Chapter 1381: High Walls and Several Visitors

Once, twice. Li Fan’s divine sense swept over the storyteller repeatedly, but he couldn't find the reason for the immortal array's misjudgment on the man himself.

"Perhaps it's not due to him personally..."

Frowning, Li Fan began meticulously searching nearby objects. Finally, his gaze fell upon the clapper used by the storyteller.

"This object..."

It appeared unremarkable, just a plain black block. But the moment Li Fan took it into his hand, his soul felt a faint coolness.

"Hmm?"

Ever since he comprehended the Law of the Limitless Void and Fullness, Li Fan's soul had always been in a state of "completeness," operating within the limits of his achievable power. Even if there were any damage, it would instantly heal through the power of the Five Elements and the circulation of Primordial Chaos. His soul had already reached a formidable level; only with breakthroughs in Li Fan's major cultivation realms could it experience step-by-step growth. In fact, since advancing to the Soul Transformation stage until now, Li Fan's soul strength had not increased for a long time. But now, as this cool sensation integrated into him, Li Fan actually felt his soul slowly solidifying, and a bottleneck loosening!

"Hiss... What kind of treasure is this clapper?" Beneath Li Fan's surprise and delight, there was a greater sense of caution. One must know that Li Fan's current soul strength was comparable to that of the Xuanhuang Longevity Realm. Having already reached its limit, even the slightest further improvement was no longer achievable through mere effort.

"Inside the Immortal Boat's secret treasury, there were countless treasures. None of them had been useful to me, yet the Xuanhuang Realm actually harbored such a thing..." With great caution, Li Fan set up an immortal array, isolating the black clapper. Then, he searched the storyteller's mind for the clapper's origin.

It wasn't some ancient heirloom without an origin; rather, the storyteller had crafted it himself by cutting and polishing wood from a tree in his own courtyard. Li Fan then took the storyteller, named Ge Daoquan, to his home. In the courtyard, the verdant tree still stood tall.

The moment he entered the courtyard, Li Fan felt something different. It was like walking for a long time under the scorching sun on a sweltering summer day, then suddenly stepping into a patch of shade. In two words: sheer comfort!

For an ordinary cultivator, such a stark contrast would likely elicit an immediate groan of pleasure. Li Fan took a deep breath, maintaining his caution as he gradually approached the tree. Suddenly, the leaves began to rustle without a breeze.

Li Fan had encountered many peculiar trees throughout his various reincarnation experiences. In the Xuanhuang Realm, there were the Ten Thousand Spirits, Heavenly Splendor, and Earth Vein—the three ancient Xuanhuang trees—as well as Ruomu, the source of all life. Within the Profound Immortal Boat, there was a divine tree from the ancient Divine Wood Sect. However, all of these were different from the tree before him.

Whether it was the three ancient trees or Ruomu, they all possessed their own consciousness, giving Li Fan a sense of eerie strangeness, as if plants had gained sentience. But this one in the courtyard... It was purely a tree. Pure, yet extraordinary.

The crisp sound of the leaves rustling against each other slowly eased Li Fan's perpetually tense state of mind in this life. Li Fan didn't know the name of this tree. At this moment, he had no desire to uncover its origins; he simply sat cross-legged beneath the tree, meditating as if in enlightenment.

Another gentle breeze swept by, and dozens of emerald-green leaves, appearing fresh and dripping, drifted down from the tree. Like streaks of light, they flew into Li Fan's body. Li Fan's eyes slowly closed. When he opened them again, ten days had passed.

The struggles and desperate efforts across a hundred reincarnations, the constant worry about monsters of unparalleled cultivation suddenly appearing from who-knew-where, and the numerous near-death experiences that left him truly fearful... All these accumulated mental fatigues were completely eliminated. It was as if he had enjoyed a deep, fulfilling sleep. His body and mind, from top to bottom, were completely refreshed.

As Li Fan stood up again, he felt his mental state was better than ever before. He gazed at the tree in the courtyard. All its splendor had receded; in his eyes, it no longer held any special characteristics. It was just like any other ordinary tree.

Li Fan recalled the scenes that had flashed through his mind during his ten-day slumber. They were memories originating from the tree itself. A streak of light pierced the sky and fell near the tree. It lay motionless, like a lifeless object, as if all vitality had left it. Its outer appearance was that of a blood-stained, half-burnt sphere. As time slowly passed, this layer of decaying skin on the sphere's surface gradually peeled off. From within it, an infant crawled out. The infant didn't cry incessantly as newborns usually do; instead, it simply distinguished left from right, then chose a direction and slowly crawled with determined eyes. It soon disappeared from the tree's sight. As for the sphere's outer skin, it slowly dissolved and turned into nutrients under the wind, sun, and rain, which were then absorbed by the tree.

