Li Fan needed a large number of elixirs that could directly boost cultivation. Naturally, these were intended for the monks in the small world.
It had been some time since they had collectively practiced the Common People's Spiritual Yuan Gong, but their overall progress was, at best, unsatisfactory.
Li Fan decided it was time to reverse the situation.
In this life, the exploration of the Bloody River, which contained the full history of the Xuanhuang Realm, had yet to begin. Soon, Li Fan might face the counterattacks of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, the Heavenly Lord of Transmission, as well as the Immortal Ruins Immortal, the Faceless True Immortal, and many other formidable beings.
When confronting enemies of such caliber, caution was paramount. Li Fan's current strength was insufficient to allow for mistakes; all his energy needed to be focused entirely. Once he started, he could not afford distractions.
The formation of the Bloody River had been discovered by accident in this world. Li Fan was uncertain whether he could replicate the method to reproduce it in the next life. Missing the opportunity to obtain its secrets would be a grave loss.
Thus, he needed to accelerate the pace of exploration as much as possible.
Previously, under the command of clone Li Qing, various small worlds had sent groups of foundation-building monks to investigate. Without exception, they had all perished in front of the Bloody River without returning any useful information.
Fortunately, the area around the Bloody River was special: it concealed the most precious fishing pond. The deaths of the monks were hidden from outsiders, preserving the secret of the Bloody River.
"At the very least, they must be upgraded to the Golden Elixir Realm in large numbers," Li Qing concluded. "Otherwise, they'll die in vain, and time will be wasted."
Thus, Li Fan ordered the Yaowang Sect to prepare the necessary elixirs. After visiting the Wooden Cave, he allowed the monks to leave their bodies—they only needed the herbs to perform alchemy.
With trivial matters handled, Li Fan returned to the underground secret room in the Lingmu Realm, taking out a list.
It contained the results of Mo Rubin's investigation into monks likely carrying the Taoist Stone, helping Li Fan eliminate most irrelevant suspects.
Looking over the names and their dense web of connections, Li Fan couldn't help but sigh. "There are people at the top of the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance handling things. Otherwise, I might have spent years gathering this information, and I may not have succeeded. Everything is organized so clearly."
"And Mo Rubin only gave simple instructions; naturally, someone below executed it perfectly."
He took out the Measuring Heaven Ruler previously given by the clone of the Tianxuan Mirror. Without a comprehensive vision of the targets, Li Fan's current data-processing capabilities couldn't fully absorb all the information—but selective filtering could.
Li Fan sank his consciousness into the infinite mirror world once again. This time, he marked the suspects on the list as priority targets, blocking unnecessary information.
The pressure immediately eased. Countless images flashed before his eyes as he patiently observed the results.
After a while, dozens of mirrors appeared like a screen of light.
"Well… some targets lack results. It's likely not because I missed anything, but due to the limitations of the Tianxuan Mirror itself," Li Fan murmured. "Similar to the Creation Stone Slate, it only records the local history of the Xuanhuang Realm, not the histories of external worlds."
He focused on forty-five monks. Some were practicing in the Tianxuan Mirror, some exploring sect ruins, others experimenting with magical powers, and some discussing problems with companions. None had shown the slightest concern for contribution points—they were all fully absorbed in their tasks.
Li Fan observed for three days straight. Not a single monk showed weakness.
Yet he continued to wait. With the Tao Transformation Stone in his possession, Li Fan knew its power could easily create dependency. Once a problem could be solved with the Stone, there was no reason not to use it—it was, after all, part of his magical power.
His patience soon paid off.
Seven days later, a monk named Lu Chengxue, while chatting with friends, mentioned details of an old adventure from years ago. Differences in memory led to small quarrels, and Lu Chengxue recalled the events in full, convincing his friends.
"It's you!" A light flashed in Li Fan's eyes. He recognized the scene perfectly.
It was the same method as searching for past events recorded by the Hua Dao Stone. Li Fan did not act immediately, instead continuing to observe.
Over a month and a half, he identified three targets. The others had revealed themselves through inhuman memory and data-processing abilities.
"That should be all. If someone resists using the Transformation Stone for so long, they either realize someone is watching and hide their stupidity—or they genuinely don't care about cultivation."
Li Fan stood, leaving the Spirit Wood World, and headed straight for his first target: Lu Chengxue.
Lu Chengxue was from the first generation of the Lu family in Tianquan Prefecture. The family was not famous for strength but for charity and justice. Anyone connected with the Lu family would receive help in difficulties—an invaluable advantage in a world full of intrigue and danger.
Despite their virtuous nature, Li Fan planned to be merciless. After practicing the secret technique of transforming the Taoist God, the Taoist Transformation Stone had merged with the monk's soul. The only way to extract it was to destroy that soul.
Li Fan had no hesitation. Not just in this life—but in all subsequent lives, until the fossil of the Stone was no longer of use.
…
In Tianquan City, Li Fan finally found Lu Chengxue. He paused for a moment, studying the enthusiastic and sincere face before him.
