Chapter 737: Iterating The Disassembler Disc
Chapter 737: Iterating The Disassembler Disc
Within the World-Breaching Divine Armament.
Li Fan watched the fury on Ji Wangxian’s face freeze solid. It wasn’t just him. The entire Xuanhuang World seemed to grind to a halt.
An instant later, the scene began playing back at a thousandfold speed.
Li Fan saw several figures arrive later and clash with Ji Wangxian in a chaotic melee. In the end, Ji Wangxian retreated in disgrace, badly wounded.
A wave of clarity and relief washed through Li Fan’s host body at that moment.
Then Li Fan saw that the World-Breaching Divine Armament had torn apart the Xuanhuang World’s boundary, and the environment where the Heavenly Sword Sect had previously stood turned hostile and perilous.
What had once been rich with spiritual qi and ideal for cultivation was now a place of roiling wind and thunder, where black fissures split the space without warning. It was the same scene Li Fan had witnessed in the real world, at the twisted great whirlpool of the World Breach.
Then Li Fan made out a solitary figure in white robes, standing aloof before the ruins of the World Breach. With a gentle wave of his hand, the wound seemed to heal itself. The anomalies gradually vanished, and the space slowly stabilized.
After doing all this, Mister Bai did not linger. He vanished from sight at once.
From there, the images shifted with increasing speed.
Cultivators from various sects arrived to carve up the territory of the Heavenly Sword Sect. None would yield, and a great war erupted.
Disaster descended, and countless cultivators slaughtered one another.
The sky grew dim, and the ground was littered with corpses. For a long time, no trace of the living remained.
“These... are they visions of the future?” When the images twisted into an incoherent mess and could no longer be deciphered, Li Fan turned to Situ Yao beside him and asked the question, dazed.
Situ Yao kept staring at the scenes outside the divine armament. After a long moment, he finally shifted his gaze.
He raised his gourd and drained the wine in one gulp. “Not the future. The present.”
Li Fan’s eyes sharpened.
The world outside was pitch black, and they were like travelers lost on a path, walking into the curtain of night. What awaited the Heavenly Sword Sect was a completely unknown future.
In the darkness, countless savage beasts seemed to lurk, waiting to devour anyone who strayed close. A nameless dread rose unbidden in Li Fan’s chest, and he couldn’t help but ask, “Big Senior Brother, can we really breach the world’s boundary?”
Situ Yao took another gloomy gulp. “Who knows? We’re probably the first ones in the Xuanhuang World to make a run for it.
“If it doesn’t work, we’ll just die. Anyway, if we stay, we probably won’t live much longer either.”
As if echoing Situ Yao’s words, the interior of the World-Breaching Divine Armament abruptly darkened.
Then it fell still.
It shattered inch by inch, like the surface of a mirror cracking.
Back in the distorted space, Li Fan stared at the three dimmed masses of light before him, sinking into deep thought.
Only a single breath passes inside the World-Breaching Divine Armament, but outside, decades or centuries go by. It's very similar to the Immortal Ruins. Only a power that can distort spacetime like this could break free from the bonds of the Immortal Ruins.
After pondering for a long time, Li Fan finally returned to the real world.
Since he had fulfilled Ji Zhaoxuan’s long-cherished wish, he ought to be granted some reward.
But when Li Fan inspected his findings, he found himself surprised.
It wasn’t the Swordbreath Art that Ji Zhaoxuan had practiced, but a pile of Sword Embryo Primal Stones.
A strange expression crossed Li Fan’s face. He counted them: 326 in total.
He picked one up and held it in his hand.
Insights into the sword path surged into his mind in an unending torrent of knowledge. Li Fan also felt a flicker of familiarity, as though he had once comprehended these very truths before.
These must be the Sword Embryo Primal Stones Ji Zhaoxuan once absorbed in the true course of history. They hold the True Intent of the sword path, coalesced from Sword itself. For a sword cultivator, they'd be invaluable. For me, they're largely useless.
That Xu Bai is basically a human-shaped Dao comprehension machine. Hand him an ordinary wooden sword and he'd comprehend it all on his own. It would just take time.
Still, primal stone itself is a decent material. It could be used to forge a World-Breaching Divine Armament, or to reinforce the Medicine King Cauldron, allowing it hold out a little longer when I charge into the Immortal Ruins.
Li Fan kept half and tossed the remaining hundred-plus stones to Fang Zaiji.
Fang Zaiji was absorbed in his study of the Final Stone Disc, directing Jiang Yushan and Liu San as they carefully cut into it. He put away the Sword Embryo Primal Stones without much thought.
Li Fan watched him for a time but did not disturb him.
Then he returned to the secret chamber.
In the Fallen Immortal Realm, the harvest is always tied to the obsessions you resolve. In the Heavenly Sword Sect Forges the Sword scenario, these Sword Embryo Primal Stones are utterly unremarkable. It seems the master of the obsession maintaining that spacetime isn't Ji Zhaoxuan.
But he already had some inkling of who it might be. After thinking it over for a moment, he set the matter aside.
He took out the two relics of Huangfu Song: the Disassembler Disc and the Heaven-Measuring Mirror.
He examined the Heaven-Measuring Mirror first.
It had become an ordinary mirror. No matter how he probed it with divine sense, it gave no reaction at all.
No wonder. Even though Huangfu Song borrowed it from Ji Hongdao, when we went to the Cosmos Branch Academy to report Huangfu Song's death, the other party didn't ask for it back. It must be like the Tianxuan branch mirrors in the provinces: once the Tianxuan Mirror’s Empowerment is withdrawn from them, they lose all their spiritual properties.
He pondered for a moment, feeling a slight pang of regret.
Then he turned his attention to the Disassembler Disc.
Compared to when it had first been redeemed, the disc in Li Fan's hand seemed to have dimmed a little.
The difference was slight. If he hadn't been observing closely, he might have missed it.
But Li Fan knew why: the other eight Disassembler Discs had already begun iterating and evolving.
His, no, Huangfu Song's disc was still in its original state, and its capabilities were being gradually absorbed by the other discs.
Huangfu, oh Huangfu. It's not that I didn’t want to preserve it for you. It disappeared on its own. Hardly my fault.
Li Fan muttered to himself, then gripped the Disassembler Disc in his palm.
In an instant, the Dao Transformation Stone in his mind blazed with azure light, and countless basic, standard arrays poured into the disc.
Normally, the nurturing process involved outlining the basic framework of an array in one’s mind, then infusing it into the disc with divine sense. For basic arrays, this required nothing more than a thought for an array master, so it took little effort.
But as the arrays grew more complex, the time and energy required increased exponentially.
Li Fan, with the Unity of Dao Transformation and Mind art, had no such worries.
Ever since he began studying arrays under Zhang Zhiliang, every array he had encountered, in all its variations, had been kept pristine and clear within the Dao Transformation Stone. There was no need to recall or outline them; he could retrieve them from his mind and use them at will.
In the beginning, this advantage wouldn’t be particularly apparent.
But as time went on, and the arrays required to evolve the Disassembler Disc grew more complex, the gap would slowly begin to show.
Of course, in this lifetime, everyone capable of redeeming a Disassembler Disc was a dragon among men, a phoenix among fowls.
The remaining eight competitors likely each possessed their own secret abilities.
Li Fan would not underestimate a single one of them.
But beyond the Unity of Dao Transformation and Mind, he had other cards to play.