Chapter 792: Immortal Ruins Encounter True Immortal

From it, a faint light was projected. Many blurry images emerged along with the light.

As Gu Xinghan was drawn to the images within the light, the jade disc, like a living creature, conveyed waves of yearning.

Gu Xinghan, snapping back to reality, felt a moment of confusion, then surprise. However, he had heard tales of treasures possessing spirits.

Quickly accepting this possibility, Gu Xinghan began to sense the jade disc's longing.

Yet, it was merely a vague and instinctive reaction. The jade disc couldn't speak, leaving him to guess its desires.

Gu Xinghan tried various methods to satisfy the jade disc. Spirit stones, mineral jade, herbs... The jade disc seemed to have no interest in any of them, relentlessly emitting its yearning desire towards him.

Furthermore, all his peers had successfully established their foundations, yet he still didn't know how to explain his own situation. These two factors combined left Gu Xinghan deeply frustrated.

It was by chance that he saw Elder Fang Zaiji preparing the Final Disc for the newly recruited core disciples. The jade disc's frantic agitation immediately made Gu Xinghan understand its objective.

"This..." Gu Xinghan hesitated.

After all, the Final Disc was a valuable item Elder Fang had repeatedly stressed the importance of. What if something went wrong?

In the end, however, he couldn't resist the jade disc.

A flash of light occurred, and the jade disc appeared within his Sea of Consciousness.

Under Gu Xinghan's nervous observation, the jade disc slowly flew and settled onto the Final Disc. Then, from beneath it, dense, tentacle-like small light beams extended, adhering to the Final Disc.

Gu Xinghan initially thought the jade disc would damage the Final Disc. But after observing for a moment, he realized that wasn't the case. Instead, the two seemed to be merging into one through those sticky light-tentacles.

This eased Gu Xinghan's mind, and he also felt a sense of novelty.

"Could it be that these two — the jade disc and the Final Disc — are actually the same thing?" Gu Xinghan couldn't help but wonder.

Yet, he was still a child at heart. Gu Xinghan quickly set aside his fruitless investigation and began to study the images he had obtained from the jade disc.

"'Foundation Establishment by Me'? What is this? It seems to align with my internal condition?" Gu Xinghan was overjoyed.

He immediately stopped bothering with the jade disc and concentrated on studying the 'Foundation Establishment by Me' method. By the time he awoke from this sudden enlightenment, the jade disc had completely merged with the Final Disc.

However, the merging process seemed as if the jade disc had forced itself upon the other, and the final product was not particularly aesthetically pleasing.

But Gu Xinghan didn't mind. He knew that this jade disc was indeed a remarkable treasure.

Although young, Gu Xinghan was far from naive. He was acutely aware of the world's dangers. Knowing the proverb "an innocent man is guilty because of his treasure," he decided to conceal the existence of both the jade disc and the 'Foundation Establishment by Me' method.

"Perhaps I can use this new jade disc as a cover," the young Gu Xinghan mused, "and claim it's my miraculous item for foundation establishment..."

And so, without anyone's knowledge, the world's only cultivator to establish his foundation "by himself" began his cultivation.

At first, his performance pleasantly surprised Liu San and others in the Medicine King Sect. He grasped everything instantly, understanding one thing and mastering a hundred.

He was invincible among his peers, and a Foundation Establishment cultivator fighting a Core Formation one was effortless for him. For a time, Gu Xinghan became the most brilliant junior disciple in the Medicine King Sect.

The entire sect placed great hopes in him.

However...

His peak period, like a shooting star, was fleeting. Before long, his peers had successively broken through to the Core Formation and Nascent Soul realms.

Gu Xinghan, however, remained stagnant.

This extremely abnormal situation puzzled Liu San and others in the Medicine King Sect. They thought there might be something wrong with Gu Xinghan's body and took turns personally examining him. Yet, no one could figure out the cause.

When asked, Gu Xinghan simply stated he had tried his best but couldn't advance further. Thirty years passed in a blink of an eye.

The Medicine King Sect reluctantly accepted this fact and officially ceased nurturing Gu Xinghan.

However, they weren't overly harsh; many resources remained available for him to use. They simply stopped paying him much attention.

Faced with younger generations whose cultivation levels surpassed his own, Gu Xinghan became increasingly taciturn. He lived in seclusion, rarely concerning himself with worldly affairs or interacting with outsiders.

He was practically forgotten by everyone. Thus, two hundred and sixty-three years passed.

The white-haired Gu Xinghan finally reached the end of his life.

"Primal Core, Primal Core..." "What exactly is Primal?"

He let out a bitter laugh, his face full of sorrow. "To create something from nothing, to forge a new path... It's too difficult, simply too difficult..."

"Having succeeded in 'Foundation Establishment by Me', I don't even have the chance to regret it or switch to a new method."