Lu Chengxue was undoubtedly worthy of being a core disciple of the Lu family, and he was extremely popular.
In the short half-day that Li Fan secretly observed, a total of thirty-seven people came to meet Lu Chengxue. Every single one of them was polite, smiling warmly. Li Fan could tell that their smiles were genuine—they radiated happiness from the heart.
After attending to his visitors, Lu Chengxue finally returned to his cave. Li Fan followed silently, slipping inside. The cave's protective formation was invisible to him now, and no one noticed his presence.
"My husband is back!"
As soon as Lu Chengxue entered, eleven female cultivators of exceptional beauty, three of them pregnant, emerged to greet him.
Lu Chengxue merely nodded slightly, his expression cold, and proceeded straight to the deepest part of the cave, entering the largest room. The women followed with laughter.
The door slammed shut. Soon afterward, faint sounds of intimacy could be heard from within.
Li Fan observed carefully and frowned. He did not envy Lu Chengxue's situation. In fact, he found it tiresome. Throughout the entire process, Lu Chengxue remained expressionless, not showing any enjoyment—more like fulfilling a duty.
From his conversation with the women, Li Fan learned the truth: producing as many offspring as possible was the most important way for the Lu family to remain prosperous.
In the Xuanhuang world, it was not easy to maintain a virtuous reputation. Sometimes, helping others meant risking one's life. The Lu family's enduring image of charity and righteousness was made possible by their sheer numbers. They would not hesitate to trade the lives of their children for the family's reputation.
Each family member knew their destiny. Perhaps one day, they would have to sacrifice themselves. In the meantime, enjoying life when possible had become the Lu family's consistent practice. Almost all members had spouses numbering in the double digits, and leisure time was often devoted to producing offspring.
Not everyone could maintain enthusiasm for such monotonous duties, however. Li Fan, observing Lu Chengxue, felt the weight of his exhaustion.
"You may be a core disciple of the family," Li Fan thought, "but you cannot escape the fate of breeding. At best, your partners are visually pleasing. Helping you escape this… isn't a bad thing."
Li Fan waited until Lu Chengxue and the eleven women grew drowsy, their eyes closing in sleep. He quietly entered the room.
Lu Chengxue was at the Realm of Spiritual Transformation, while the women were at most in the Nascent Soul Realm.
Li Fan held Lu Chengxue's head down and pulled him into his own cave, without alerting the other women. Then, like a ghost, he vanished. When they awoke, they would assume he had left due to fatigue, and it would take days before they discovered his disappearance.
Back in the secret room of the Spirit Wood World, Li Fan prepared a "pleasant surprise" for Lu Chengxue. He did not wake him—he would die quietly in his sleep. The vision of his death was covered by Li Fan's formation, leaving no trace detectable by anyone else.
Soon, a high-grade Dao Transformation Stone, glowing crystal white, appeared before Li Fan.
Among the Ten Thousand Immortals Alliance, there was only one fragment of the Mother Stone, three top-grade Dao Transformation Stones, and sixteen high-grade stones. Li Fan had not expected that one of his three targets would hold such a treasure.
The high-grade Dao Transformation Stone contained Lu Chengxue's memories from before he became a student. Li Fan did not delete them but browsed through the images carefully.
"I received this Transformation Stone as a child. It was my father's inheritance, given as a gift after he risked his life to save me," Lu Chengxue's memories revealed. He had secretly visited the gift-giver to hide it from the Lu family. No one knew he possessed the Taoist Stone.
Over the years, Lu Chengxue's talents had been slowly cultivated until he became a core disciple—until today, when Li Fan ended his life.
From Li Fan's perspective, Lu Chengxue's life had been uneventful. Apart from fathering sixteen offspring, there was nothing remarkable.
"An ordinary and sad life… not even as exciting as my days in Daxuan," Li Fan muttered.
He did not erase Lu Chengxue's memories, merely stored them aside, before beginning to merge the Transformation Stone with his own.
The process was not simple merging, but absorbing and strengthening. Li Fan's main consciousness, already transformed into Dao Shenyi, remained the core.
As the Transformation Stone carrying Lu Chengxue's life became a flowing river of light, it poured into Li Fan's consciousness, merging with the Stone in his sea of awareness. In an instant, the world seemed brighter, the sky higher. Every detail of Lu Chengxue's experiences—noticed and ignored alike—reappeared in Li Fan's mind, including materials, exercises, and other glimpsed knowledge, now organized and accessible.
"There's a huge difference between high-grade and mid-grade stones. I can only imagine the realm of top-grade stones, or even the Taoist Stone Mother," Li Fan whispered.
With the help of the Taoist Stone, he greatly improved his data redundancy, no longer feeling confused about where to start when researching.
Testing the Measuring Heaven Ruler again, he noted:
"The number of images I can monitor simultaneously has increased tenfold…"
The quantitative results were immediate, and Li Fan was immensely satisfied with the harvest.