Chapter 674: Shared Dreams Counter Soul Searching

With the Nascent Soul formed, the avatar gained an added aura of otherworldly grace, a transcendent detachment that set it apart from others.

Not just the rank-and-file disciples of the Medicine King Sect stared at him unblinking. Even Liu San and Fang Zaiji, who had sensed the disturbance and hurried over, found themselves stunned.

Using Xu Ke's essence blood and appearance, with Mister Bai's spirit and bearing...

From now on, you shall be called Xu Bai.

Li Fan looked at the avatar and nodded, deeply satisfied.

Xu Bai cupped his hands toward Li Fan and offered a faint smile.

A sharp intake of breath rippled through the crowd below.

"Young Master, this is..." Liu San approached Li Fan while fixing his gaze on Xu Bai, confusion flickering in his eyes.

He had kept constant watch on the entrance to Longevity Valley to stop any Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivators from sneaking in under cover of the White Mist. Yet he had completely failed to detect when this man had entered. The stranger might as well have materialized out of thin air. A suspicion formed in Liu San's mind, but he still found it hard to believe. He turned to Li Fan for confirmation.

"This is no place for discussion. Follow me." Li Fan saw the same wariness in Fang Zaiji's eyes, and he led Xu Bai and the two of them to a secluded cultivation chamber.

"This is an avatar I refined," Xu Bai said directly.

"I see." Understanding flashed across Liu San's face, but a new confusion soon replaced it.

"Techniques for refining avatars are rare, but with the young master's capabilities, acquiring one wouldn't be difficult. Why is the avatar you refined so... ostentatious?" Liu San didn't press Li Fan on where the technique had come from, but he looked at Xu Bai again, bewildered.

Li Fan smiled without answering. "I have my uses for it. By the way, Mister Fang, how are the artifacts you're refining coming along?"

Fang Zaiji reacted instantly. "The white robes, the folding fan... they were prepared for this avatar, weren't they? I knew it! Those things don't suit your style at all, Sect Leader!

"A Dao Unity-level artifact isn't so easily forged. It'll take at least another half year. Besides..."

Fang Zaiji stared at Xu Bai a while longer. "The artifacts I designed earlier seem unworthy of this avatar of yours, Sect Leader. No, no. This won't do. I need to scrap it all and start over!"

The longer Fang Zaiji looked, the more he felt that the white robes and folding fan he'd envisioned lacked something when worn on Xu Bai.

He turned to hurry off and rework his design, but Li Fan stopped him.

"Nearly three years have passed since the Crimson Flame Sea Scorching event. It's time for the disciples to re-enter the world. My plan will require every disciple's cooperation," Li Fan said, his tone calm and measured.

Liu San and Fang Zaiji raised no objection.

"But re-entering the world means facing risks. If a disciple meets with disaster and falls into the hands of someone skilled in soul-searching, it could expose the secrets of Longevity Valley and the Beastkin World.

"How do we handle this?" Li Fan looked to the two Dao Unity cultivators for an answer.

"I only specialize in artifact refining. Ask Old Liu," Fang Zaiji said, shrugging with feigned helplessness.

Liu San didn't decline to help. He thought for a long time before answering. "One man's mind breaks easily, but ten thousand united minds are far harder to crack. The Oneiric Seasons Array within the true Medicine King Cauldron is still active. We could require every disciple to send a strand of divine sense into the array before leaving.

"If someone forces a soul-search on them, it will trigger a counterattack from the array. Unless the invading soul's strength surpasses the combined strength of every Medicine King Sect cultivator still sleeping within it, the enemy will learn nothing from our disciples' minds.

"The Oneiric Seasons Array is, in truth, a vast dreamscape formed by linking the thoughts of everyone who has entered it.

"So beyond resisting external attacks together, we can also use the dreamscape's power to seal away parts of our cultivators' memories. It works like an ordinary dream: the dreamer never realizes they're dreaming.

"And from now on, even scattered across the Xuanhuang World, disciples can use the Oneiric Seasons Array to contact each other instantly, without anyone detecting it..."

Liu San explained these uses of the array to Li Fan in detail.

Li Fan listened, deeply satisfied. "Then I'll leave this to you, Old Liu. Once the disciples leave, they can act as they see fit. All I ask is that they casually ask around for news of the Tianling Flower. It's unique to the Tianling Province of the Myriad Immortals Alliance. Blessed by heaven’s spirit, its beauty is incomparable. But several years ago, after the great war in Tianling Province, the flower underwent a strange transformation..."

Liu San didn't ask why. He simply etched the instructions into his memory.

After outlining the precautions, Liu San set to work at once, arranging for the disciples to be linked to the array.

Li Fan left Longevity Valley first.

Longevity Valley sat within the White Mist Barrier, on the border between Luoyan Province and Lueying Province.

Li Fan slipped past the patrolling cultivators and out of the White Mist, silent as a ghost, and arrived in the sky city of Luoyan Province.

Though it lay inland within Myriad Immortals Alliance territory, Luoyan Province was no more prosperous than the Congyun Sea. It actually held slightly fewer cultivators. Part of the reason was that most of Luoyan Province was barren wasteland, poor in resources.

But the main reason was the frequent appearance of Oddities there.

Take the Mind Ape, something Li Fan knew well. There was once an outbreak here on a massive scale. The Myriad Immortals Alliance kept no detailed records of the event, but in his past lives, when Li Fan had bought Mind Ape bones in bulk, he'd noticed that most came from Luoyan Province. That was how he'd worked it out.

The city of Luoyan felt especially desolate now.

The moment Li Fan reached the long-unvisited Tianxuan Mirror, he began searching for information on addictive pills.

Liu San had claimed his disciples' investigation turned up no ban on such substances within the Myriad Immortals Alliance, but Li Fan knew better. The existence of merit ranks meant plenty of secrets stayed hidden from ordinary cultivators.

Cultivators who crossed some unspoken line and died without ever knowing why were not rare in the Myriad Immortals Alliance.

But this substance mattered too much to his future plans. He needed to know the Alliance's true stance.

In his current identity, his merit rank still sat at a clean slate, Yan 1. But that didn't hinder his ability to gather information.

He took out the jade bottle holding the Immortal Ascension Heart's-Desire Pill and prepared to list it for sale.

"Warning. The item you are attempting to sell is prohibited. Your trading permissions have been temporarily frozen. Please dispose of this contraband immediately.

"Warning..."

The Tianxuan Mirror's voice rang out, sharp and insistent, repeating the warning.

Li Fan put on a look of utter shock, his face filled with feigned innocence. "What? Contraband? What are you talking about?

"It's just an ordinary medicinal pill, isn't it..."

The Tianxuan Mirror's icy voice repeated itself. "Immortal Ascension Heart's-Desire Pill. Listed as Rank 3674 on the Myriad Immortals Alliance's Prohibited Items Ranking.

"Hazard level: Grade B+.

"Please destroy it immediately."

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