All Is in Readiness

It had to be said that Yan Fangzhou truly looked as though he had gone senile and demented. Even Li Fan, astute and cunning as he was, could not immediately tell whether he was feigning it. "No matter. A simple test will tell." With a shift of his thought, tens of thousands of hideous, terrifying devils and spirits descended into the formation in an instant. Darkness engulfed the entire space. Those grotesque, misshapen monsters all turned their eyes in unison toward Yan Fangzhou. Each wore a chilling, terrifying expression, and then pounced toward him. For a time, the shrieks of ghosts and howls of wolves echoed through the air. Amidst the myriad horrors, Yan Fangzhou, who had been sitting dumbly motionless, suddenly leapt to his feet. His eyes were bloodshot, and as he looked at the countless spectral monstrosities surrounding him, he could not help shuddering. Yet seeing the creatures about to fall upon him, Yan Fangzhou gritted his teeth and let out a desperate, furious roar: "I'll fight you to the death!" He then channeled the last sliver of cultivation left in him, battling tooth and nail against those devils and spirits. "Not bad. Quite a convincing act. You nearly fooled me." Li Fan offered a rare word of praise. Yet at his gesture, the attacks of those monstrous fiends grew all the more vicious. Because they were creations of divine intent, every strike that landed on Yan Fangzhou brought not only physical wounds and agony, but a corresponding torment to his divine soul. And as if toying with him, the fiends did not tear Yan Fangzhou to shreds all at once. Instead, blow by blow, they seemed to tear away a small shred of his soul each time. It inflicted no fatal injury, but magnified the agony a thousandfold. "Aaargh!" Yan Fangzhou let out a powerless, desperate howl, and was ultimately submerged beneath the swarm of ghosts. "'When Heaven is about to confer a great responsibility upon a person, it first exercises his mind with suffering and his sinews and bones with toil...' "Young man, I have high hopes for you." Li Fan nodded in satisfaction. With a flicker of his figure, he departed, leaving the myriad horrors behind to keep Yan Fangzhou company in his training. Returning to his cultivation chamber, Li Fan pondered: *Now that my technique is initially formed, its imposing aura is enough to impersonate Dharma King Sun Xingwang of the past.* *As for appearance and memories, they can be masked through the Secret Scripture of Sitting and Forgetting.* *Everything is in readiness. All that remains is for Mo Rubin to seek me out.* *I wonder how things are going on He Zhenghao's side...* Soon, with the aid of the faceless stone statue, numerous images surfaced in Li Fan's mind. Recently, He Zhenghao had prayed far less often. It was not that his faith in the Compassionate Immortal of the Mortal Dust had wavered, but that he had simply been too busy of late. Before a thought of silent gratitude could even take form in his heart, it was interrupted by official business. The so-called "official business" was the comprehensive implementation of Xuantian Spirit Sealing. Previously, through Li Fan's guidance, He Zhenghao had fully mastered the complete blueprints for Xuantian Spirit Sealing as well as the underlying comprehension of the array. And after a thorough vetting, the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals' Formation Planning Hall had likewise recognized the feasibility of Xuantian Spirit Sealing. The decision had been reached with great haste, completely unlike their usual bureaucratic foot-dragging. Approval from superiors was granted in short order, and the assignment was handed down: construct a true Xuantian Spirit-Sealing formation as soon as possible. At the same time, Alliance headquarters would provide a child mirror of the Heavenly Profound Mirror as a test subject for the formation's power. This experiment was practically one of the Alliance's top secrets. He Zhenghao had also been relocated from the Formation Planning Hall headquarters to another unknown location. It was evidently an ultra-classified site heavily guarded with defensive measures; even the sensing imagery from the faceless stone statue had grown somewhat blurred. But after all, its level of power was higher than that of the Xuanhuang Realm. And so the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals had failed to completely shut out Li Fan's scrutiny. Knowing and understanding a formation diagram and being able to construct the formation independently were two entirely different matters. He Zhenghao, who could boast eloquently on theory, encountered unimaginable difficulties when it came to practical execution. However, the Alliance also recognized the immense difficulty of creating such a formation, and dispatched six equally brilliant formation masters to assist him. Together, they probed and debated. Even Lu Xichan, the Chief of the Formation Planning Hall, frequently came by to inquire about the array's latest progress. While this exerted immense pressure on He Zhenghao, his blood also surged with fervent excitement. Pushing his array talent to the absolute limit, he actually succeeded in creating a preliminary Xuantian Spirit-Sealing formation without begging the Compassionate Immortal of the Mortal Dust for aid. A beam of dim light shot forth, striking an antique little mirror straight ahead. From the small mirror, a ring of ripples instinctively radiated outward, seemingly trying to resist the erosion of the dim light. The two contested each other for a moment, but in the end, it concluded with the victory of the antique mirror. He Zhenghao's face could not help falling into utter disappointment. The breath of pride he had held onto, desperate to prove himself, failed to catch, and he fainted right on the spot. This threw the surrounding cultivators into a flurry of panic. Although the first test ended in failure, the Alliance did not blame him. On the contrary, they offered soothing words of comfort. They even promised that if the Tianxuan Spirit-Sealing Formation were truly developed with success, Alliance headquarters would personally step in to act as matchmaker on He Zhenghao's behalf, allowing him to reconcile with Heng Ruoshui. Hearing this, He Zhenghao—who had seemed half-dead only moments before— leapt straight out of bed the very next second, demanding to proceed with the next test immediately. He Zhenghao knew that although the Heng family possessed vast influence, before the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals as a whole, they were completely negligible. If Alliance headquarters intervened, the elders of the Heng family would have no ground to oppose their marriage. Imagining the scene of returning to the Heng family in glory before long, He Zhenghao was instantly filled with boundless drive. All fatigue and toil were cast to the winds. Watching this scene, Li Fan could only shake his head repeatedly. *Since they have already investigated He Zhenghao's past records down to the finest detail, they surely cannot miss how he joined the Congyun Mutual Aid Society and soared to prominence ever after.* *It only remains to be seen when Mo Rubin will come knocking at my door.* A faint glimmer flickered in Li Fan's eyes. Yet passive waiting had never been Li Fan's way of doing things. He decided to stir up some trouble on his own initiative to draw Mo Rubin's attention. With a flicker of his figure, Li Fan exited the Spirit Wood Realm. Flying rapidly, he arrived at the frontier of Jiushan Province within half a day. At this moment, Jiushan Province was no longer a vast, empty plain bereft of life. Ever since the Five Elders Association made their formal apology, Jiushan Province had returned under the rule of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals. Moreover, this was where the Heavenly Venerable's dharma manifestation had first displayed divine might, attracting many Alliance cultivators who came to view the site. Some cultivators even sought to comprehend and glean the lethal divine abilities of the Heavenly Venerable's dharma manifestation from the remnants here. Coupled with the Alliance having secured an absolute strategic advantage, free from any worry of an incursion by the Five Elders Association in the short term, this originally desolate borderland had become remarkably bustling. The new floating celestial city was not yet completed, and the vast majority of cultivators were resting inside a defensive fortress on the ground. Discussing the past great war against the Five Elders Association, the cultivators were still beside themselves with excitement.