*Treatise on Wonders*.
Two thousand contribution points.
Without batting an eyelid, he bought it.
Lin Fan browsed through it attentively.
Wonders of heaven and earth were the key for cultivators to establish their Dao Foundations.
They were divided into three major categories: wonders of heaven, wonders of earth, and wonders of man.
Wonders of heaven aligned with the Heavenly Dao, yet they were ethereal and untraceable. Let alone catching sight of one, even hearing of them was exceedingly rare.
The book cited only a single example.
The very bedrock upon which the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals was founded.
An artifact whose importance surpassed even the Heavenly Profound Mirror.
The Yanfa Jade.
Exactly whose Foundation Establishment wonder it was remained unknown.
Its unique effect was that day and night, without pause, it could spontaneously deduce and develop new cultivation techniques.
***
Seeing this, Lin Fan paused, his thoughts coming to a halt.
"Earlier, I heard Kou Hong say that the cultivation techniques modern cultivators practice are all newly compiled. I thought some god-given genius had created so many diverse categories of distinct methods.
"It turns out it wasn't manual deduction at all, but reliance on this wonder of heaven and earth."
Lin Fan let his imagination wander for a moment before continuing to read.
Wonders of earth were also exceedingly rare, yet traces of them could at least be found.
They frequently appeared alongside extraordinary phenomena of heaven and earth.
The book cited several examples.
Cangwu Province, the Four Waters and Twenty-Eight Mountains.
In a certain year and month, they vanished overnight without a trace, leaving behind only a bottomless abyss.
From this emerged the wonder of earth, the Cangwu Landscape Chart.
The continent's river systems ought to flow from west to east, emptying into the sea.
Yet on a certain day in a certain year and month, myriad waters flowed backward, all converging upon Mount Penglai.
It ceased only after three months.
From this emerged the wonder of earth, the Mother of All Waters.
***
Lin Fan read with keen interest.
"In that case, the Vast Sea Pearl must also be a wonder of earth," he couldn't help thinking.
There were still over ten years before the Vast Sea Pearl would emerge into the world.
It seemed to be near Liuyun Island.
He must not forget about this.
***
Next were wonders of man.
The vast majority of Foundation Establishment wonders in the world fell under the category of wonders of man.
Wonders of man were often formed over numerous years of transformation from cultivators who had perished thousands of years ago.
By quality, they were subdivided into three grades: superior, medium, and inferior.
The higher the quality, the greater the might of the cultivator who achieved their Dao Foundation with it.
Li Fan could not help thinking of the Horned Dragon Branch and the Rusty Sword Dao Xuan.
He wondered what grades those two belonged to.
Judging from the might they had displayed, however, they were at least middle grade or higher.
***
While his avatar Lin Fan was immersed in the secrets of the cultivation world, his true body, Li Fan, took advantage of the night to travel via teleportation array to Liuli Island.
He did not see He Zhenghao.
Guarding the Island-Protecting Grand Formation was an unfamiliar cultivator.
He Zhenghao was likely off exploring a cave dwelling and had not yet returned.
Li Fan thought nothing more of it. After nodding in acknowledgment to the stranger, he exited the grand formation, concealed his figure, and slipped quietly into the home of Zhang Haobo, captain of the *Cangyuan*.
Looking at the soundly sleeping Zhang Haobo, Li Fan smiled faintly.
Nineteen years remained before the Crimson Flame burned the sea.
Now that the avatar was refined, certain threads could be laid out in advance.
Cloud Water Illusory Dream Technique, activate.
***
Zhang Haobo awoke abruptly from a nightmare, drenched in cold sweat.
He gasped in great gulps of air, the terror in his heart still lingering.
Only after a long while did he recover his wits, staring blankly at his surroundings.
This is...
Liuli Island?
Could it be that all of it was merely a terrible nightmare?
But how could a dream feel so real?
In the dream, while out fishing at sea, he had hauled up a corpse.
Along with the skeletal remains was a book.
Even after being soaked in seawater for so long, the writing upon it remained clearly legible.
*Sea-Calming Divine Sword*.
It was a secret cultivation method from the ancient Cloud Water Heavenly Palace that could be practiced all the way to the Foundation Establishment stage.
