My Longevity Simulation

"Master Qu Yixing is right. After all, the Xuanhuang Realm does not belong exclusively to our Ten Great Sects." Fang Dingge, Sect Master of the Grand Dao Sect, remarked with an underlying implication.

Qu Yixing, however, seemed completely oblivious to the hidden meaning and continued, "The leader of the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance is known as Dharma-Transmitter. The cultivation method he created does indeed have its own merits. However, with the Great Celestial Venerable overseeing the world, it is destined to never amount to anything. If they make an even bigger disturbance, I am afraid we will not even need to act. This so-called Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance will be reduced to ashes in an instant."

"Since they are all destined to die anyway, we might as well make full use of them. However, the cultivation method of the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance is rather special. It would be unwise to recruit cultivators above the Nascent Soul realm. Otherwise, after they die, the wandering spiritual qi of the Xuanhuang Realm will instead nourish the Taiyuan Realm."

"Leave this matter to me. I will make sure to persuade them properly."

A bold and hearty voice rang out, voluntarily taking responsibility for the task. It was none other than Situ Yao, the eldest senior brother of the Heavenly Sword Sect.

He gazed toward a certain location in the Xuanhuang Realm, silently raised the gourd in his hand, and took a long drink.

...

With just a few brief exchanges, the leaders of the Ten Great Sects had decided the fate of the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance in this spacetime.

Yet, in a corner beyond their sight, another sovereign was likewise weaving their future.

"So that is how the Taiyuan Resurrection Furnace works."

"I was wondering how there could possibly be a Dao in this Yuanchu Possibility that I did not recognize or understand!"

Inside the Darkblood Fortress, Li Fan sat cross-legged. In his palm, the indistinct and distorted image of a furnace flickered in and out of existence.

Over the past six months, he had used the golden spatial chains of the Floating Across Starry Sky Grand Formation as a medium to analyze and decipher the Great Dao condensed within the Taiyuan Realm.

The result was somewhat unexpected, yet upon closer consideration, it made perfect sense.

The so-called infinite resurrection taking place within the Taiyuan Realm was not true resurrection at all. It was actually a process of "manufacturing."

The situation was exactly the same as in the Xuanhuang Realm.

Deep within the Taiyuan Realm lay a magnificent and enormous ancient Immortal Realm formation.

The Nine-Star Red Bead, the Unfixed Circular Ring, the Endless Frozen Sea of Corpses...

Almost everything was identical to what existed in the Xuanhuang Realm. The only difference was that the Nine-Star Red Bead of the Taiyuan Realm had not disappeared without a trace like its counterpart in the Xuanhuang Realm. It remained safely within the core of the ancient formation, maintaining its operation.

Whenever a Taiyuan cultivator died, the Nine-Star Red Bead, which recorded the data of every living being in the Taiyuan Realm, would use the immortal formation to manufacture a new copy of that individual.

Both the "resurrected" and those who fought against them believed that they had truly been brought back to life.

Only those who penetrated the layers of concealment and glimpsed the immortal formation behind them could see the truth.

"As expected of an experimental field once overseen by an Immortal Emperor. With the Nine-Star Red Bead serving as its core, this intact ancient Immortal formation has actually reached the point of [Depicting the Dao Through Formations]."

"Emperor Taitian, oh Emperor Taitian. You actually failed to remind me of something this important."

Of course, this last remark was merely Li Fan's teasing. In Emperor Taitian's eyes, compared with the monumental responsibility of reversing spacetime and saving the eternal past, the lives of all the beings within the experimental fields were utterly insignificant. A formation that merely manufactured artificial living beings naturally had nothing to do with the word "important."

"Resurrection is nothing but a lie. I absolutely cannot let the Ten Great Immortal Sects learn the truth. Otherwise, the conviction supporting their belief that their fallen comrades can be resurrected in the Taiyuan Realm would disappear instantly. The Xuanhuang Realm's front lines would probably collapse at the slightest contact with the enemy."

Li Fan examined the illusory furnace in his hand, slowly stroking its surface.