In his hand, a warm jade disc suddenly appeared. Compared to over two hundred years ago, all its radiant splendor had now been fully contained. It looked like any ordinary stone found by the roadside, attracting no attention whatsoever.

Gu Xinghan looked at the jade disc that had accompanied him for almost his entire life, his expression complex. "It misled me my whole life, it misled me my whole life..." he murmured.

He whispered, wanting to hurl the jade disc to the ground with all his might, yet he felt a pang of reluctance.

Finally, he clutched the jade disc tightly in his hand and, filled with unwillingness, passed away.

Gu Xinghan's death caused no ripples. In fact, because no unusual phenomena appeared upon his demise, his body wasn't discovered until three years later.

Over two hundred years had passed, and the Immortal Valley had long since changed beyond recognition. No one remembered the former hope of the Medicine King Sect.

No one paid attention.

The funeral was simple. Soon, Gu Xinghan's body was buried in the Medicine King Sect's disciple graveyard in the Beast Race Realm.

As one of his few possessions, the jade disc in Gu Xinghan's hand went unnoticed. It was buried deep underground with him, from that moment on, enveloped in endless darkness.

Outside the Xuanhuang Realm, within the True Medicine King Cauldron.

A figure strikingly similar to Li Fan, yet extremely frail, grunted. He wiped away the blood continuously flowing from his mouth and nose, looking as if he could die from excessive blood loss at any moment.

Yet, his expression remained unchanged. "A moment in the Cauldron, a millennium in Xuanhuang."

He coughed lightly, his eyes filled with immense emotion. "To personally experience the difference in time flow—that feeling is truly wonderful."

Inside the True Medicine King Cauldron was the Saint Embryo Li Fan. As a part of his deception, it was a clone Li Fan had created using his own essence blood through the Sacred Blood Embryo Transformation method before Mr. Bai arrived.

Due to the rush, and with his aptitude identical to the main body's, he was merely a mortal without any cultivation. Not long after leaving the Xuanhuang Realm, he felt the Medicine King Cauldron deviating from its original trajectory.

Moreover, the images transmitted from the Corporeal Dissolution Disc became increasingly rapid. The enormous amount of information almost burst his mind.

Fortunately, everything eventually faded into darkness, which allowed him to somewhat recover.

"Although it transformed into an object, because my Saint Embryo still exists, I can remotely perform simple controls over the transformed object." "But that's all."

He did not see the battle between Transmitting Dharma and Mr. Bai, recorded by the Dissolution Disc as happening in the Xuanhuang Realm, because he was outside the Xuanhuang Realm.

Nevertheless, witnessing Transmitting Dharma Heavenly Venerable's action for the first time was already a significant gain for Li Fan.

Temporarily suppressing his thoughts about Transmitting Dharma, the Saint Embryo Li Fan now felt a faint excitement. This was because he was about to behold the legendary Immortal Ruins.

Creaking sounds emanated from various parts of the True Medicine King Cauldron, indicating the immense pressure it was enduring.

The Saint Embryo Li Fan, meanwhile, summoned the long-range viewing mirror, already prepared within the Medicine King Cauldron, and peered towards the Immortal Ruins.

Ahead, there was only darkness.

The Medicine King Cauldron's speed accelerated.

A tremendous roar echoed from all directions, as if it could disintegrate at any moment.

Yet, Li Fan's Saint Embryo still saw nothing in his field of vision.

"Is this as far as it goes?"

He couldn't help but feel a touch of regret.

The Medicine King Cauldron began to disintegrate.

The violent shaking made it almost impossible for him to stand steady. The Saint Embryo Li Fan struggled, carrying the long-range viewing mirror, and hid in the innermost part of the True Medicine King Cauldron.

It was a tiny sanctuary forged entirely from Everlasting Gold.

Under the increasingly intense, almost unimaginable immense pressure, the Medicine King Cauldron finally couldn't hold on, shattering into countless pieces and simultaneously plummeting towards the Immortal Ruins.

Just moments later, the Saint Embryo Li Fan felt that even the Everlasting Gold was about to give way.

But due to his inherent nature, he did not give up. He still raised the viewing mirror and looked forward.

Instantly, he was slightly stunned. In his previously pitch-black vision, a continuous desolate wilderness had appeared at some unknown point.

The wilderness was covered with countless ruins. A tall corpse sat cross-legged on the ground.

Its flesh had almost completely vanished, leaving only a layer of skin draped over its bones.

Dozens of blood-red chains were deeply embedded in the ground, trapping this skeleton in the wilderness.

Around the corpse, deep, crisscrossing ravines outlined an incredibly complex symbol on the desolate earth.

Although he didn't recognize the symbol, the moment he saw it, Li Fan instinctively knew its meaning.

It was a single character.

Hunger!

An endless sensation of hunger instantly surged within the Saint Embryo Li Fan's mind.

At the same time... the remains on the desolate ground suddenly opened their eyes!