In the sky, terrifying tremors and flashes of light were everywhere, seemingly indicating a brutal war was taking place. A figure silently arrived near the tree. "How can it be a tree?" "Could the lock-on have gone wrong?" "This cursed place..." In the man's hand stood a mechanical, one-eyed figurine. Golden light gleamed from its eye, pointing towards the tree ahead. With a look of doubt and anxiety on his face, the man fiddled with it for a while, but the figurine's gaze remained fixed in the same direction. The man cursed vehemently, throwing the mechanical doll directly to the ground in his anger. In the sky, it seemed some cultivators had noticed the man below. The man's expression subtly changed, and he transformed into a streak of golden light, fleeing.

Many days, perhaps, passed, and the mechanical doll became deeply buried underground. With the rising and setting of the sun, the traces of the world-shaking war were gradually, eventually, smoothed over by time. Occasionally, mortals who passed by this spot would feel an immense sense of peace. Consequently, people began to settle there, and a small mortal town emerged. Ten generations of people lived near this tree. Their attitudes were remarkably good. Though they lived ordinary lives, they were content and happy. Even when they encountered difficulties, they would simply laugh them off. It wasn't until a descendant of the eleventh generation, seeking a livelihood, chose to become a storyteller. Lacking a good clapper, he decided to cut a piece from the tree in his own home.

With thoughts swirling, Li Fan's first action was to start digging around the tree. Knowing that a divine sense search would be ineffective, Li Fan had no choice but to do it himself. Before long, he indeed found the mechanical figurine that the man had casually thrown away centuries ago. Buried for many years, it looked as good as new when retrieved. It bore no trace of time's passage. However, the mechanical figurine's third eye had, for some unknown reason, closed. No matter how he tried to activate it, there was no response.

As Li Fan toyed with the mechanical artifact, he sensed a familiar aura. "Fallen Mortal Dust..." Li Fan's heart grew solemn. After a moment of deliberation, Li Fan made a decision.

He took out the white ring, Fallen Mortal Dust, and directed its light towards the mechanical figurine. Fallen Mortal Dust was the physical manifestation of an innate Grand Dao principle. For over ten years, Li Fan had held the white ring, recalling its appearance on the Blank Stele in his previous life. He wanted to comprehend this Grand Dao. However, to his disappointment, no matter how he tried to comprehend it, he couldn't form his own understanding, unlike with other True Immortal inscriptions. It was as if... All the innate principles of the world had already converged in one place, beyond the grasp of others. Li Fan didn't force it; in any case, he had already bound the white ring, Fallen Mortal Dust, and for now, being able to summon it at any time and cultivate with it wasn't vastly different from comprehending it himself.

At this moment, the white ring's light locked onto the mechanical figurine. Under the shroud of white light, the figurine, which should have been disintegrated into nothingness, remained completely unharmed! It wasn't that its status was superior to Fallen Mortal Dust, allowing it to be immune to its decomposition effect. Instead, the light emitted by the white ring suddenly turned green after sensing the mechanical figurine. The mechanical figurine thus avoided the fate of being decomposed.

Illuminated by the white ring, the mechanical figurine, which had been dormant, came back to life. It flew to rest on Li Fan's palm, then opened its third eye. It seemed to be searching for something, continuously rotating. But for some reason, the figurine's rotation speed accelerated. It spun wildly and uncontrollably. It became a self-spinning top.

"Is it... broken?" Li Fan frowned slightly. He didn't stop it for now, allowing the figurine to continue spinning.

Li Fan first looked at the green tree in the courtyard. "A hundred years ago, the figurine pointed to this tree because the tree absorbed that outer skin, which enveloped the infant. That substance must have had an awakening and enlightening effect. However, with the passage of time, especially after I absorbed it, its effect has become negligible, which is why the figurine would continue pointing elsewhere. Its effect has been weakened by an unknown degree, yet it still had such a miraculous effect on me. It's hard to imagine its original form."

Li Fan's eyes flickered as he continued to ponder: "Fallen Mortal Dust can sense the mechanical figurine. This is enough to confirm that they originate from the same source... This means my guess in the previous life was indeed correct. The entity suppressed deep within the Nether Prison also came from beyond the Tall Wall." Li Fan's expression instantly turned serious.

Indeed, the male figure seen in the tree's memories was none other than the skeleton Li Fan had encountered deep within the Nether Prison in his previous life. The cultivator who called himself Qin Zhuang!

