Three days later, as if to confirm Li Fan’s words, he received ten thousand contribution points along with three Grade B merits.
This compensation was a clear message: forget everything related to Zhou Qing’ang and never mention it again.
Li Fan raised no objections and accepted the reward without hesitation.
Ten thousand contribution points was nothing to scoff at. More importantly, his permission level advanced to Yan 10, unlocking a new tier of privileges.
With this level of access, searches through the Tianxuan Mirror now allowed him to preview information that would normally require a full cultivation realm higher.
In other words, despite still being at the Foundation Establishment realm, Li Fan could now browse certain secrets reserved exclusively for Golden Core cultivators and above.
As usual, he began by searching for techniques that enhanced multi-tasking abilities.
This time, a result finally appeared. Yet after carefully reading the technique's description, Li Fan frowned.
The technique was called One Person, Thousand Faces.
While mastery of it could indeed greatly enhance multi-process handling capabilities, it came with an unavoidable side effect: prolonged cultivation would gradually split the practitioner’s mind into multiple personalities. In essence, it induced a form of dissociative identity disorder.
Li Fan had no intention of turning himself into a madman. So with some regret, he abandoned the technique.
In truth, he already had someone else in mind to consult about multi-tasking methods: Jiao Xiuyuan, the cultivator of the Myriad Puppets Dao.
Jiao Xiuyuan’s puppet avatars were scattered across the cultivation world, numbering in the thousands. Yet each puppet was lifelike in every detail. Whether expression, movement, or even temperament, they were indistinguishable from a real person.
During their previous encounters, Li Fan had been completely unable to tell that they were puppets at all
To control so many puppets simultaneously without the slightest lag clearly required an extraordinary method. Whether this was an inherent feature of the Myriad Puppets Dao or the result of some separate technique, Li Fan did not yet know.
His avatar had already tried to contact Jiao Xiuyuan to inquire about this. However, Jiao Xiuyuan seemed to still be reeling from his massive losses in the Spirit Mist Grass affair. Thousand Li Hall remained closed to visitors, and he gave no response at all.
For now, Li Fan could only wait.
With no suitable technique found, Li Fan turned to testing his newly unlocked privileges.
Previously, he had been unable to find any direct information about the Fallen Immortal Realm, forcing him to disguise himself and gather clues indirectly just to learn how items could be brought out.
That was no longer the case.
Now, the moment he searched for the Fallen Immortal Realm, countless results were immediately displayed.
He soon discovered that all such information was concentrated in a relatively independent forum called Seeking Immortals.
Within Seeking Immortals, discussions were strictly limited to matters concerning the Fallen Immortal Realm. Any post involving real-world affairs would be immediately locked and deleted.
Users could post either under their real identities or apply for anonymous accounts to reduce the risk of exposure.
Li Fan chose not to register and instead quietly browsed the available content.
Most posts consisted of experience-sharing, discussions of encounters within the Fallen Immortal Realm, and theories about methods for bringing items to reality.
Some cultivators who had successfully brought objects back even posted detailed guides. These could be accessed for a modest fee, provided the reader first signed a confidentiality contract.
Out of curiosity, Li Fan searched for information about Ningyuan City.
To his surprise, despite the vast sea of available records, there was not a single entry related to it.
He then searched for the Purple Firmament Sect and Zhang Qianmo.
Once again, no cultivator reported ever encountering Zhang Qianmo, though there was no shortage of information about the Purple Firmament Sect itself.
As Li Fan read through those records, he gradually realized something: other cultivators only encountered the Purple Firmament Sect after it had already been destroyed. The sect grounds were invariably described as strewn with corpses, devoid of even a single living soul.
Only then did Li Fan come to a sudden realization.
Every time he entered the Fallen Immortal Realm, the time point he arrived at was different from that of ordinary cultivators.
The period in which Zhang Qianmo and his junior brother Li Chen traveled to Ningyuan City to retrieve the Longevity Fruits had occurred shortly after the birth of the new methodology, long before it became widespread.
By contrast, most cultivators entered the Fallen Immortal Realm at a much later time point. By then, the conflict between the new and old methodologies had already concluded. The rule that no technique could be cultivated by more than one person had been firmly established for over thirty years. Order was already on the brink of collapse, and a great slaughter loomed.
The struggle between the new and old methodologies lasted several decades. Afterward, the new methodology flourished unchecked, and the cultivator population eventually reached its limit, triggering the countermeasures of heaven and earth. That process alone tookseveral hundred more years...
Being trapped in an isolated area is one thing, but how could the time point differ so drastically from that of other cultivators?
Countless questions surged through Li Fan’s mind.
He immediately searched for records concerning discrepancies in time points.
While such cases were rare, they were not unheard of.
One cultivator had once appeared in a region of the Fallen Immortal Realm completely devoid of cultivators.
That area seemed to be an independent world of its own, a peculiar space where cultivators had gone entirely extinct, allowing mortal civilization to develop uninterrupted for several millennia.
This was believed to represent a possible future time point.
Another cultivator arrived in the Fallen Immortal Realm at a location set far in the distant past, in the midst of a catastrophic war.
The factions involved were unknown, but the number of cultivators participating was said to be utterly staggering.
According to this cultivator, who used the alias Peerless One, they were “packed densely, like ants, filling the entire space.
“Artifacts and techniques flashed without end.
“Every moment, countless cultivators fell.
“Golden Core and Nascent Soul cultivators served only as cannon fodder for charging the arrays. Spirit Transformation, Dao Unity, and even Eternal Heavenly Venerables were locked in battle, falling one after another.
“Earth and space were torn apart. Chaotic black lightning descended from beyond space itself, and cultivators fell like rain.
“It was truly a scene of apocalypse.”
Because the account was so fantastical, and because Peerless One was the only cultivator to have experienced it, the overwhelming majority dismissed his story as fabrication.
Peerless One swore vicious oaths in response, declaring that every word he spoke was witnessed with his own eyes, and that if he had exaggerated even slightly, may his body perish and his Dao be extinguished, his form and spirit utterly destroyed.
Such an oath did intimidate some listeners. Even so, most cultivators remained unconvinced.
Beyond these two cases, there were many other records of similarly bizarre encounters.
Only then did Li Fan truly understand the meaning behind Chen Ying’s words: the Fallen Immortal Realm was a world formed from the consciousness of a being before their fall. Within it, anything, no matter how inconceivable, was possible.
Such a magnificent world, and yet I’m confined to this tiny Ningyuan City...
It was truly unacceptable.
Li Fan couldn’t help but sigh.
I wonder if it will still be the same the next time I enter.
After giving the Seeking Immortals forum one last cursory glance, Li Fan prepared to leave.
Yet two words caught his eye.
“Gathering.”
“Exchange.”
Li Fan’s interest stirred. Without hesitation, he clicked in.