Although it was merely an illusory image, ripples genuinely spread across it in response to his gentle caress.

Naturally, this was because after successfully infiltrating and deciphering the ancient immortal formation of the Taiyuan Realm, Li Fan had begun attempting to modify it.

Even though the core of the immortal formation remained intact, it was ultimately no match for the True Immortal visitors from ten thousand years in the future.

Li Fan had not needed to expend much effort to infiltrate the core of the Taiyuan Realm's immortal formation.

However, the reason he had not made any particularly drastic changes so far, limiting himself to secretly modifying the formation's finer details, was the presence of two surviving Immortal Realm guardians within it.

Under the concealment of the ancient world-protecting immortal formation, Li Fan had glimpsed the true appearances of these two figures.

One was an Immortal Realm Watcher, the same kind of existence that had also appeared in the Xuanhuang Realm. However, the Watcher in the Taiyuan Realm had clearly retained a complete and lucid consciousness.

The other might once have existed in the Xuanhuang Realm as well. However, it had already disappeared alongside the damage to the immortal formation.

It was the Restoration Official of the Immortal Formation.

It possessed a human body, but its head had been replaced by a book whose countless pages seemed to turn endlessly and simultaneously.

In Li Fan's eyes, the so-called Watchers and Restoration Officials were nothing more than Immortal Servants.

Of course, in the eyes of mortal cultivators, even if they were merely "servants," the moment the word Immortal was associated with them, they became existences far beyond anything ordinary cultivators could contend with.

Even Li Fan, who had now recovered to the Dao Integration realm, was temporarily no match for these two if he confronted them directly.

For now, he is merely avoiding their edge for the time being.

However, it was quite obvious that the Immortal Servants stationed within the formation did not truly understand the world-protecting immortal formation itself. They could only operate it step by step according to the instructions left behind by the True Immortals of the past.

As for the subtle changes Li Fan was secretly introducing under his direction, they remained completely unaware.

"Only by making it absolutely certain that the Taiyuan Resurrection Furnace can resurrect Xuanhuang cultivators who die on the battlefield can I preserve their conviction to continue fighting."

Having spent half a year stationed inside the battlefield fortress, Li Fan understood this very clearly.

"I went through so much trouble to build the stage for this grand performance. Wouldn't it be a shame if the audience simply walked away?"

"What the immortal formation cannot accomplish, I will accomplish myself!"

Li Fan gently raised his left hand. The illusory furnace immediately flew forward and began spinning rapidly in midair.

With every movement of Li Fan's hand, countless rays of radiance surged forth from its surface.

Without anyone noticing, changes gradually unfolded within the Taiyuan Realm.

Whenever a cultivator's soul was completely extinguished, the immortal formation would automatically capture their living-being data and record it within the Nine-Star Red Bead. As long as this data existed, manufacturing them anew was no difficult task.

Of course, since the records did not contain the original template data, the information captured by the Nine-Star Red Bead would inevitably contain certain discrepancies compared with the cultivator's actual living-being data.

After being "resurrected," Xuanhuang cultivators would possess slight differences from their original selves. Rather than resurrection, it was more akin to being reincarnated into a new life.

Even so, Li Fan believed that the Xuanhuang cultivators would be satisfied with this arrangement.

After several days of meticulous refinement, Li Fan finally completed the preliminary modifications to the Taiyuan Realm's immortal formation.

During this process, he had also used the Great Dao contained within the immortal formation to complete a certain degree of alignment between the Great Dao of the past and the future across the two spacetimes.

The boundaries of immortal arts, which had originally seemed obscured behind a layer of frosted glass, gradually became clear once again.

Li Fan could almost feel that Infinite Ocean beyond the mortal world once more.

After all, a True Immortal could not be suppressed forever.

No matter how fiercely the Xuanhuang Realm resisted and suppressed him, as long as Li Fan was given an opportunity, he could rise again in an instant.

"Xuanhuang Heavenly Dao, just wait until I return. I will settle accounts with you then."

