"The Xuanhuang Realm..."
"It truly is fraught with peril. Back then, we survivors of the various realms clashed with the Xuanhuang Realm. Now that I am alone and revisiting this old haunt, I naturally must be even more cautious," Daoist Baihua explained.
"Oh? You had a conflict back then? How so? When calamity struck, shouldn't our fellow cultivators have joined hands to weather the crisis together?" With a moment's thought, Li Fan guessed the likely cause of the clash.
When a band of homeless wanderers stumbled upon a rich cultivation world like the Xuanhuang Realm, all manner of greed was bound to arise. The King of Profound Heaven must still have been around back then, and he certainly would have barred such schemers at the gate.
Yet Li Fan feigned ignorance to ask.
Daoist Baihua's answer essentially matched Li Fan's deduction: "That Half-Immortal was truly overbearing. He flatly refused our proposal to unite against the calamity and moved to expel us on the spot.
"Heh, naturally, some among us were displeased. And so, we exchanged a few pointers..."
Golden light flickered over Daoist Baihua's silhouette. Evidently, the exchange she spoke of had been far from a friendly spar.
"He truly lived up to being a Half-Immortal baptized by immortal spiritual qi. Even though his ascension was incomplete, his might was more than enough to crush ordinary cultivators. Knowing we were outmatched, we could only retreat. That Half-Immortal did have an immortal's bearing, however. Bearing no grudges, he even gifted us plenty of supplies before we departed..." Daoist Baihua sighed with nostalgia.
*It seems that while the King of Profound Heaven cared deeply for the common mortals and cultivators of Xuanhuang, he was no foolish philanthropist. He maintained a strong wariness toward outsiders—especially in the midst of a raging calamity. Still, he was far too merciful. If it were me, I would have slaughtered them all down to the last person and plundered every shred of their resources. In an apocalyptic end-time, every scrap of resources means another shred of hope for survival. Letting tigers return to the mountain only breeds future ruin...* Countless thoughts flashed through Li Fan's mind in an instant.
He concealed his faint killing intent well, but it still did not escape the perception of Daoist Baihua's Liuli Body.
Daoist Baihua paused mid-sentence, bewildered as to where this sudden, inexplicable killing intent had come from.
*Could it be that this person has some connection to that Half-Immortal from back then?* A sudden shock stirred in Daoist Baihua's heart.
After a moment's contemplation, she took the initiative to steer the conversation away from the past and back to the disappearance of the fishing pond. "After arriving in the Xuanhuang Realm, I remained attached to Little Liuli. First, because I sensed the Xuanhuang Realm seemed far more dangerous than it had been back then, and second, because the Liuli Wisdom Fruit is of immense benefit to my cultivation...
"Life went by quite peacefully until the arrival of Fellow Daoist and that stone slab cultivator.
"Had he merely fished for treasures from the pond, it would have been fine. Yet he insisted on attempting to comprehend some 'Dao of Angling'..."
At this point, Daoist Baihua glanced at Li Fan.
The slab's decision back then had been closely tied to Li Fan's instigation.
"This supreme treasure, the fishing pond, clearly comes from the hand of a Nameless True Immortal who had already established their own Dao path. How could one's personal Dao path brook encroachment from others?
"In trying to comprehend the Dao of Angling, the slab was bound to suffer a backlash. As for where he and the fishing pond were swept away to, I fear it lies beyond what you and I can ever fathom." Daoist Baihua shook her head, letting out a soft sigh.
Li Fan remained silent.
Daoist Baihua's explanation showed no flaws. If he asked himself honestly, should anyone ever attempt to use True Reversion to comprehend the method of turning illusion into reality and reversing spacetime, Li Fan would certainly fight them to the death.
Soon, however, another thought occurred to Li Fan, and his brow furrowed slightly. "Since a True Immortal's Dao path brooked no encroachment, why did that Dao-Inscribing Immortal leave behind several True Immortal seal characters? The Immortal of the Immortal Ruins meditated on the Dao for thousands of years—why didn't that draw the Dao-Inscribing Immortal's attention?"
Daoist Baihua paused in thought, seeming to organize her words. "Fellow Daoist might have misunderstood. The Dao that the Immortal of the Immortal Ruins is comprehending may well have nothing to do with the Dao-Inscribing Immortal's path.
"The Dao-Inscribing Immortal's path allows him to inscribe the Dao into characters. Meanwhile, the Immortal of the Immortal Ruins merely uses the character 'Hunger' to seek enlightenment...
"The Dao path he pursues might be Hunger itself, or something related to Hunger. But it certainly is not Dao-Inscribing...
"Do you understand what I mean, Fellow Daoist?" Daoist Baihua looked toward Li Fan.
Li Fan pondered for a moment and gave a slight nod.
It was not that he was too foolish to grasp such a simple distinction, but rather that a sudden idea had popped into his mind, which he wished to verify against Daoist Baihua's words.
*I once saw chains binding the Immortal of the Immortal Ruins, and originally thought they were shackles placed by an outsider to suppress him.*
*Thinking about it now, it is far more likely that the immortal bound himself. As for the purpose, it was probably to prevent himself from losing control while meditating on the character Hunger. No, immortals disregard mortal life; it is unlikely he did it purely to spare the innocent. More likely, he feared that losing control would compromise his own Dao path...*
*So that's how it is. The Dao path he cultivates might be related to resisting the primal instinct of hunger.*
Extrapolating from human nature was Li Fan's forte, and in a split second, he deduced a great deal.
Seeing Li Fan lost in thought, Daoist Baihua remained silent as well.
After a long while, Li Fan spoke once more: "Though you have explained much, Fellow Daoist, there is ultimately no concrete proof. Those not of our kind cannot be trusted without vigilance. For the sake of all living beings in Xuanhuang, I fear I must wrong you for a time..."
Li Fan's reaction seemed well within Daoist Baihua's expectations. Without the slightest agitation, she said in a deep voice, "What if I am now a cultivator of the Xuanhuang Realm as well?"
Li Fan was taken aback. "What do you mean by that?"
"I borrowed Liuli's physical form to reshape my Liuli Body. And Liuli took form within the Xuanhuang Realm with the aid of the power of Heaven and Earth...
"In a certain sense, I am now an entity nurtured and birthed by the Heaven and Earth of the Xuanhuang Realm," Daoist Baihua said with a faint smile.
"If Fellow Daoist does not believe me, you may accompany me back into the Xuanhuang Realm and perceive the will of Heaven and Earth for yourself. At my level of power, if I were an outsider, Heaven and Earth would instinctively feel revulsion toward me. Any cultivator within the realm could see it at a glance; it cannot be concealed."
To verify her claim, Li Fan brought Daoist Baihua into the Xuanhuang Realm proper.
In an instant, he shifted into the perspective of Heaven and Earth.
Sure enough, Li Fan saw that Heaven and Earth bore no malice whatsoever toward Daoist Baihua.
Faintly, there was even a sense of intimacy and recruitment within it.
Li Fan could not help feeling a strange sensation.
"What is your current cultivation level, Fellow Daoist?" he asked.
"Well, back in the Wansheng Realm, once my cultivation reached completion and my body transformed into liuli, the next step would have been undergoing the baptism of Heavenly Tribulation and ascending to immortalhood.
"Though the immortal path was severed, preventing me from ascending and leaving my realm stagnant, my strength has continued to grow over all these years, especially after absorbing the Liuli Wisdom Fruit...
"If measured by the realms of the Xuanhuang Realm, I suppose it would correspond to the Longevity realm."
Chapter 984