One could condense twenty-four Sea-Calming Divine Swords within the dantian to fight enemies, extraordinarily formidable.
It was precisely by relying on this technique that in the dream, his cultivation had advanced by leaps and bounds in just over a decade.
All the way from a mortal, he had cultivated to the late Qi Condensation stage.
Foundation Establishment had originally been in sight, yet unexpectedly...
At the thought of the horrifying scene in the dream, Zhang Haobo could not stop trembling all over.
In the sky above the Congyun Sea, a translucent crimson figure had abruptly appeared.
In its hand flickered a seemingly feeble flame.
Yet it was precisely this flame that, over the ensuing decade, had slowly boiled the entire Congyun Sea dry.
His family and friends, his homeland, everything around him had been utterly destroyed by it.
The cultivators of Wanxian Island had fought desperately against it, but alas, that figure was too powerful.
Its appearance had been so sudden.
The Congyun Sea had become a forbidden dead zone, impossible to enter or leave.
With no reinforcements, every single cultivator on Wanxian Island had staked their life, yet managed only to heavily wound it.
Roaring flames descended from the heavens, reducing Wanxian Island to ashes.
There the nightmare ended.
Yet Zhang Haobo could not calm himself for a long time.
Was that truly just a dream...?
As a mortal, how could he dream so vividly of things like Wanxian Island and the Heavenly Profound Mirror—things that had never previously even existed in his imagination?
Even that cultivation technique...
Wait.
Zhang Haobo's gaze focused sharply.
The technique of the *Sea-Calming Divine Sword* instantly surfaced in his mind!
Word for word, utterly clear.
He sprang to his feet.
Not a dream?!
Then am I...
Reborn?!
He had read many tales of the strange and supernatural in the past, with tropes about dying and being reborn decades earlier.
He never expected that one day, he would encounter such a thing himself.
It took a long time for Zhang Haobo to finally calm down.
He strove to recall the scenes of his previous life.
Unfortunately, perhaps because that crimson figure had been so terrifying that it virtually consumed his entire mind, of the events in his past life, he only had faint impressions of a few major occurrences.
Even so...
This was already enough.
He looked back at his wife, still sound asleep, and his gaze hardened with resolve.
More than ten years remained before that tragedy occurred.
If preparations were made early and an ambush laid in advance, that crimson figure could surely be slain!
The first thing to do was break through to the early Qi Refining stage.
Then join the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals.
Rebirth was far too bizarre and miraculous to reveal to anyone.
He also had to think of a way to make the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals believe that crimson figure would truly appear.
Zhang Haobo regained the mindset of that late Qi Condensation cultivator from his previous life, his mind constantly calculating and scheming.
***
Li Fan watched Zhang Haobo's shifting expressions. Seeing that he had no intention of fleeing immediately, Li Fan nodded inwardly.
The rebirth Zhang Haobo believed he was experiencing was, naturally, the effect of Li Fan's Cloud Water Illusory Dream Technique.
With the future he had genuinely lived through serving as the blueprint, a fabricated dream was more than enough to deceive a mortal.
Unfortunately, his current mastery was still shallow; even though he had experienced the future, he could not know everything.
Therefore, the illusory dream he constructed still bore considerable flaws.
To bolster the dream's credibility, Li Fan had even paid a steep price, bringing out the *Sea-Calming Divine Sword*, neutered down to the Foundation Establishment stage.
All so that Zhang Haobo could act in his stead, prodding the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals into doing battle with that Crimson Flame.
Li Fan wanted to know: if the arrival of the anima of Heaven and Earth were known in advance, just how would the cultivators on Wanxian Island react?
Of course, to prevent Zhang Haobo from being terrified by the Crimson Flame's power and choosing to flee right away, he had also embedded psychological suggestions in the illusory dream, instilling in him a sense of responsibility to prevent the tragedy for the sake of his family and companions.
At the same time, he had altered the Crimson Flame's strength, making it appear not quite so invincible, rendering it beatable.
Looking at it now, the effect was quite good.
In the future, he would need to come by every so often to reinforce it with the Cloud Water Illusory Dream Technique.
Thinking this, Li Fan used the Formless Killing Intent to secretly lock onto Zhang Haobo, preventing him from slipping away unnoticed.
Chapter 94