"For now, I shall bring the grand performance I have painstakingly prepared here to a perfect conclusion."

Unhurriedly, Li Fan picked up the illusory furnace, which had almost become tangible, and gently turned it over in his hand.

Now, as long as he wished, he could return to the Infinite Ocean and ascend the Mountain Shangfang at any moment.

He could return to the True Immortal Realm.

However, the devastating consequences brought about by the fusion of the three Daos still left Li Fan with lingering fears.

Even so, [Truth] had truly fallen into a state of silence. If Li Fan were to connect to the Infinite Ocean alone, he would undoubtedly face enormous and unpredictable risks.

"With my current cultivation, I am already powerful enough to move unhindered within the High Wall. Even if the Hunger Immortal were awakened, I could still retreat without difficulty."

"Whether I become an immortal or not is actually of little importance to me."

"The most crucial thing is still my comprehension of the Transformation Between Truth and Falsehood."

If returning to ten thousand years in the past had allowed everything to proceed smoothly, then the consequences of [Truth] falling into silence were the only setback Li Fan had encountered.

His previous comprehension of the Transformation Between Truth and Falsehood had not recovered as satisfactorily as he had hoped.

Compared with half a year ago, when he was still in the Xuanhuang Realm, his progress had indeed been considerable. However, Li Fan had a premonition that returning to the level he had possessed before merging his three Daos and reversing the flow of time would be an extremely arduous undertaking.

"Originally, I considered my comprehension of the Transformation Between Truth and Falsehood to be entirely my own achievement. In reality, however, it was still built upon the foundation of [Truth] possessing my body. With [Truth] as my cornerstone, I was able to effortlessly grasp the Transformation Between Truth and Falsehood, something that others could not even perceive."

"Now, with [Truth] having fallen into silence, I have practically lost the foundation I could rely upon."

"If I wish to return to my former heights, I must start from the beginning and steadily make my way back, one step at a time."

"Although this will be much slower, this time..."

A sharp glint flashed through Li Fan's eyes.

"What belongs to me is truly mine. Even if I experience another incident like this loss of memory, no one will ever be able to take it away from me!"

Having understood this, Li Fan no longer felt the slightest impatience.

Reversing the flow of time by ten thousand years had originally been a desperate measure taken to survive. To Li Fan, it made little difference which era he remained in.

As for the calamity that was gradually consuming the entire mortal world of Mountains and Seas in the face of the Dao Annihilation Calamity...

It was still beyond what Li Fan could afford to consider at present.

Reversing the flow of time to return to the past within the same timeline had already proven this difficult. Li Fan could practically imagine the dangers he would face if he attempted to cross the Eternal Silence Void Realm and travel to another completely severed timeline.

"Even between the upper and lower reaches of the same river, there are already so many deviations in the Great Daos. Different timelines severed by the Dao Annihilation Calamity are practically equivalent to two entirely different rivers."

"It is entirely foreseeable that if I recklessly attempt to reverse the flow of time and travel there, I will inevitably encounter the same situation of losing my cultivation and divine abilities."

"And when that happens, recovering them within a completely unfamiliar timeline will not be nearly so easy."

Only now did Li Fan finally begin to understand, at least to some extent, what Lord Hill Guardian had meant when he spoke of how difficult every step forward had become.

Perhaps, far in the future, for the sake of his own survival, Li Fan would have no choice but to join forces with the supreme experts from different periods of the river of history to resist the terrifying and dreadful Dao Annihilation Calamity.

But for now...

Since they could still hold on, he might as well let them hold on a little longer.

"I should take care of my own safety first."

Li Fan chuckled self-deprecatingly.

...

With Li Fan secretly manipulating events behind the scenes, the battlefield in the Taiyuan Realm became even more fiercely contested.

Even though the Taiyuan Realm had pushed the efficiency of manufacturing resurrected cultivators to its absolute limit.

Even though Fang Dingge had successfully completed his persuasion of the Dharma-Transmitting Immortal Ancestor, bringing cultivators from the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance into the battlefield, whose cultivation realms were below Nascent Soul but whose actual combat strength was exceptionally formidable.

