The communication spirit talisman's design was identical to those used by the Myriad Immortals Alliance.
Lu Fan stored it away carefully, then turned to Li Fan, who had been standing quietly at his side. The two boarded the Samantabhadra True Boat and plunged into the White Mist Barrier.
Everything around them dissolved into featureless white. Even at high speed, there was no visual sense of movement.
Inside the flying boat, Lu Fan closed his eyes, as if sensing something.
Only after the Samantabhadra True Boat emerged from the Lifespan-Devouring White Mist did he open them again, his face bright with excitement. "The rate of lifespan depletion dropped from around fifteen days to just one! Nearly negligible! Truly worth every bit of the price!
"With this, the White Mist Barriers can no longer hinder cultivators. The world is vast, but our kind can now go anywhere without fear of lifespan erosion!"
A flicker of regret crossed Lu Fan's face. "What a pity. Our Myriad Immortals Alliance discovered the principle first, yet the Five Elders Council beat us to widespread distribution."
"It is indeed a fine tool," the puppet body spoke up, the strand of consciousness within it steering the conversation forward. "Even so, we have already delayed considerably. We should make haste to the One Mind Immortal Sect."
Lu Fan blinked, then smiled with understanding. "Heh, it seems you are even more impatient than I am, Fellow Daoist Jiao."
He pushed their speed up another notch and flew steadily north.
The territory of the Five Elders Council, much like that of the Myriad Immortals Alliance, was vast and sparsely populated.
One could travel half a day without encountering another cultivator. When the light of another flier did appear in the distance, both parties would quietly veer away from each other.
The harassment from Five Elders Council cultivators that Lu Fan had feared never came.
They crossed more than a dozen provinces without incident. Then, bursting through the White Mist Barrier once more, the Samantabhadra True Boat abruptly lost control and plummeted toward the ground.
Lu Fan reacted quickly. He flew clear of the boat and recalled it into his storage ring just before it crashed.
"This place..."
He looked up, brow furrowed.
This region felt different from anywhere they had been before. He couldn't isolate exactly what was wrong, but the wrongness was unmistakable.
"Is this the One Mind Immortal Sect?" Li Fan surveyed their surroundings, his tone recovering some of its former liveliness.
"Let's first find out what we're dealing with," Lu Fan said.
"Agreed." Li Fan nodded.
They set off through Wangyue Province. True to the broader pattern of the Celestial Realm of Man's Dao, most of the population was clustered in scattered towns and cities, with cultivators and mortals living apart.
But as they traveled, both Li Fan and Lu Fan noticed something off.
The One Mind Immortal Sect's territory seemed strangely... harmonious.
Conflict, arguments, the ordinary friction of human life—none of it seemed to exist in Wangyue Province. Buyers and sellers traded without a word of haggling. Everyone they encountered was unfailingly polite, treating strangers with a warmth that felt almost rehearsed.
On the surface, the scenes were touching. To Li Fan, watching from the outside, they were unsettling.
The two kept wide smiles on their faces and took care not to stand out, while quietly gathering what rumors they could about the One Mind Immortal Sect.
In this land, the sect was no secret. Yet what the people told them left both Li Fan and Lu Fan struggling to believe it.
Everyone here, from childhood, knew of the Great Immortal Sect's existence. They held it as life's highest honor to join. But where the sect was located, or what one had to do to enter—these were things no one knew.
There was only one belief they held with absolute certainty: that someone who was "sincere of heart," someone "sufficiently outstanding," would earn the Heavenly Venerable's favor and be chosen.
The explanation was thoroughly abstract, and it left the two of them at a complete loss.
They left Wangyue Province and spent over a month traveling through other provinces within the One Mind Immortal Sect's territory. The story was the same everywhere they went, with a consistency that was almost eerie in itself.
It wore down what little hope they had carried with them.
"Fellow Daoist Jiao, we've crossed dozens of provinces to get here. Can that not be called sincere enough?" In a tavern in the inner city of Weichang, Canhong Province, Lu Fan drained a cup of spirit wine and asked Li Fan with barely concealed gloom.
Li Fan said nothing, staring blankly ahead.
"Or perhaps our strength is still insufficient," Lu Fan murmured, his gaze growing distant. "Perhaps we still fall short of Senior Sister Zhao's selection criteria."
Li Fan was present only as a wisp of consciousness inhabiting the puppet body, but even so, watching Lu Fan grow steadily more unhinged over the course of the journey, he could see that something had gone wrong.
At the outset, Lu Fan had joined this trip with an open and easy disposition. His feelings toward the peerlessly beautiful Senior Sister Zhao had been playful rather than genuine, fond teasing more than real admiration. For cultivators, beauty mattered far less than realm and cultivation.
But from the moment they crossed into the One Mind Immortal Sect's territory, something had begun to quietly shift. His fascination with "Senior Sister Zhao" and the "Great Immortal Sect" deepened with every province they passed through, and the more he learned, the worse it became. That creeping hunger for something just beyond reach had burrowed into him, leaving him sleepless at night, distracted at meals, until his fixation had edged toward madness. He was barely holding on.
The puppet body was far less affected. Its singular focus on entering the One Mind Immortal Sect left little room for anything else to take root.
Li Fan did not try to enlighten Lu Fan. It wasn't indifference to their friendship. He simply understood clearly that the Heavenly Venerable's subtle influence was not the kind of thing a few well-chosen words could undo. Telling Lu Fan about the change in himself might only make him perversely proud.
As the two sat facing each other, one frowning, the other expressionless, a sudden burst of noise rose from the street outside.
"The Golden Core cultivator Wan Zailai of Canhong Province defeated thirty-six Nascent Soul cultivators from Yilu Province in succession! He caught the Heavenly Venerable's eye and was chosen to enter the Immortal Sect!"
"Truly worthy of being a prodigy from our Canhong Province! He's given us a proper victory!"
"Haha, now Canhong will have more Immortal Sect disciples than Yilu. Let's see how they strut around after this!"
The voices kept coming. Li Fan and Lu Fan exchanged a glance, then immediately began asking around for the full story.
"I understand now!" Lu Fan exclaimed, his face lighting up with sudden clarity. "You simply need to do something extraordinary, something that catches Master Zhao's—no, the Heavenly Venerable's attention, and you can enter the Immortal Sect!"