“Mm?”
Li Fan squinted his eyes, trying to discern the object obstructing his path in the pitch darkness.
What surprised him, however, was that neither his spiritual sense nor his physical touch revealed the presence of any obstacle ahead.
Li Fan frowned slightly.
This time, instead of aligning with the ripples that emerged in the spatial void, he deliberately bypassed their timing and directly sped forward.
Strangely, the “wall” he had perceived within the ripples earlier seemed to have vanished as though it had never existed.
Li Fan could clearly sense that his position within this void-like space had shifted.
Or rather, part of his positional attributes had altered, while another part remained unmoving.
It felt as though moving by his own momentum and following the ripples’ flow were two entirely different planes of existence, each unaffected by the other.
For now, he set aside the question of what lay behind it. Clearing his mind, he waited for the ripples to reappear in the void.
When the ripples arrived, he aligned himself with them, knowingly hurtling toward the “obstacle” ahead.
“Boom!”
In an instant, Li Fan saw stars as he was forced out of alignment with the ripples.
After inspecting himself, he found that while his body remained unharmed, his soul seemed to have suffered a slight shock.
Pondering for a moment, Li Fan decided to abandon such reckless attempts for now.
He did not leave the area. Instead, he stood quietly in the void, focusing his mind to analyze each ripple as it arrived, hoping to discover why he was being obstructed while the ripples passed through unhindered.
When he concentrated in this absolute darkness and silence, the occasional ripple became particularly striking.
Li Fan meticulously recorded the timing of each ripple.
After patiently collecting data from tens of thousands of occurrences, he replicated the pattern in the Dao Deviation Stone within his Sea of Consciousness, attempting to uncover any hidden rules.
Effort rewarded diligence.
Li Fan discovered that roughly every thousand ripples, one distinctive ripple would appear, significantly stronger and faster than the others, spreading nearly twice as fast across the void.
Heart stirred, Li Fan calculated the intervals. When the anomaly reappeared, he steadied his spirit and aligned himself with it.
This time, his attempt produced results. It was no longer like colliding with a wall but instead felt like rubbing against an obstruction.
A sharp, knife-like pain surged from the depths of his soul. Enduring the agony, Li Fan gritted his teeth and persisted.
However, the deeper the ripple went, the more incompatible he became with his surroundings.
The knife-like sensation soon turned into a savage tearing, an unbearable pain that almost caused him to lose consciousness.
It was only his innate self-preservation instinct that pulled him out of alignment with the ripple.
“Phew…”
Li Fan gasped heavily, his body drenched in sweat from the pain.
Even after disengaging from the ripples, the sensation of his soul being torn lingered as though etched into his being.
It took the passing of two complete “thousand-ripple intervals” for the pain to gradually fade.
Once recovered, hesitation flickered across Li Fan’s face.
But when the next anomalous ripple arrived, he once again threw himself into it.
This time, he seemed to last slightly longer—or so he thought.
Without waiting for the pain to fully dissipate, Li Fan immersed his spirit into the ripple once more.
“Argh!”
Li Fan’s face twisted in agony, his body convulsing under the torment of his soul’s suffering.
A flash of ferocity crossed his eyes, and the fleeting thoughts of giving up were immediately extinguished by the reverse cultivation method of the Xuanhuang Heart Refining Mantra.
“Just a little pain—do you think you can stop me?”
“Again!”
What followed was a relentless cycle of trials.
Li Fan endured unspeakable torment in his attempts to ride the anomalous ripple into the depths of the void.
The pain escalated each time, from tearing to a thousand needles piercing, then to the sensation of being crushed and ground repeatedly.
By the end, his mind became a blank slate.
Only the unwavering determination in his heart sustained him, preventing him from abandoning his efforts.
Throughout this ordeal, the Xuanhuang Heart Refining Mantra played a pivotal role.
Human nature tends to shy away from suffering. In such excruciating circumstances, thoughts of surrender—such as “Forget it,” “Why bother?” or “This isn’t necessary”—naturally arose in Li Fan’s mind.
Normally, such thoughts could have shaken his resolve. However, under the grinding effect of the mantra’s reverse cultivation, they were transformed into nourishment for his soul.
Without this, even with his exceptional mental fortitude, Li Fan would have been unable to endure the pain.
But regardless of the difficulty, Li Fan ultimately succeeded.
He did not know how much time had passed, but when he finally regained consciousness, he found himself in a mysterious yet strangely familiar space.
In this realm, horizontal and vertical lines intersected, while particles of various colors zipped along the lines at great speed.
Occasionally, particles collided, bursting into radiant seven-colored lights before vanishing as quickly as they appeared.
“Where is this?”
Li Fan first examined his body.
Surprisingly, it appeared as though crudely sketched from intersecting lines—both comical and eerie.
Yet, it felt no different from his normal physical form.
Careful not to act rashly, Li Fan evaded the streaking particles as he observed the wondrous space.
“This seems somewhat similar to the Tianxuan Mirror Space I saw before.”
“However, the Tianxuan Mirror only displayed black and white, unlike this colorful realm.”
“Wait, I remember…”
Li Fan’s heart stirred as he replayed stored images in the Dao Deviation Stone, analyzing them closely.
In the final frame, he noted that the edges of the black-and-white world also contained traces of seven-colored light.
It seemed black and white, and seven colors were two opposing energies.
In the black-and-white world, the seven-colored light was fragmented and assimilated into its form.
“A Newborn Tianxuan Mirror…”
Li Fan squinted his eyes, lost in thought.
Before long, he arrived at a conjecture.
The black-and-white world undoubtedly represented the Tianxuan Mirror.
The seven-colored radiance, on the other hand, likely embodied a microcosm of the real world.
The intersecting lines resembled the laws of nature, as seen through the [Human Dao Stardust], representing the principles governing the real world.
“The Tianxuan Mirror is deciphering the real world in its own way…”
“And this…”
Li Fan’s eyes lit up with understanding.
“…is a microcosm of the world in its primordial state.”