Chapter 2058: Chapter 1593
Compared to performing the Divine Technique of [True Spirit Annihilation], lighting a candle to dispel the cold inside the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat is an act of compassion with negligible consumption of one’s spirituality.
For Li Fan, it is hardly a burden at all, and it can save the ship’s crew. Therefore, he does it as a matter of course.
"This extreme coldness..."
"What exactly caused it?"
The warmth produced by the burning of the True Spirit Fire only shelters the beings within the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm. Yet Li Fan, as the Master of Xuanhuang, voluntarily removed this protection.
Facing the cold loneliness between the Mountain and Sea directly.
The Xuanhuang Immortal Boat plowed through the darkness silently.
The outside world seemed to have lost the meaning of the passage of time.
Li Fan stood atop the high-hanging solitary sail of the Immortal Boat, as if this darkness before him was himself.
In the Mountain and Sea crossing, time seemed unknown.
Inside the Xuanhuang Immortal Realm, suddenly seventy years had passed.
Since the Immortal Boat entered the Dao Yan, the "variables" of the entire Xuanhuang Immortal Realm seemed to have been locked.
In these seventy years, no new Unity Realm cultivators were born.
It wasn’t that Li Fan deliberately imposed restrictions to save resources of the Immortal Boat, but the change of the boat itself.
In long immersion away from the mortal world, Li Fan slowly realized the fundamental source of this bone-chilling cold.
"The living beings of the Mountain and Sea are mostly born from the mortal world. Once we, living beings, leave the mortal world, we also leave the basic environment we rely on from nothingness to existence, nurturing, and cultivation. Like fish out of water, birds trapped on land, underground creatures suddenly exposed to sunlight."
"The inability to adapt leads to annihilation. The True Essence of Transcendence gathered by the Transcendent Strongman is, in some sense, the ability to adapt safely through such dramatic changes."
"Though I possess infinite spirit, I still feel this wandering and discomfort after leaving the mortal world..."
"Infinite spirit may be related to crossing, to my original self. Whereas my current body is indeed born as a primal creature between the Mountain and Sea," Li Fan thought silently.
In the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat, almost all living beings, including the last twelve True Immortals to board, were unable to escape this feeling of cold loneliness.
There was, however, one exception.
It was the unknown Tai Chu primal creature that was once slumbering and left behind in the Zhu Yu Star Domain, later raised by the twelve True Immortals collectively.
The energy consumption of the Tai Chu primal creature was truly inexplicable.
For fifty years, he did not stop feeding it for even a moment.
The Xuanhuang Wood Carving had already been crushed over a hundred times.
Yet it was still one step short of the full gestation of the Tai Chu primal creature.
Fortunately, Li Fan recently sensed that it had started to reject his feeding. Not because it was about to be a thankless creature before it was even born, but because the Tai Chu primal creature had reached the absorption limit of its gestation state and could eat no more!
Li Fan invited the twelve True Immortals to witness the gestation of the Tai Chu primal creature within the light sphere together. After all, they had diligently helped raise it for tens of thousands of years.
It is worth mentioning that despite having shared fifty years in the Mountain and Sea, these twelve True Immortals still had never seen the true form of the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat. From beginning to end, they were forced to crowd in the small wooden boat Li Fan had transformed.
With the solitary sail on the wooden boat raised, protecting against the incessant erosion from Dao Yan, they had no inkling that there was another larger Immortal Boat crossing many times the size under their small wooden boat!
Most of their mind was used to resist the constant surge of loneliness within them. When they had spare capacity, they seized every available opportunity to comprehend the "Path of Crossing."
Furthermore, the vast difference in strength between them and Li Fan made it difficult to discern the truth about the Xuanhuang Immortal Boat.
Now, seeing Li Fan holding the Tai Chu primal creature and suddenly appearing, they all paused in surprise.
Then, coming back to their senses, they looked with complex expressions at the light sphere about to give birth.
"To witness the birth of a Tai Chu primal creature with our own eyes today is truly a blessing beyond three lifetimes."
"All our past efforts are not in vain."
"I wonder if this Tai Chu primal creature will remember us."
"Senior not only saved us from peril but also helped us fulfill our long-standing wish. His compassion is truly admirable," said the twelve True Immortals naturally, showing no sign of resentment in their hearts.
Li Fan’s gaze swept over lightly, causing everyone’s heart to skip a beat.
The deathly silence lasted a while before Li Fan spoke again, "The beast should come out soon, so just wait patiently."
As Li Fan referred to the Tai Chu primal creature as a "beast," the twelve True Immortals all silently complained in their hearts. However, they dared not express anything and could only nod and smile in agreement.
And so they waited for another nine years.
For True Immortals, it is merely time that passes between closing their eyes for enlightenment.
On this day, a slight fluctuation transmitted from the light sphere in Li Fan’s hand awakened everyone on the wooden boat.
A black fissure appeared at the center of the light sphere. Suddenly, as if a shell was broken, infinite lights and shadows burst out from the fissure.
The roaring Mountain and Sea, countless possibilities emerging within the image of destruction!
As if facing the Mountain and Sea directly, everyone aboard the boat was immersed in the scene.
Yet they did not notice a black line hidden within these light and shadow, shooting towards the weakest of the twelve True Immortals.
Until the black line was almost upon him, Shi Qiwen, whose cultivation was of the [Nurture] path, finally realized this sudden attack as though waking from a dream.