With the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven as a foundation, even if the Marrow of Heaven that Hongxi extracted during his Soul Transformation was unremarkable, his achievements would still be incomparable to today’s standards.
Was it because he didn’t want to?
No, it was simply because he couldn’t.
If rare treasures and heavenly laws could be obtained through personal effort, then at least there would still be some chance to strive for them.
However, by the time a cultivator reaches the Nascent Soul or Soul Transformation stage, acquiring a powerful and precious Cave-Heaven World or Heavenly Marrow is no longer just about diligence. Without a strong family background, sufficient resources, or extraordinary luck, how could one compete with other cultivators?
For an ordinary cultivator, simply securing enough resources to break through is already a great fortune. They have no luxury to pick and choose.
Take Diyi Jinglun, for example—he decisively abandoned the opportunity for Dao Integration when faced with the temptation of the Spirit of Heaven and Earth. Of course, this was partly because he was a peerless genius who looked down on the weak Spirit of Heaven and Earth. However, it was also because, as a high-ranking member of the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance, the resources and knowledge he controlled were beyond the reach of ordinary cultivators.
The strong can afford to be selective about their path to immortality, carefully weighing every choice, making them even stronger.
Meanwhile, the weak must seize every rare opportunity for advancement, barely scraping by—thus, the weak remain weak.
Even within the same realm, instant defeat in battle is not unheard of.
Now, with his breakthrough through the Five Elements Great Cave-Heaven, Li Fan has already reached the pinnacle of the Nascent Soul Realm.
But when it comes to finding a Marrow of Heaven that matches his cultivation, he is still completely lost.
What is the Marrow of Heaven?
Long Jiuyuan used the ‘Heavenly Spirit’s Thousand Waters’ to achieve Soul Transformation.
Hongxi relied on Taihua’s Thousand Mountains to break through.
From the heaven and earth notices issued upon their deaths, some clues can be inferred.
Just as human marrow produces blood, Marrow of Heaven produces laws.
When a new law appears in the Xuanhuang World, it manifests as a change in nature—the heaven and earth undergoes transformation.
In Tianling Prefecture, thousands of rivers will form over the next few millennia.
In Taihua Prefecture, thousands of mountains will rise in the coming ages.
These are preordained, inevitable changes in Xuanhuang World over a certain region and period.
Extracting the Marrow of Heaven means taking the fundamental laws that drive these natural transformations and drawing them into oneself.
By channeling the immense power of heaven and earth, one can achieve an enormous leap in cultivation and battle prowess.
Furthermore, the initial fusion of heavenly laws within one’s body lays the groundwork for the Dao Integration stage, when a cultivator must sacrifice the Spirit of Heaven and Earth.
“Heaven and Earth transformations take tens of thousands of years. With ordinary perception, cultivators wouldn’t even notice them. But under the new Heavenly Sovereign Laws, one can detect even the subtlest changes—first tearing open a gap, then continuously drawing in and absorbing the world’s originally slow-releasing source power at an accelerated rate.”
“Though this greatly depletes the world’s potential, for cultivators, it provides a rapid surge in strength.”
Li Fan’s mind raced, analyzing everything he had learned.
“The Five Elements Cave-Heaven is self-sustaining, forming a perfect cycle. It is a rare and precious opportunity. If I advance to Soul Transformation and extract the Marrow of Heaven, it must be related to this.”
“However, the Five Elements, when manifest in the world, tend to disperse. A single type of Marrow of Heaven will likely correspond to only one elemental attribute.”
“Attempting to cultivate multiple laws at the Soul Transformation stage, like during the Golden Core stage, is far more difficult.”
Li Fan narrowed his eyes.
Beyond law creation, Marrow of Heaven also possesses immunity and resistance mechanisms.
Once a cultivator has absorbed a particular Marrow of Heaven, attempting to extract another will trigger resistance from the world itself, leading to rejection.
“The more one masters, the greater the repelling force. With each additional type, the difficulty increases almost exponentially. So, for the vast majority of cultivators in this world, extracting even a single type of Marrow of Heaven is already the limit.”
“Even someone as powerful as Long Jiuyuan, who could single-handedly battle the Spirit of Heaven and Earth and ascend to Dao Integration, faced the same challenge. This alone shows how difficult it is.”
“I’m afraid I can, at most, accommodate only two types of Marrow of Heaven at the same time…” Li Fan thought to himself, not blindly overestimating his abilities.
“To achieve a perfect breakthrough, unless…”
A sharp glint flashed in Li Fan’s eyes. “Extracting five different types of Marrow of Heaven simultaneously and utilizing the principle of mutual generation and restriction to achieve self-balancing.”
This was undoubtedly an outlandish idea.
Not to mention the rarity of encountering an opportunity to extract five types of Marrow of Heaven at once—even if such an opportunity arose, the chances of success would be minuscule.
Any rational cultivator would never attempt such a thing.
However, for Li Fan, it was not entirely impossible to try!
In his mind, the Dao Deviation Stone continuously emitted a soft blue glow, systematically integrating all the information he had ever come across, slowly deducing a potential method to realize his idea.
…
More than ten days later, Li Fan sensed Liu San awakening. His figure flickered, and he appeared in front of him.
It seemed that Liu San had spent an incredibly long time in the Fallen Immortal Realm. Just as he returned to the real world, he was still somewhat unaccustomed to it.
A hint of confusion flashed in his eyes.
However, the moment he saw Li Fan, that trace of bewilderment quickly faded.
“Young Master!” Liu San stood up, his expression calm and composed.
“How was it? Did you encounter the alchemists from the Medicine King Sect of the past?” Li Fan asked kindly.
Liu San shook his head.
“Strangely enough, the scene I experienced this time in the Fallen Immortal Realm was not the ancient cultivation world you described, Young Master. Instead, it was a time and space I had never heard of before.”
“In that world, immortal arts had been completely severed, and no cultivators existed anymore. The only way people could wield extraordinary powers was by resonating with ancient artifacts left behind from ages past. They were called something like ‘Divine Weapon Wielders’…”
“And this time, the person I possessed was merely a little brat, no more than seven or eight years old.”
As Liu San recalled the experience, he narrated everything to Li Fan.
“In the end, after enduring countless hardships and experiencing endless bloodshed and slaughter, I finally managed to resonate with the legendary strongest divine weapon.”
“The ‘Immortal Execution Sword’…”
As he spoke, Liu San took out a long sword that radiated a dazzling seven-colored light, yet seemed to exude an endless aura of slaughter.
Li Fan’s gaze sharpened. But after taking a closer look, he couldn’t help but chuckle.
Liu San then remarked, “Quite the grand name. But in truth, it’s nothing more than a Natal Flying Sword forged by a Nascent Soul-stage sword cultivator.”
“It only stood out among a pile of so-called ‘divine weapons’ because it happened to be tainted with a wisp of a fallen cultivator’s lingering soul.”
Liu San glanced at the flying sword before him with some disdain and commented, “The forging technique is crude, and the material is extremely ordinary. What a piece of junk.”
With that, he applied a slight force.
The so-called strongest divine weapon, the ‘Immortal Execution Sword,’ instantly crumbled into dust.