Chapter 732: Lurking In The Heavenly Sword Sect

Of course, maybe it's because I’ve simply kept them cooped up in one place this lifetime. But it could also be that something has gone wrong in the Li World.

Otherwise, how could these prodigies from the Li World have fallen behind even the two youths from Great Xuan, Sun Erlang and Wang Xuanba?

Back then, Li Fan had personally verified their cultivation talents. They had barely been able to cultivate at all, far inferior to the people of the Li World. Yet now, without anyone noticing, they had overtaken those prodigies.

The volcano at the center of Great Li surfaced in Li Fan’s mind.

From his very first visit to the Li World, a vague suspicion had nagged at him. Something was off about that volcano.

Perhaps his cultivation realm and insight had been insufficient back then. He had investigated it himself several times, but never managed to uncover the issue.

Pity that the entrance to the Li World has been swallowed by spatial rifts in this life, making it impossible to enter.

Still, when I go there in the next life, I should pay closer attention.

With this thought in mind, Li Fan waved his hand lightly, pulling Su Changyu, Su Xiaomei, and the others into the air before him.

Their vigilance was noticeably lower than in previous lives.

Several breaths passed before they snapped out of their daze. When they finally realized Li Fan stood before them, they hurried to bow.

"We pay our respects to the Sect Leader!"

Li Fan's gaze swept across them. "It has been over ten years since I brought you out of that minor mortal world," he said in a deep voice. "First I trapped you on that island, then I brought you here to Longevity Valley. I've never let you leave.

"Do any of you hold a grudge?"

Ye Feipeng answered fastest. "How could we possibly hold a grudge against you, Sect Leader? We've been living very happily, especially in this Longevity Valley and the Beastkin World. To you, Sect Leader, they might be just a tiny corner, but to us, they're already bigger than our homeland."

He said this in a fawning tone.

Xiao Heng nodded deeply and chimed in with agreement.

The rest followed suit.

Li Fan stayed silent for a moment. Only after they all grew tense did he speak. "Right now, the external Xuanhuang World is in a period of upheaval unseen in a thousand years, filled with countless opportunities. It's the perfect time for you to spread your wings. Pack up. Tomorrow, you will leave the valley."

At these words, their expressions all froze.

Before they could react, Li Fan swept his sleeve and left.

Ye Feipeng and the others stared at each other in blank dismay.

They dared not defy the orders of their sect leader. For now, they had no choice but to accept this reality. With long faces, they hurried off to seek help from the Medicine King Sect disciples they knew.

I hope that once the dragons return to the sea, they'll bring me a bit of a surprise. Otherwise, I'm afraid it really does mean something is off about the Li World.

Li Fan locked onto them with Formless Killing Mechanism, then quietly returned to his secluded meditation chamber in Longevity Valley.

"Blessed be Heavenly Venerable Xuanhuang!"

He performed the ritual and entered the Fallen Immortal Realm once more.

Without hesitation, he selected the Heavenly Sword Sect Forges the Sword scenario.

The scene before him twisted and blurred. A furious shout rang out beside his ear.

"Ji Zhaoxuan! How have you failed to turn in the Sword Embryo again this time?

"If you delay Big Senior Brother's plan, can you bear the responsibility?"

Memories surged in like a tide. In an instant, Li Fan understood his predicament.

Ever since Mister Bai had departed that day, the Heavenly Sword Sect had conceived a plan to forge a World-Breaching Divine Armament.

Every disciple was required to draw insights from the wooden sword and channel them into primal stones called Sword Embryos, which would then be cast into a deep pit behind the mountain and forged through molten fire into the armament's prototype.

This obligation bound everyone in the Heavenly Sword Sect—disciples, elders, and even the sect's most powerful Big Senior Brother Situ Yao himself.

But the Golden Core cultivator whose body Li Fan now inhabited, Ji Zhaoxuan, had failed to deliver his Sword Embryo on time, and not just once. A senior brother had been sent to confront him, leading to the present scene.

Li Fan's expression stayed calm. He clasped his hands. "Senior Brother Chu, I beg you to grant me a few more days. This junior brother is dull and lacks talent. Whether it's the comprehension, the refining, or the steps in between, I am truly slower than the others."

Senior Brother Chu studied him for a moment, then snorted coldly. "This is the last time. And don't think I haven't noticed your little scheme. From the outside, the infusion of Sword Intent into the Sword Embryo appears similar to the operation of your technique, condensing qi into a sword. But in reality, the process is reversed. Every extra moment the Sword Embryo stays inside your body, you benefit from it. Tell me I'm wrong."

Li Fan let a flustered look cross his face, as though caught red-handed. "Senior Brother Chu."

The other man cut him off with a wave of his hand, his expression cooling. "It isn't that I have no regard for brotherhood. But I trust you understand which matters more: your own cultivation or the future of the entire Heavenly Sword Sect.

"I'll be back in two days. Don't say I didn't warn you."

With that, Senior Brother Chu turned and left.

Surrounded by the murmurs and pointed looks of the other disciples, Li Fan let the flustered expression drop. He returned to his room as though nothing had happened.

He took stock of his body's condition, and understanding settled in.

As expected, the person I've inhabited this time is no simple character either.

Within Ji Zhaoxuan's dantian sat a hazy sphere of gray mist like a gaseous planet, endlessly venting gray gas. That was his Golden Core.

The gas was slowly corroding and consuming the dormant Sword Embryo primal stone beside it.

At the same time, an exceptionally refined and profound True Intent of the sword path flooded into Li Fan's mind, purer and more powerful than anything gained from touching the wooden sword directly.

This was why Ji Zhaoxuan had been delaying his submissions. Every time he obtained a Sword Embryo, he absorbed it himself first, converting it into his own knowledge, and only then turned it over to the sect.

In truth, this body's talent in the sword path was entirely on par with a prodigy's. Even so, analyzing the True Intent within each Sword Embryo was painfully slow and always required a long stretch of time. To outsiders, it simply looked as though he coalesced his Sword Embryo far more slowly than everyone else.

Senior Brother Chu had only worked out that Ji Zhaoxuan was benefiting from the Sword Embryos somehow. He could never have imagined that Ji Zhaoxuan was absorbing the True Intent directly, making it entirely his own.

This grand plan of the Heavenly Sword Sect to breach the world? This body couldn't care less about it.

Because he himself was a double agent.

As Li Fan absorbed the Sword Embryo, the memories surfacing in his mind played out before him.

One night, under cover of darkness when no one was watching, Ji Zhaoxuan had used a secret art to transmit everything that had recently occurred in the Heavenly Sword Sect to someone outside.

Who that someone was, the memories did not say. Nor did they say why Ji Zhaoxuan had done it. He himself did not know.

It was as though, on some unknown day, an unseen will had seized him and moved his body to perform the act, and he had found nothing strange about it at all.

To deceive even oneself. That is indeed a superior form of spycraft.

The matter of the Heavenly Sword Sect forging the sword will soon be known to all.

And after that, peace may no longer come so easily.

In his mind's eye, an image surfaced: the World Breach at what was previously the Southern Abyss Sacred Beast Mountain, the result of the Xuanhuang World's boundary being torn asunder.

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