A profound black long robe, embroidered with nine golden dragons entwined around one another.
The imperial headdress's beads draped down, veiling the face and obscuring his features.
"Worthily the Heavenly Mandate Holy Emperor; mortals can scarcely hope to glimpse the dragon countenance."
Sun Erlang felt Li Fan's gaze upon him, his body trembling slightly as he instinctively lowered his head.
At the sa ti, he said hoarsely: "In response to Teacher, this disciple is incompetent. I only broke through to the first layer of Qi Condensation yesterday."
"With rely the scant spiritual qi gathered within the palace, for you to complete the drawing of qi into the body in such a short ti is no small feat." Li Fan did not reproach him; instead, he nodded in consolation.
Hearing this, Sun Erlang's face showed even greater guilt: "If not for the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Mantra that Teacher imparted, I fear that even now I would still be plagued by the miasma within my body, forever barred from the immortal path."
With that, Sun Erlang kowtowed several resounding tis in profound gratitude.
Li Fan did not stop him.
Once Sun Erlang rose again, he asked indifferently: "How has the overall progress been for the Imperial Guard in learning the Immortal Heart Mantra?"
"As of yesterday, a total of one hundred sixty soldiers have successfully entered the gate and shed their mortal fras. The rest who failed the trial have all been thoroughly dealt with." A flicker of reluctance passed through Sun Erlang's eyes, but it was quickly concealed.
"You all shall henceforth be the main force in my conquest of myriad realms; you must cultivate diligently day and night, without slacking."
"As for the matter of spiritual qi, worry not. In three days, you will personally board this immortal boat and head to the Eastern Ruins Abyss."
With a casual point of his finger, Li Fan summoned a ten-zhang wooden boat before Sun Erlang.
The boat was inscribed all over with silver lines, emanating waves of profound aura.
"Truly an immortal treasure. For Master to entrust such a wondrous item to so readily." Sun Erlang's heart tightened; he hastily nodded in assent.
The immortal boat then flew into his embrace.
A sensation of perfect control, like an extension of his own arm, imdiately arose in Sun Erlang's mind.
"Withdraw." Just as he was savoring the boat's mysteries, Li Fan's voice tily sounded.
Sun Erlang bowed in salute and took his leave.
The entire rear garden of the imperial palace was now left with Li Fan alone.
Beneath the headdress's beads, in the shadows, the faceless visage appeared both strange and eerie.
"Heh, if not for the fact that this world is destined not to endure for long, and thus my casual attempt at imparting the law to others, I might have taken much longer to discover that the Xuanhuang Immortal Heart Mantra is not subject to the restriction of 'law of incompatible cultivation.'"
"Is it that the Immortal Heart Mantra does not fall under the category of cultivation thods, or is it a special grace left by the Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao for the Xuanhuang Great Celestial Venerable?"
"Either way, the plan to select a suitable successor for the Xuanhuang Great Celestial Venerable in the future will prove far easier to execute than imagined."
Li Fan's thoughts turned slowly. With a flicker, he appeared atop the Holy Emperor Base tower standing tall in Xuan Capital City.
Strands of faint spiritual qi nourished Li Fan's body.
This kept his current late Foundation Establishnt realm from regressing due to the lack of spiritual qi.
Having undergone over a hundred reincarnations, with his highest strength reaching the Soul Transformation realm, comparable to Dao Integration cultivators, Li Fan now, though returned to Foundation Establishnt, beheld the world through eyes that differed from his past lives.
For instance: a mortal small world like Great Xuan was not utterly devoid of spiritual qi, after all, it was still connected to the Xuanhuang Realm.
It was rely due to the small world's unique structure, combined with the blockade of the Immortal Severing Great Formation, that the spiritual qi was exceedingly sparse, virtually equivalent to none at all.
Ordinary thods of cultivation could not utilize it whatsoever. Only those animals with long lifespans, accumulating it bit by bit over days and months, could eke out a limited harvest of spiritual qi.
For instance, on Jieli Mountain, that serpent hundreds of feet long.
"All the spiritual qi of an entire world extracted could rely sustain a Foundation Establishnt cultivator's bare survival..."
"But borrowing so from the Xuanhuang Realm would be no issue."
The Taiyan Boat that Li Fan had given to Sun Erlang was newly fitted with so formations. The purpose was to automatically fly into the Xuanhuang Realm, absorb spiritual qi for storage, and then return.
