Chapter 1343

Grand Xuan Nation, Xuan Capital, the Grand Tutor's Mansion.

Li Fan held a wine cup, observing the civil and military officials who filled the hall to offer birthday wishes. Even though he was now in his seventies, he couldn't help but feel a secret sense of pride.

It was remarkable that eight or nine out of ten of the court's high officials had come to the Grand Tutor's Mansion today! What an impressive display of influence!

He recalled that when he, Li Fan, first transmigrated to this world, he was a poor scholar.

Over fifty years, he had risen from having nothing to becoming the Grand Tutor, wielding immense power over the land. The story of his journey could fill a multi-million-word novel.

With a life like this, what more could one ask for?

Li Fan stroked his beard and drained the wine in his cup.

"To the Grand Tutor's longevity!" the assembled officials cheered in unison.

Li Fan grew even more pleased.

Just then, discordant shouts of alarm suddenly erupted from outside.

"Look quickly! What is that!"

"Falling fire from the sky! It's an auspicious sign, an auspicious sign! Quickly, inform the Grand Tutor!"

"It looks like it's flying towards our Grand Tutor's Mansion!"

Hearing the commotion outside, Li Fan frowned.

The originally lively great hall suddenly fell silent.

Li Fan stood up and walked out first.

However, before he could scold his servants or express his displeasure, he was captivated by the sight in the sky.

In the distant sky, two silver streaks of light, one following the other, sped towards them like meteors.

"This is..." Li Fan froze.

In the blink of an eye, the two meteors reached the sky above Xuan Capital and suddenly stopped.

At the same time, a voice, like thunder, descended from the heavens and boomed in everyone's ears.

"Dao Xuanzi! Don't push your luck too far!"

Everyone present was utterly bewildered and horrified. Some even cried out "Immortal Master" and prostrated themselves on the ground.

Meanwhile, a word that had been suppressed deep in his memory, almost forgotten, suddenly sprang into Li Fan's mind.

"Cultiv... cultivator!" Li Fan was stunned, murmuring to himself, "How is this possible..."

The two cultivators in the sky clearly did not care about the thoughts of the mortals below.

Only then did another voice resound: "Kou Hong! Do you think I'll let you go just because you fled to this land devoid of immortals? Hand over the cultivation method you obtained that day, or I'll pursue you relentlessly until one of us perishes!"

"A joke! It's precisely because I lacked a Core Formation method that I was trapped in the Foundation Establishment stage for nearly a hundred years, facing imminent death and turning into dry bones. Now that I have this Core Formation technique, how could I possibly hand it over to another?" Kou Hong scoffed, his tone filled with disdain.

"That's right!" Dao Xuanzi sighed deeply. "The path of the Golden Core can only accommodate one of us. While there are many Core Formation methods in this world, there are even more cultivators stuck in the Foundation Establishment stage!"

Dao Xuanzi's tone suddenly turned ferocious: "Given this, with a method for immortality now before me, how could I possibly let you go? How could I not push my luck?"

Kou Hong laughed heartily: "It's nothing more than a confrontation! How laughable that we, brothers for a century, now draw swords against each other for a glimmer of hope!"

Dao Xuanzi sneered but did not reply.

Kou Hong, however, suddenly said, "I know I am no match for you, and I will likely not escape this calamity today. But with so many mortals here, I wonder if you can withstand such a high concentration of immortal-mortal miasma!"

Dao Xuanzi's expression instantly changed: "Kou Hong! What are you trying to do!"

Kou Hong laughed maniacally: "I'm just seeking a glimmer of hope!"

Listening to the conversation of the two cultivators above, Li Fan's heart sank with a sense of dread. However, before he could react, he saw a scarlet flame explode above Xuan Capital.

"Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!"

Deafening roars continuously erupted in Li Fan's ears. His vision immediately turned blood-red, and within moments, he fainted.

Li Fan awoke after an unknown amount of time.

At first, he felt disoriented. It took him a long time to recall what had happened earlier.

Li Fan coughed, spitting out several mouthfuls of blood. He trembled as he slowly got to his feet and looked around.

It was still night, and the once-luxurious Grand Tutor's Mansion had been reduced to ruins.

The air was filled with the acrid smell of charred corpses.

The civil and military officials who had been present moments ago were all dead, their bodies obliterated, their souls departed to the netherworld.

Li Fan's wives, concubines, and five sons had also perished.

There was no longer any expression on Li Fan's aged face. His eyes were vacant.

After standing in place for a long time, he dragged his weak body out of the Grand Tutor's Mansion.

Xuan Capital, which had been bustling and prosperous just moments before, had now become a hell of blood and fire. As far as the eye could see, there were only broken bodies and collapsed buildings.

It was likely that less than one in a hundred commoners had survived this catastrophe.

All of this, everything, was because of the two "Immortal Masters," the two cultivators, who had suddenly descended.

Li Fan, devoid of strength, slumped casually against a broken wall.

His hearing had already been destroyed by the violent explosion. But it hardly mattered anymore.

At this moment, he just wanted to laugh.

How could there be cultivators in this world?

From the moment he became an official, he had used his power to search for any traces of the immortal path.

