Those fiendgods were thought avatars of Li Fan, rooted deep in their seas of consciousness the moment they mastered God Descends upon the Body.
Every movement, even their emotions and thoughts, lay within Li Fan's control.
Could that truly be avoided simply by "not using" them?
"It is only natural that they have their petty thoughts, so long as they serve my purpose. The path of strange beasts still holds boundless potential for now."
Li Fan paid no mind to the two-faced nature of Qing and the others from the Empire. No matter what, they could never escape the palm of his hand.
To test the efficacy of the Heaven and Earth Furnace, Li Fan returned to the Spirit Wood Realm and traveled directly through the spatial passage into the Beast Seed Realm.
He placed one of the finished furnaces atop a mountain peak and laid down protective formations around it.
Then, leaving behind a wisp of divine sense, he observed the changes brought about by the Heaven and Earth Furnace.
The formations merely prevented strange beasts from destroying the furnace; they did not obstruct the dispersal of the generated spiritual energy.
Gradually, the dense spiritual energy gathering around the strange apparatus on the peak drew the attention of the beasts across the mountain.
Although the vast majority were low-tier beasts that had not yet gained sapience, their innate sensitivity to spiritual energy drove them to swarm together and crowd before the Heaven and Earth Furnace, greedily absorbing as much pure spiritual energy as they could.
Lacking cultivation methods, they could not actively channel spiritual energy into their bodies. Most of the spiritual energy continued to spill over and radiate into the surroundings.
Ten days passed, and the once-nondescript hill had suddenly become vibrant with life.
"At this rate, to transform a spiritless pocket world into one meeting the bare minimum requirements for cultivation would take roughly one hundred Heaven and Earth Furnaces running continuously for a century."
"With ten thousand furnaces, it would take just one year!"
Having obtained the rough numbers, Li Fan immediately summoned the treeman clan.
With the continuous elevation of the Spirit Wood Realm and the feedback from Lin Ling's advancing cultivation, the strength of the treeman matriarch had been growing by the day.
She had now reached the late Soul Formation realm, just a single step away from Dao Integration.
Within the treeman clan, individuals with Nascent Soul combat strength were emerging one after another.
Compared to when Li Fan first took over the Spirit Wood Realm, the clan's overall strength had undergone a qualitative leap.
Because of this, the treemen held supreme reverence for Li Fan.
The matriarch came before Li Fan, knelt down, and kowtowed. "Greetings, Venerable!"
Li Fan set a Heaven and Earth Furnace before her and explained its forging method in detail.
"From this day forth, mobilize the power of your entire clan to craft this item."
"Within three years, I want every pocket world connected to the Spirit Wood Realm made suitable for cultivation."
The matriarch immediately accepted the order and departed.
A short while later, watching the bustling treemen, Li Fan nodded slightly.
Tireless treemen were truly the most suitable candidates for this kind of work.
Moreover, with the continuous progress of formation refining, the entire Spirit Wood Realm was now firmly under Li Fan's total control.
A single thought could decide their life or death, so there was no risk of losing control.
A few days later, Tianyang, who had been idle and bored, noticed the treemen's efforts and volunteered to oversee the matter.
He felt that forging the Heaven and Earth Furnaces and placing them one by one in every corner of the pocket worlds was remarkably similar to planting trees and cultivating forests.
He found it endlessly entertaining.
With Tianyang's help, Li Fan had even less reason to worry.
Li Fan taught Tianyang the formation deduced by the Terminal Dissociation Disc—one specifically designed to protect and connect all the Heaven and Earth Furnaces—and simply became a hands-off manager.
Back then, Tianyang had been able to forge his puppet body using the Earth Fire Origin-Returning Formation; his attainment in formations was already remarkable.
Lately, his mind had grown clearer by the day, and under Li Fan's personal guidance, he quickly mastered the formation completely.
When Li Fan asked Tianyang to name the formation, Tianyang gave a simple, honest smile.
After pondering for seven days and seven nights, he finally came up with a good name: the Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation.
Using all deployed Heaven and Earth Furnaces as nodes, the Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation formed a spiritual network that spanned across pocket worlds.
Once the grand formation reached a certain scale, even if a node were damaged, the lost spiritual energy could be compensated for through the network, preventing any drop in the overall concentration of spiritual energy.
In addition to dispersing spiritual energy, the spiritual network offered numerous functions, such as surveillance, attack, and defense.
In Li Fan's conception, the ultimate form of the Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation would be a tier above even the Profound Net—an ultimate creation capable of autonomously generating and evolving a cultivation world.
"Right now it is merely smaller in scale, but fundamentally, it is already quite close."
"However, it still requires a core for deduction and overall coordination, something like the Heavenly Profound Mirror."
"Only the Heavenly Profound Mirror could sustain the scale envisioned for the Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation. Aside from that, not even my Terminal Dissociation Disc can manage it."
Li Fan's thoughts surged, taking a long time to settle.
Suddenly, an inexplicable feeling of unease disrupted his train of thought.
Li Fan's expression shifted slightly. With a flash of his body, he stepped straight out of the Spirit Wood Realm.
Shortly after arriving in the Xuanhuang Realm, the voice of the Heavenly Physician echoed in his mind.
"Found you at last."
"I sensed that the seal on the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace has loosened. To prevent outside interference, go there and reinforce the seal."
As soon as the Heavenly Physician finished speaking, a restriction named Hidden World Concealing the Void surfaced in Li Fan's mind.
The Heavenly Physician seemed exceedingly busy.
Before Li Fan could even respond, the presence faded into silence.
Li Fan remained expressionless, but his heart sank.
*Year 11 of the anchor, the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace opens.*
*I nearly forgot about this.*
*What does the Heavenly Physician mean by this assignment? A probe, or something else?*
Li Fan was not entirely surprised that the Heavenly Physician could pinpoint and contact him directly.
After all, he had met him face-to-face in this lifetime and had accepted the Mending the Heavens Record from him.
That was the price of direct contact with the Heavenly Physician.
Still, such a lack of security left Li Fan somewhat displeased.
Without hesitating for long, Li Fan cupped his hands toward the sky and rushed toward the Congyun Sea.
He arrived at the center of the Congyun Sea, where the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace lay.
Although the palace had not yet officially revealed itself to the world, faint celestial phenomena had already begun to manifest in the sky.
From time to time, passing cultivators paused to watch.
Using the restriction passed down by the Heavenly Physician, Li Fan entered the interior soundlessly.
He had been on guard against stepping into the illusion of Senior Brother Qin Tang, but unexpectedly, he appeared right before the main gate of the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace.
He had not entered Senior Brother Qin's illusory trial.
Not far away, the stone statue that Qin Tang had transformed into stood quietly, as if untouched across eternity.
The entire Cloud Water Heavenly Palace was utterly silent.
It was as though every anomaly within lay deep in slumber.
This was the first time Li Fan had seen the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace in its sealed state.
Compared to how it had appeared before, the Cloud Water Heavenly Palace gave Li Fan the impression of nothing more than an ordinary sect where cultivators were resting.
It bore no trace of the eeriness born of complete devastation and rampaging anomalies.
Chapter 952