Not long after the Heavenly Venerable created the new methodology, and cultivators began to rely on plundering heaven and earth for their cultivation, the world struck back. A great upheaval descended.
The more people cultivated the same technique simultaneously, the slower everyone's cultivation speed became. This was known as the Exclusivity of Immortal Techniques, a fundamental rule of heaven and earth that existed to this day, and the primary reason why cultivation techniques were so precious.
But now, an obscure, minor sect had somehow produced a technique that seemed to defy this rule? Who would believe it?
At first, cultivators dismissed it as a joke, paying it no mind. Yet, there were always those desperate for an immortal technique but lacking a path, who felt that they had nothing to lose. So, they traversed mountains and rivers, journeying to Jiushan Province to investigate.
After joining the Spiritual Origin Sect and formally beginning their cultivation of the Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique, something astonishing happened to them.
The disciples of the Spiritual Origin Sect were indeed all cultivating this same technique. Practitioners spanned every realm, from Qi Refinement to Spirit Transformation. Most crucially, the ironclad law of the Exclusivity of Immortal Techniques seemed to have no effect on the Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique. There was no sign of cultivation slowing down due to an excessive number of practitioners.
The facts were irrefutable. However unbelievable it seemed, it had happened.
Soon, word of the Spiritual Origin Sect's miraculous technique spread throughout the entire cultivation world.
The public's first assumption was that its creator must have been a reclusive Eternal Heavenly Venerable. Only by defying the principles of heaven and earth could such an effect be achieved.
However, the world's knowledge of Eternal Heavenly Venerables was shallow. It relied almost entirely on the single line recorded in the Five Spirits Qi Sensing Method: "Defy the principles of heaven and earth to attain eternal life."
How one defied them, what exactly constituted defiance, to what degree one must defy them to achieve eternal life... all these questions were mere unreliable speculation.
Given the Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique's wondrous effects, such a guess was understandable.
It was, of course, incorrect.
The truth was finally revealed by Huang Yue, a Dao Unity Immortal Venerable from Tianqing Province, after she studied the Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique.
The heavenly rule of the Exclusivity of Immortal Techniques had not been defied at all. The reason practitioners of the Spiritual Origin Technique seemed unaffected was due solely to the technique's own inherent characteristic.
The more people cultivated the Spiritual Origin Technique simultaneously, the faster their cultivation speed became. This was the technique's special effect. But at the same time, due to heaven and earth's restriction, the more cultivators practiced it, the slower their cultivation speed became. These two effects existed concurrently.
The result was that they cancelled each other out. The Spiritual Origin Technique thus became a technique that could, just barely, be cultivated.
In fact, according to Immortal Venerable Huang Yue, in the very beginning, when the number of practitioners was still below five, the restrictive effect of heaven and earth far outweighed the technique's acceleration effect.
With a normal technique, five people cultivating it together would render even the most gifted genius incapable of making any progress.
But when the number of Spiritual Origin practitioners continued to grow past five, becoming ten, a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand... the acceleration effect grew increasingly pronounced, finally managing to just barely offset the restriction of the Exclusivity of Immortal Techniques.
This was, in a sense, a form of human will overcoming heaven. But that was the limit of its ingenuity, because the acceleration effect of the Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique also had a ceiling.
After offsetting the diminishing effects imposed by Heaven and Earth, the technique’s function of increasing cultivation speed became almost negligible.
And apart from boosting cultivation speed, the Spiritual Origin Technique itself had no other special functions.
This also meant that, for the vast majority of cultivators who had a choice, it could not be considered a good technique.
Furthermore, the Spiritual Origin Technique seemed to have other limitations. However, Immortal Venerable Huang Xing had not elaborated on them.
The Multitude Spiritual Origin Technique was truly created in the wrong era. Li Fan mused inwardly as he constructed the array, half-listening to the idle chatter of Yan Hang and the others.
In any other world, this would absolutely be considered a shocking, heaven-defying technique. A pity it's so thoroughly shackled here in the Xuanhuang World.
He was no stranger to this Spiritual Origin Sect.
It was the very organization Su Xiaomei and the others had encountered, the one that had set up a checkpoint to collect tolls at the Nine Mountains Pass.
Shen Yurou—the androgynous figure who possessed the Peach Blossom Grotto-Heaven and had been wounded by I Am Invincible with a single sword strike—had left a distinct impression on Li Fan.
According to Immortal Venerable Huang Yue, to even have a chance of mastering the technique’s basics, one must gather a large number of cultivators from the very beginning, and they must practice this Spiritual Origin Technique together.
To rally such a large following in a chaotic place like Jiushan Province, the leader of this Spiritual Origin Sect is no simple figure either.
***
The infusion of fresh blood slightly eased the increasingly tense atmosphere within the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens.
But it didn't last long.
As the frequency of the monsters' appearances grew more and more frequent, the cultivators struggling within the various grotto-heavens finally began to buckle.
When the first casualties appeared, some array masters directly chose to stop working.
Of course, they didn't openly declare it.
They simply used the need to deal with monsters as a pretext, complying in appearance but slacking off in reality.
Qi Buyi found herself somewhat powerless to stop this.
She couldn't very well ask the two presiding Dao Unity Immortal Venerables to start slaughtering people, could she?
Leaving aside the fact that the array masters within the grotto-heavens all had considerable status and backing, if she actually did that, such forceful coercion would likely backfire, causing the array construction work in the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens to grind to a complete halt.
Having rarely encountered such a situation, Qi Buyi was momentarily at her wits' end.
She could only report the situation to Chief Lu while doing her utmost to placate everyone, trying to prevent an even worse revolt from breaking out.
Although Li Fan himself was unconcerned by the external turmoil, his efficiency in laying arrays was inevitably affected.
As Yan Hang and his four companions found it increasingly difficult to handle the monsters, Li Fan also had to divert a portion of his attention to monitor the battles.
At critical moments, Li Fan would even join the fight, though only in a supporting role, through his arrays.
Just as the situation was gradually deteriorating, a pillar of white light that connected heaven and earth pierced through the entirety of the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens.
Reinforcements had finally arrived.
An immensely vast Dust-Crossing Boat lay anchored in the void outside the grotto-heavens, occupying a large portion of the sky.
Like countless dense black specks, numerous cultivators flew in an orderly manner towards the various grotto-heavens.
And Li Fan, who had remained within the water attribute grotto-heaven all this time, caught his first glimpse of the full panorama of the Five Elements Grotto-Heavens.
It resembled interlocking rings, or perhaps a palette of mixed paints. They were distinctly separate, yet inextricably intertwined.
As the light pillar gradually faded, the illusory scenes of the metal, fire, and earth grotto-heavens slowly faded away.
Simultaneously, the list of collaborative assignments within the Celestial Oversight Ledger nearly doubled in size.
As Li Fan scanned it, he spotted many familiar names. They were the young array masters who had trained alongside him at the Cosmos Branch Academy before returning to their respective provinces to participate in the grand competition.
It seems the Myriad Immortals Alliance is truly stretched thin for manpower. He mused inwardly. They're even dragging in the fresh recruits.