Once he became the Grand Imperial Tutor, above all others, he had scoured the entire world!

From the Frozen Sea in the north to the Great Ocean in the south, from the Void Abyss in the east to the Linked Mountains in the west.

There was not a single trace of immortals in the entire Grand Xuan Nation!

Yet today, years after he had grown old and completely given up hope, two cultivators descended from the sky, appeared before him, and without a word, utterly destroyed everything he possessed.

Is this what an immortal is?

And where do immortals come from?

His heart, full of rage and unwillingness, ultimately dissolved into boundless bewilderment.

Fate plays tricks on people!

At the same time, Li Fan felt immensely fortunate.

Fortunate that before his death, he had finally confirmed the existence of immortals!

Otherwise, wouldn't he just waste another fifty years of his life in vain when he began his next life?!

That's right! How could he, Li Fan, a mere mortal, have risen from a humble scholar to the Grand Imperial Tutor of the land without some kind of reliance?

This was also the reason he had narrowly escaped death at the hands of the immortals.

"Return to Truth!"

Li Fan silently chanted in his mind. Immediately, the surrounding scenery dimmed. It became hazy and indistinct, as if viewed through a thick curtain of water.

"When truth becomes fiction, fiction becomes truth."

Seven large characters glowed in the darkness, then suddenly dispersed, forming a curtain of light.

"Charging complete."

"Virtualize current scene, return to initial anchor point?"

Two lines of smaller text appeared one after another.

At the same time, images appeared one after another, rapidly filling the entire light screen.

It was Li Fan's fifty years of life in this current existence.

Li Fan gazed at himself in the various scenes, stunned for a long time.

This was the name Li Fan had given to the wondrous treasure he carried with him.

It had only one function: to turn truth into falsehood, to transform reality into illusion!

"Transforming reality into illusion" meant converting everything Li Fan had truly experienced into simulated, illusory experiences, allowing him to return to the initially set anchor point, which was when he had just transmigrated to this world.

In fact, this current life was already Li Fan's second.

In his first life, although Li Fan harbored great ambitions, he was merely an ordinary person. He repeatedly failed imperial examinations and, after turning thirty, finally abandoned the idea of studying and becoming an official. He started a small business, becoming a modest wealthy man, then married, had children, and lived an ordinary life. It was only when he was old and on the verge of death from illness that he finally awakened "Return to Truth."

This was how Li Fan's second life had begun, rising with the wind, unstoppable.

It was a pity, though, that it seemed to have been used in the wrong place now.

After a moment of contemplation, Li Fan chose not to end this life immediately. He still had a few things to do before that.

Turning off the light screen and returning to reality, Li Fan forced himself to rally his spirits and deal with the aftermath of Xuan Capital being severely damaged by the immortals.

After searching for surviving individuals, Li Fan, relying on his years of prestige, managed to somewhat stabilize the public's morale.

Even though Li Fan couldn't hear, he could still find paper and pen. While communication was troublesome, it didn't prevent his orders from being conveyed.

First, Li Fan ordered his trusted Border Guard camp, stationed outside the city, to rush to Xuan Capital to maintain post-disaster order. He then dispatched orders to surrounding cities, mobilizing provisions and officials to come to Xuan Capital.

Most of Xuan Capital's buildings had been destroyed. After the Border Guard camp took control of Xuan Capital, Li Fan simply stayed in the military camp to oversee the recovery efforts.

And with Li Fan's directives, resources and personnel from surrounding cities were continuously channeled into Xuan Capital.

A month later, the ruined Xuan Capital gradually regained a semblance of life.

It was only after the Grand Xuan Nation finally recovered from the immortal's attack that Li Fan began to order various regions to collect information about the two immortals who had appeared that night.

This included where the two had originally come from, where they went afterward, whether they had any other conversations en route, and so on.

Unfortunately, months of investigation yielded nothing beyond the knowledge that the two cultivators seemed to have appeared from the direction of the Void Abyss in the east.

The outcome Li Fan had hoped for—the two immortals fighting each other to mutual destruction—did not occur.

"I shouldn't have expected such a thing," Li Fan sighed inwardly. "Since that's the case, there's nothing left for me to cling to in this life."

Standing in the newly constructed Grand Tutor's Mansion, Li Fan activated "Return to Truth" once more.

"Virtualize current scene, return to initial anchor point?"

Li Fan no longer hesitated and chose "Yes."

On the light screen, countless vivid images simultaneously froze. Then, the political maneuvering, glory, and wealth of this life shattered and burst like a dream bubble, transforming into streams of light that flew into Li Fan's mind.

Scene after scene flashed rapidly before Li Fan's eyes like a kaleidoscope, with the final image settling on the two cultivators confronting each other high above the Grand Tutor's Mansion.

"Dao Xuanzi, Kou Hong," Li Fan softly uttered their names. "Fifty years from now, I will still be waiting for you in Xuan Capital."

"Wealth and power are but fleeting clouds to me." Li Fan's consciousness gradually blurred, but his will and goal became firmer than ever before.

"In the next life, I will hunt immortals!"

The brilliance in his mind gradually faded, and Li Fan slowly drifted into slumber.