“Divine sense communication is inconvenient; let us meet in person instead.”
“While we are at it, I will hand that rare treasure over to you.”
“Heh, lately I constantly feel like someone is watching me. It is better to be cautious.”
After transmitting his location coordinates, Mo Rubin vanished without a trace once more.
Li Fan sensed the glowing dot on the map surfacing within his sea of consciousness and remained silent.
“Is this a test? Or a trap?”
Ever since he decided to temporarily observe the situation and hold off on using True Reversion, a nagging sense of unease had lingered in Li Fan’s heart.
Yet no matter how he turned it over in his mind or examined himself, he could not identify the root of this anxiety.
“Holding off on True Reversion should not be a problem. So what could it be...?”
Li Fan’s brow furrowed slightly.
His spiritual intuition had always been extraordinarily keen. Right now, he felt like a traveler walking through a dense forest; though his heading was correct and no beasts threatened him for the moment, a crisis sensed in the unseen depths told him there had to be something he was overlooking.
Li Fan knew that the source of this dissonance likely stemmed from that Faceless True Immortal stone statue.
“The Profound Heaven Divine Statue, the Profound Heaven Dharma Kings...”
A thought of Mo Rubin flashed through Li Fan’s mind, and he immediately made up his mind.
“Even though he probably regards me as one of his own now, I cannot afford to drop my guard.”
Li Fan recalled the scene of Mo Rubin devouring Dharma Transmitter Feng.
Over this period, Li Fan had also formed preliminary deductions and analyses regarding Mo Rubin’s abilities.
Compared to Senior Sister Zhao’s power, Mo Rubin’s was more akin to mirroring and assimilation.
“As long as I maintain my original nature and do not let that illusory mirror-thread bewitch me, I should be able to stave off the assimilation process. Protected by both the Seven-Colored Divine Light and the Immortal Heart Incantation, even if I cannot win, fleeing should pose little problem.”
“If worse comes to worst, I can always release Daoist Baihua to draw the enemy’s fire. She is a Longevity realm cultivator, after all; she can certainly hold him off for a brief moment.”
This lingering, inexplicable unease made Li Fan’s thoughts far more tangled than usual, leading him to proceed with even greater caution.
Once thoroughly prepared, Li Fan quietly arrived at the agreed rendezvous.
It was an unremarkable peak in Tianchen Province, on the periphery of the Alliance of Ten Thousand Immortals’ four central provinces.
The rocky mountain soared straight into the clouds.
Hidden beneath a sea of clouds, halfway up the mountainside, was an inconspicuous cavern.
At first extremely narrow, barely wide enough for a single person to pass, it opened up into a spacious hollow after several tens of paces.
Mo Rubin had already been waiting inside for some time.
There was no trace of formations or restrictions outside the cavern, and from without, one could detect no cultivator aura within.
Only upon stepping into the cave and standing before Mo Rubin did his presence finally become perceptible.
“This is one of Dharma Transmitter Feng’s safe houses—a concealed grotto-heaven naturally formed by heaven and earth. It is the sort of place spoken of in legends, which none may discover without the destined affinity. Meeting here poses no danger to either of us,” Mo Rubin explained calmly, seated behind a stone table in his original guise.
“What safe house? I encountered no hindrance whatsoever and just strolled right in,” Li Fan scoffed, affecting disdain.
Mo Rubin smiled faintly. “Brother Xingwang, that is where you are mistaken. The only reason it was so effortless is that I gave you the coordinates of this concealed grotto-heaven in advance. If you came searching for it alone without knowing beforehand...”
“Your divine sense would detect nothing. Even if your eyes fell upon it, your mind would subconsciously overlook the entrance, leaving you unable to enter no matter how diligently you searched! Such is the miraculous handiwork of heaven and earth—even with power like ours, we cannot possibly fathom it all!”
Li Fan ignored Mo Rubin’s marveling and cut in coldly and impatiently, “Enough with the useless chatter. Where is that rare treasure capable of deducing formations?”
Mo Rubin shook his head, then casually tossed an object across the table.
Li Fan caught it and paused slightly.
The item differed from what he had anticipated—it was not one of the Dissociation Discs, but a green cube he had never seen before.
“What is this thing...?”
The moment Li Fan lightly touched the cube, it instantly disassembled into tens of thousands of smaller cubes.
Like living creatures, they gathered and parted in midair, arranging themselves into orderly, shifting patterns.
Li Fan closely examined one of the tiny cubes and found, to his astonishment, that it was composed of a complex layering of over a hundred distinct formations.
“An array coronet?” The name sprang unbidden into Li Fan’s mind.
However, he did not betray that he recognized it, merely looking up and fixing his gaze on Mo Rubin, awaiting an explanation.
“This is the Lifeless Array Coronet. It was discovered and submitted by Lancang Province not long ago.”
“An array coronet, simply put, is hundreds or thousands of formations stacked together. But this Lifeless Array Coronet continuously evolves and branches out from what was once an ordinary array coronet.”
“It is said to be the remnant of a Soul Formation array master who perished in an anomalous incident. After research by the Alliance, the preliminary conclusion is that an anomaly’s extra-realm laws mutated while fusing with a wonder of heaven and earth, thereby causing the array coronet itself to transform,” Mo Rubin explained in detail.
Li Fan immediately grasped the implications of Mo Rubin’s words. Wonders of heaven and earth were physical manifestations of the Xuanhuang Realm’s laws, while anomalies were the distorted, lingering remnants of laws from worlds that had been devoured.
When the two merged, extraordinary mutations could occur.
When Li Fan had first grasped the true origin of anomalies, he had envisioned such a possibility. Regrettably, he had never encountered an actual example until now. To think Mo Rubin would simply produce one out of thin air.
Indeed, the vast reservoir of resources a Dharma Transmitter could command was an advantage that Li Fan could not bridge in the short term, even across multiple reincarnations armed with foresight.
Li Fan knew of the item, but Sun Xingwang could not possibly know.
Putting on an exasperated, overwhelmed front, Li Fan interrupted Mo Rubin, “Enough, enough, stop chanting scriptures at me. Just tell me how to use the damn thing.”
“The Lifeless Array Coronet is in a constant state of derivation, using arrays to birth arrays, on to infinity. All you need to do is periodically inscribe formations into it and allow it to evolve on its own. Like beasts fighting in a pit, whichever emerges alive will inevitably be the strongest,” Mo Rubin explained patiently, taking no offense.
“That sounds simple enough, though a bit unreliable...” Li Fan muttered as he scrutinized the green Lifeless Array Coronet.
“There is no problem. While somewhat unpredictable, it will certainly achieve our goal. Inscribing the Profound Heaven Nether-Lock takes immense time and effort. As I am currently stationed at Alliance headquarters under countless watchful eyes, it is inconvenient for me to act. I have no choice but to entrust it to you,” Mo Rubin said solemnly.
“Truth be told, there is another rare treasure whose ability to deduce formations surpasses even this: the Dissociation Disc. Alas, envied by heaven, it was shattered into nine parts. Assembling all nine discs would take far too long, and we simply cannot afford to wait. We had to abandon that thought,” Mo Rubin added with a touch of regret.
Chapter 989