Chapter 945: The Heavenly Doctor's Mission

The divine beings were manifestations of Li Fan’s will, deeply embedded in his sea of consciousness from the moment they fully formed. Every action, even their emotions and thoughts, remained under his complete control. How could merely "not using" them allow anyone to escape their influence?

“It’s normal for them to have their own little schemes, as long as they can be used by me,” Li Fan mused. “The path of exotic beasts still holds boundless potential, from what I can see.” Li Fan paid no mind to the duplicity of the Empire and others; after all, they couldn't escape his grasp no matter what.

To test the effectiveness of the Heaven and Earth Smelter, Li Fan returned to the Spiritwood Realm and immediately traveled through a spatial passage to the Beast-Kind Realm. He placed one finished smelter atop a mountain peak and set up a protective formation around it. He then left a wisp of his divine sense to observe the changes the Heaven and Earth Smelter would induce. The formation was solely to prevent exotic beasts from damaging the smelter; it would not impede the dissemination of the generated spiritual energy.

Gradually, the high concentration of spiritual energy around this peculiar device on the mountaintop attracted the attention of the exotic beasts there. Although most were low-level beasts that had not yet developed intelligence, their innate sensitivity to spiritual energy caused them to flock and crowd around the Heaven and Earth Smelter, greedily trying to absorb as much pure spiritual energy as possible. Without cultivation methods, they couldn't actively absorb the spiritual energy into their bodies, so most of it still diffused outwards into the surroundings.

Ten days later, this previously inconspicuous small mountain suddenly became vibrant with life.

“At this rate,” Li Fan calculated, “to transform a small world devoid of spiritual energy into one that meets the minimum requirements for cultivation, it would take approximately one hundred Heaven and Earth Smelters operating continuously for one hundred years.” He added, “If there were ten thousand, it could be done in just one year!”

Upon obtaining this approximate data, Li Fan immediately summoned the Treant clan.

As the Spiritwood Realm continued to upgrade and Lin Ling's advancing cultivation provided feedback, the Treant Clan Matriarch's strength also grew daily. She had now reached the late stage of Soul Transformation, merely a step away from achieving Dao Integration. Within the Treant clan, Nascent Soul cultivators were emerging in endless succession. The overall strength of the entire clan had undergone a qualitative leap compared to when Li Fan first took over the Spiritwood Realm. Consequently, the Treants held Li Fan in extreme reverence.

The Matriarch approached Li Fan, knelt, and bowed her head in obeisance, saying, "Greetings, Honored One!"

Li Fan placed a Heaven and Earth Smelter before the Matriarch and explained its forging method in detail. "From today onwards," he instructed, "mobilize the full strength of your entire clan to forge this item. Within three years, I want all those small worlds connected to the Spiritwood Realm to become suitable for cultivation."

The Matriarch immediately accepted the order and departed. Not long after, Li Fan nodded slightly as he watched the Treants begin their busy work. The tireless Treants were perfectly suited for this kind of labor. Furthermore, with the continuous improvement in the formation refining process, the entire Spiritwood Realm was now under Li Fan's complete control. Their lives and deaths could be decided with a single thought, and there was no risk of anything getting out of control.

A few days later, a bored Tian Yang, observing the Treants' activities, volunteered to take charge of the matter. He found the process of refining the Heaven and Earth Smelters and then placing them one by one in every corner of the small worlds to be very much like planting trees and creating forests—extremely interesting.

With Tian Yang's help, Li Fan had even less to worry about. He taught Tian Yang a formation derived from the Final Disintegration Disk, specifically designed to protect and connect all the Heaven and Earth Smelters, and then Li Fan simply became a hands-off manager.

Tian Yang's proficiency in formations was already remarkable, as he had once used the Earthfire Reversion Array to refine his own puppet body. During this time, his consciousness became increasingly clear, and under Li Fan's personal guidance, he quickly fully mastered the formation.

Li Fan asked Tian Yang to name the formation. Tian Yang gave a simple, earnest smile, then pondered for a full seven days and seven nights before finally coming up with a good name: the Great Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation.

The Great Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation could use all the deployed Heaven and Earth Smelters as nodes, forming a spiritual energy network that spanned across various small worlds. Once the grand formation began to take shape, even if a node were damaged, the missing spiritual energy could be compensated through this spiritual energy network, preventing a decrease in the overall spiritual energy concentration.

Besides disseminating spiritual energy, this network also possessed numerous other functions, such as monitoring, attacking, and defending.

In Li Fan's vision, the ultimate form of the Great Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation would be a level higher than the Profound Net, the ultimate creation capable of independently creating and evolving cultivation worlds.

“Actually, it’s just smaller in scale right now,” Li Fan mused, “but in essence, it’s already quite close. However, it still needs a core for deduction and coordination, something like the Heavenly Profound Mirror. Only the Heavenly Profound Mirror could support the envisioned scale of the Great Heaven and Earth Myriad Spirits Formation. Besides that, not even my Final Disintegration Disk would suffice.”

Li Fan’s thoughts surged, and he could not calm down for a long time. Suddenly, a baseless sense of unease disrupted his thoughts.

Li Fan's expression subtly changed, and his figure flickered as he directly left the Spiritwood Realm. Soon after arriving in the Profound Yellow Realm, Tian Yi’s voice rang in his mind.

“I finally found you,” Tian Yi’s voice said. “I’ve detected that the seal of the Cloudwater Heavenly Palace has loosened. To prevent outsiders from disturbing it, go reinforce the seal.” As soon as Tian Yi finished speaking, a restriction named 'Seclusion of the Hidden Void' appeared in Li Fan’s mind. Tian Yi seemed very busy; without waiting for Li Fan’s reply, he fell silent again.

Li Fan’s expression remained impassive, but his heart sank. "Anchoring Year 11, Cloudwater Heavenly Palace Opens," he thought. "I almost forgot about this. But what does Tian Yi mean by this task? Is it a test, or something else?"

Li Fan was not overly surprised that Tian Yi could directly pinpoint and contact him. After all, he had already met Tian Yi face to face in this world and had received the Heaven-Mending Record transmitted by him. This was the price of direct contact with Tian Yi. However, this lack of security still made Li Fan somewhat displeased.

Without much thought, Li Fan cupped his hands towards the sky, then hurried towards the Cloudmist Sea.

He arrived at the center of the Cloudmist Sea, at the location of the Cloudwater Heavenly Palace. Although the Cloudwater Heavenly Palace had not yet officially appeared, some anomalies had already manifested in the sky, attracting passing cultivators to stop and watch from time to time.

Using the restriction transmitted by Tian Yi, Li Fan silently entered. He had been guarding against entering the illusion of Senior Brother Qin Tang, but unexpectedly, he appeared directly in front of the main gate of the Cloudwater Heavenly Palace, not within Senior Brother Qin's illusionary trial.

Not far away, the stone statue that Qin Tang had transformed into stood silently, as if unchanged since ancient times. The entire Cloudwater Heavenly Palace was utterly silent, as if all the strangeness within it was in deep slumber.

This was Li Fan's first time seeing the Cloudwater Heavenly Palace in its sealed state. Compared to its previous appearance, it simply felt like an ordinary sect where cultivators were resting. There was no eerie feeling whatsoever that would suggest it had been completely destroyed and was now overrun by strangeness.