The two sides nevertheless remained evenly matched.

The battlefield had become like a bottomless swamp. Once someone stepped into it, there was no hope of escaping.

The tiny territory of Taiyuan had practically transformed into a terrifying Asura battlefield that continuously devoured lives.

Neither side had any choice but to continue committing more forces to the conflict.

As the saying went, heroes emerged in troubled times. Within this battlefield, several exceptionally dazzling rising stars emerged, their ascent seemingly unstoppable.

Among them was Li Ping, the identity Li Fan was currently assuming.

Over the course of half a year, he had participated in more than two hundred and thirty battles, both large and small, killing dozens of enemies in every engagement.

After every battle, he would invariably experience a sudden enlightenment.

The Xuanhuang cultivators secretly regarded him as a natural killing machine, a born saint of conquest.

His cultivation had advanced from the Golden Core realm, which he had possessed when he first entered the battlefield, all the way to Soul Transformation.

The speed of his progress was truly astonishing.

However, the cultivation world had always possessed ancient legends of people attaining the Dao in a single moment and ascending to immortality in broad daylight. Advancing from Golden Core to Soul Transformation in half a year was certainly fast, but not entirely beyond belief.

Especially considering that this progress had been achieved through endless slaughter.

Moreover, the progress of another cultivator beside Li Fan was even more eye-catching.

She had attracted the vast majority of the attention that might otherwise have fallen upon him.

Naturally, this was Cao Yingyue, who had obtained Li Fan's inheritance of the [Supreme Dao Scripture].

Perhaps because of the death of her beloved Senior Brother Duan, she had already become a living corpse, with only a single thought remaining in her mind: killing enemies to avenge him.

Other people who obtained the Supreme Dao Scripture all had to conceal their progress and act discreetly.

Cao Yingyue, however, simply ignored all such concerns and openly displayed her cultivation progress before the world.

In less than three months, she advanced from Soul Transformation to Dao Integration.

During the following two months, she continued advancing through slaughter as though there were no bottlenecks whatsoever.

By now, she had already reached the complete stage of Dao Integration.

Compared with her, Li Fan's progress no longer seemed particularly outrageous.

Although quite a few people from the Ten Great Sects were curious about how Cao Yingyue could advance her cultivation so rapidly, there were two reasons why no one dared to act.

First, this was an extraordinary period of fierce warfare, one that concerned the very survival and future of the Xuanhuang Realm. Even if they harbored greed, they did not dare make a move at such a critical time.

Second, Cao Yingyue was already a core disciple of the Ten Great Sects.

Without the Sect Master of the Taishang Sect giving his approval, no one else would dare act recklessly.

All the inquiries were dismissed by the old Daoist with a single indifferent response.

"The Taishang Sect's secret techniques cannot be passed on to outsiders."

There was nothing anyone else could do.

Li Fan, however, knew that the Sect Master of the Taishang Sect had not spoken falsely.

One had to admit that Cao Yingyue was an intelligent woman. After obtaining the Supreme Dao Scripture and realizing its miraculous effects, she immediately withdrew from the battlefield and returned to the Xuanhuang Realm.

She informed the Sect Master about the Supreme Dao Scripture.

That old Daoist truly possessed the bearing of a sect master of an immortal sect. When faced with the vast starry expanse of the Great Dao that Li Fan had woven, he had momentarily lost himself in astonishment, yet he had not immediately attempted to claim it for himself.

"You obtained this item through your own fortune. Take good care of it."

With nothing more than this brief instruction, he dismissed the utterly bewildered Cao Yingyue.

This was precisely why Cao Yingyue later dared to display her cultivation progress without the slightest concealment.

Li Fan could somewhat understand the old Daoist's way of thinking.

It was much like the Longevity Great Dao contained within Lord Hill Guardian's inheritance.

A true expert had to forge a path that belonged exclusively to themselves. What others taught or bestowed upon them could never truly be considered attaining the Dao.