"I soul-searched him, but he didn't have this recent memory. Clearly, he concealed and fabricated his experiences using a secret technique. Clever indeed!" Li Fan inwardly praised him, feeling a hint of excitement rather than anger at being tricked. "He thought his actions were flawless, but he didn't realize that everything leaves a trace. Normally, these traces would be impossible to find. But before the Xuanhuang Illusion Array, which treats all beings equally, they were finally revealed!"

Li Fan recalled the infant's figure crawling out of the sphere in the tree's memories. "Qin Zhuang... let's call him that for now. He came within the Tall Wall seemingly to search for that infant's whereabouts. So, this infant also came from beyond the Tall Wall? Qin Zhuang is linked to the Heavenly Sword Sect, could this infant also be a descendant of the Heavenly Sword Sect?" Instantly, a myriad of questions flooded Li Fan's mind.

In this life, the Immortal Alliance's Nether Prison was already enveloped by the Xuanhuang Grand Array of Sentient Beings. Qin Zhuang had inevitably fallen into the illusion array as well. However, it seemed the result would be the same as his previous life's test: Qin Zhuang wouldn't reveal any flaws. "It failed twice in a row... It seems that methods to resist illusion arrays are quite common beyond the Tall Wall." Li Fan pondered for a moment, not rushing to capture or interrogate Qin Zhuang. "If he can be exempt even from immortal arrays, other physical punishments would likely be useless too. I'll need to develop more specialized methods. Perhaps after I achieve Dao Integration, there will be new ways."

Gathering his thoughts, Li Fan looked again at the constantly spinning mechanical figurine. It still showed no signs of stopping. Li Fan pondered, observing it closely. "It appears to be spinning, but there are different intervals between each rotation. This pattern suggests... that it has simultaneously located many different targets. And these targets are scattered across the Xuanhuang Realm?" Li Fan arrived at an unbelievable conclusion. "Wait, could it be..." In an instant, a thought flashed like lightning through Li Fan's mind.

To verify his speculation, Li Fan held the mechanical figurine and slowly flew towards a certain location. As he drew closer, indeed, the frequency with which the figurine turned towards Li Fan's direction of movement increased. Finally, Li Fan arrived at his destination. Gazing at the figurine, which had finally stopped spinning, Li Fan smiled meaningfully. On the wooden plaque of the hut before him, three large characters were strikingly written: Thousand Li Hall!

The mechanical figurine's third eye stared directly at Jiao Xiuyuan, who was deep in slumber within the hall. Then, as if its energy had been depleted again, it slowly closed.

"That infant from back then was actually him. Jiao Xiuyuan, from beyond the Tall Wall? But unlike Qin Zhuang, he can't immune himself to the illusion array..." Thoughts surged in Li Fan's mind.

Then, Li Fan stood with eyes slightly closed, bringing the mechanical figurine with him as he entered the Xuanhuang Grand Array of Sentient Beings. Within the illusion array, Jiao Xiuyuan was still his usual self, constantly calling out and doing business.

The instant Li Fan appeared before him, Jiao Xiuyuan also seemed to sense something; his calls instantly ceased, and his gaze fell upon the mechanical figurine Li Fan held. Li Fan pretended to turn and leave. "Fellow Daoist, please wait!" Jiao Xiuyuan called out repeatedly, stepping forward to stop Li Fan. "Since you're already here, why not come in? Please, have a seat." Jiao Xiuyuan said with a smile, his dark face revealing a hint of honest simplicity. Possessing the absolute professionalism of a merchant, he no longer glanced at the figurine in Li Fan's hand.

Li Fan put away the figurine and sighed, "It's an heirloom. I originally intended to sell it, but after much deliberation, I decided against it." "Farewell!" Li Fan cupped his hands and prepared to leave again. "Don't be in such a hurry, Fellow Daoist. Your face strikes me as very friendly. If you have any difficulties, just speak up. If it's within my ability, I'll certainly help you." Jiao Xiuyuan thumped his chest loudly, presenting an image of righteous generosity.

Li Fan hesitated for a moment, then finally sat down. Silently, Jiao Xiuyuan closed Thousand Li Hall for business, locking the doors. He then focused solely on Li Fan.

"To tell you the truth, Fellow Daoist, ever since I was born, I've been having a recurring dream." Li Fan paused for a moment; the instant he spoke, he completely captivated Jiao Xiuyuan's attention. "In the dream, I saw a streak of light descending from the sky. From a sphere, an infant crawled out..." As Li Fan spoke, he meticulously observed Jiao Xiuyuan's reaction. Jiao Xiuyuan listened with great interest, but contrary to Li Fan's expectations, he showed no unusual reaction. "I suspect this dream might be related to this figurine passed down in my family," Li Fan added.