Fan?
Why would the Heavenly Dao of the Xuanhuang Realm allow him to do the same?
Ordinary cultivators who practiced the new method already drew the resentment and hatred of Heaven and Earth.
If Li Fan truly followed his envisioned plan, it would be no different from flaying skin, pulling sinews, and sucking the marrow from the bone.
He would be nothing short of a mortal enemy to the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
With all of Heaven and Earth as his enemy, how could he assimilate about-to-be-born changes and animas of Heaven and Earth for his own use?
Even if he managed to forcibly absorb one or two, an inner revolt would be inevitable.
"Unless..."
Li Fan's eyes flickered.
To the knowledgeable Grand Preceptor Li, this was no insolvable riddle. Almost instantaneously, a countermeasure came to mind.
The reason the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao held such deep hatred for cultivators boiled down to the simple fact that for cultivators to progress, they had to plunder resources from the Xuanhuang Realm.
As long as that remained unchanged, the contradiction between both sides could never be softened.
But now, the Xuanhuang Realm was at an absolute disadvantage in the struggle.
This gave Li Fan a glimmer of possibility:
namely, to switch allegiance and stand on the side of the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao.
Li Fan vaguely recalled back when he had carried the remains of Qian Hong from Great Xuan back to the Xuanhuang Realm.
The anomaly signaling a cultivator's fall, which should have appeared once at the moment of death, had manifested yet again without rhyme or reason.
And after doing all that, Li Fan had felt certain peculiar changes occur within himself.
Back then, he had not fully grasped its significance.
Yet after all these years and having read extensively through secret tomes of the cultivation world, Li Fan already understood the reason.
In the Xuanhuang Realm, such occurrences were rare, but not unprecedented.
There were cultivators who, despite being forced to cultivate the new method due to the altered principles of Heaven and Earth, were overall beneficial to Heaven and Earth throughout their lives.
For instance...
Helping to slaughter practitioners of the new method and accelerating the process of returning the Dao to heaven.
Though in the eyes of cultivators, such an individual was an unmitigated demonic cultivator—a target for ruthless suppression in both the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals and the Five Elders Association—in the eyes of Heaven and Earth, they were genuinely virtuous people.
Good cultivators standing on the side of Heaven and Earth!
Of course, this was merely an extreme example. Besides slaughtering cultivators, mending heaven and earth's deficiencies or helping an anima of Heaven and Earth fulfill its heavenly duties...
All of these could increase Heaven and Earth's favor.
Once that favor reached a certain level, when the cultivator fell, Heaven and Earth would still send down an omen,
yet it would not be gloating over their misfortune.
Chapter 868