Sun Erlang inside the Taiyan Boat naturally could not see what was happening outside the flying boat. All he needed to do was bring the boat to the edge of the Ruins Abyss.
Although with Li Fan's current level of formation dao, the act of stealing spiritual qi from the Xuanhuang Realm under the formations' concealnt would be hard for anyone to detect.
But it was not a long-term solution after all.
To create sothing from nothing and generate spiritual qi, he still needed to rely on the Dao One Insect.
The Dao One Insect was a peculiar exotic beast that Li Fan could not fabricate out of thin air.
However...
Skipping over the prompt to retain the previous life's options for Truth, Li Fan looked at his own panel.
Na: Li Fan
Realm: Late Foundation Establishnt
Physical Age: 20/399
ntal Age: 1399/9999
Virtual Transformation Charging Progress: 3%
Anchor Charging Progress: 0%
Current Anchor Points: 3
Current Available Anchor Slots: 1
Bound Items: Xuantian Mirror Origin (Damaged), Taiyan Boat, Ten Thousand Beasts Condensation Crystal, Ten Thousand People's Essence Blood, Dao Deviation Stone, Final Dissociation Disc
...
"Physical age has returned to the 399 years befitting a Foundation Establishnt realm, but no need to mind it. Before the lifespan limit arrives, I should have long since undergone activating Truth."
"The ntal age upper limit, even after once breaking through to Soul Transformation, did not grow accordingly; it seems it has hit a threshold..."
Li Fan rely glanced over these before skipping past them.
He focused his attention primarily on the anchor point quantity and the bound items.
Originally, the available anchor slots was 2, but after absorbing the newborn Five Elents Cave-Heaven, it beca 3.
As for now, only one remained.
That was because Li Fan had used a blank anchor point to complete the replacent of bound items.
The "Thousand chanisms Jade Cosmos Golden Sutra" had been replaced by Xuantian Mirror Origin.
The Halted-Step Remnant Stele (Damaged) had beco the Myriad Beasts Condensation Crystal.
Anchor points were originally hard-won, but in the process of absorbing the newborn Five Elents Cave-Heaven and generating anchor points, Li Fan had gained new insight into the essence of anchor points.
Heaven And Earth Wonders, Golden Core laws, and Nascent Soul Cave-Heavens.
The reason Truth required absorbing these things to serve as anchor points was very likely because Truth was completing its cognition of "external objects."
Just as the Tianxuan Mirror elevated itself through asuring heaven and earth, Truth simply and crudely did so through devouring and absorbing experience.
"So it's the exact opposite of what I thought before."
"The closer sothing is to the world's essence, the more recharging progress it provides. Foundation Establishnt wonders and Golden Cores law are too thin; they simply cannot satisfy Truth's needs."
"So the number of generated anchor points from absorption is instead limited."
"Conversely, Nascent Soul Cave-Heavens, life transformations of birth, and even the spirit of heaven and earth will provide massive amounts of recharging progress."
"With the colossal Xuanhuang Realm as nourishnt, the quantity of anchor points is temporarily not sothing to worry about overly."
Thus, Li Fan unhesitatingly activated the anchor point replacent function directly.
The Xuantian Mirror Origin had been obtained by a stroke of fortune in his previous life.
As for the Ten Thousand Beasts Condensation Crystal...
In his previous life, right before ultimately executing the world-destruction plan, Li Fan had gone to various small worlds for a final inventory.
The Ten Thousand Beasts Wheel was the harvest from the Empire as well as from Xu Ke's place.
Li Fan's thoughts slowly drifted back to that ti.
"The Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance's sudden assault; the Federation of All Worlds headquarters annihilated?" Xiao Qing's face turned deathly pale upon hearing Li Fan's words.
"If I had not severed the Spiritwood Realm's connection to you in ti, I'm afraid the Empire would already have beco a pile of ruins by now." Li Fan sighed slightly.
The Imperial Daughter and Xiao Hong exchanged a glance, their hearts both filled with lingering fear.
"But you need not worry excessively. Although the Spiritwood Realm was destroyed, the vast majority of headquarters mbers escaped safely and are temporarily in hiding. Once the storm passes, the Federation of All Worlds can rise again in an instant." Li Fan deceived them with an unchanged expression.
Upon hearing this blatant lie, the Empire and the others instead felt reassured.
While listening to the Empire and the others' report on recent events, Li Fan arrived at the Empire's treasury.
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