Chapter 52 – Guarding Tai’an Island

“All the mortals on the island vanished. And in the cities where they once gathered, enormous trees with lush, sprawling branches had appeared at some unknown time, as though a primeval forest had sprung up overnight.”

“From the boughs of those trees hung fruit after fruit, each bearing a human face.”

“Whenever a breeze passed through, the faces on the fruit would curl into eerie smiles.”

As He Zhenghao narrated, Li Fan could almost see countless human faces smiling at him.

Remembering that he had just eaten one of those very fruits, Li Fan couldn’t help but break out in goosebumps.

He Zhenghao continued his account.

“The Golden Core warden stationed there recovered from his shock and descended into the city to investigate.”

“Not a single mortal on the entire island had survived—all had been transformed into smiling fruits. But as for why this bizarre event had occurred, even the Golden Core warden couldn’t determine the cause. So he had no choice but to report the matter to his superiors.”

“The Myriad Immortals Alliance dispatched specialists to investigate, but no one knows what conclusions they reached. All that’s known is that afterward, the great trees in the city were all felled, and the city was restored to its original appearance. As for those smiling fruits, they carried on as if nothing had happened, continuing to live in the city in the same manner as before.”

“Generation after generation, they’ve propagated down to the present day. The Myriad Immortals Alliance also constructed a grand formation here, assigned wardens to guard it, and began harvesting the fruit.”

When He Zhenghao finished, Li Fan couldn’t help but say, “So by the sound of it, these Tai’an Fruits are essentially people?”

He Zhenghao shook his head. “How can they be people? They possess no consciousness of their own and act entirely on instinct. If you had to characterize them, at most they retain some lingering vestiges of human obsession.”

Li Fan pondered for a moment but ultimately chose not to argue the point.

The matter was too bizarre. He himself didn’t know how to classify these Tai’an Fruits.

However, once cultivators discovered their life-extending properties, none of that mattered anymore.

Never mind Tai’an Fruits—even if they were actual mortals, if consuming them could extend one’s lifespan, they would not escape the fate of being devoured.

Li Fan sank into deep thought.

He Zhenghao, apparently reminded of something as well, also fell silent.

A long while passed before the two came back to their senses.

He Zhenghao then went over the various matters Li Fan needed to attend to as the warden of an island.

Li Fan committed each point carefully to memory.

“The formation covers the entire island, and each time it operates, it draws a trace of vital essence from the mortals living within it.”

“The amount extracted is minuscule—it has no discernible effect on the mortals. But when all that vital essence is gathered together, bit by bit, it accumulates into a considerable quantity.”

“After conversion, this vital essence can increase the concentration of spiritual energy within the formation.”

“So while cultivating inside the island protection formation isn’t as efficient as activating the assisted cultivation mode in the Celestial Mystery Mirror, it’s still considerably faster than ordinary cultivation outside.”

Finally, He Zhenghao rather proudly shared with Li Fan a secret known only to cultivators who had served as island wardens.

After another round of reminders and urging Li Fan to contact him if any issues arose, He Zhenghao at last departed at a leisurely pace.

Li Fan held the Warden’s Token in hand. Empowered by the formation, his spiritual sense instantly blanketed the entire island.

The ordinary mortals on the island, the Tai’an Fruits in the central core formation—all were busily going about their lives.

After watching for a long time, Li Fan let out a sigh.

“Stripping the marrow from all beneath heaven to serve the path of cultivation.”

If he could, Li Fan would naturally want to do something about it. But unfortunately, he was currently nothing more than a lowly Qi Refining stage cultivator.

The only thing he could do for now was cultivate diligently.

Li Fan pressed down the various thoughts swirling in his mind.

From that day forward, Li Fan stationed himself on Tai’an Island.

It had to be said, the position of island warden was truly rather relaxed.

The mortals on the island dared not disturb the immortal master without good reason.

All Li Fan needed to do was periodically check whether the island protection formation was operating normally, harvest and preserve mature Tai’an Fruits in a timely manner, and handle other such trivial tasks.

The rest of his time was entirely his to use as he pleased.

Li Fan naturally devoted all of it to rigorous cultivation.

《A Hundred Uses for Spiritual Energy》, 《An Introduction to Spellcraft》, 《The Surefire Secret to Winning Duels—Strike First》, 《Staying Alive Is Victory》, 《Speed Conquers All》…

Starting from these foundational cultivation texts, Li Fan gradually mastered a number of simple minor spells.

Among them were the Breath Concealment Technique, the Feign Death Technique, the Wind Riding Technique, the Mighty Strength Technique, and so on.

During his studies, Li Fan couldn’t help but marvel at the lengths the Myriad Immortals Alliance went to in monopolizing knowledge.

The knowledge purchased and studied through the Celestial Mystery Mirror was perfectly fine for personal learning and use.

But if you wanted to teach it to someone else after learning it, that was impossible.

Unless your cultivation surpassed that of the Celestial Mystery Mirror itself, you naturally wouldn’t be able to break the restrictions woven into it.

Li Fan didn’t know what cultivation level the Celestial Mystery Mirror, as a spiritual treasure, corresponded to.

But reasoning from common sense, it should be at least equivalent to a Spirit Transformation stage cultivator, if not higher.

The might of a Spirit Transformation cultivator was far beyond what the current Li Fan could fathom.

So no matter how dissatisfied he was, he could only accept reality for the time being.

After finishing these books, Li Fan began attempting to study content related to pill refining, artifact forging, formation arrays, and the like.

Compared to the spellcraft material from before, these subjects were far too complex.

There were so many threads to follow that Li Fan didn’t know where to begin.

Just the pill refining fundamentals in 《A Primer on the Pill Dao》—the identification and efficacy analysis of various herbs by age and grade—took Li Fan a full ten-odd days simply to read through once.

Not to mention the subsequent sections on selecting and controlling pill fire, consecrating pill furnaces, and practical pill refining. Li Fan estimated that finishing the entire text would take him at least a year or more.

Knowing that these arts typically required a master’s guidance to get started, Li Fan wrestled with the decision for a while before ultimately choosing to set it aside for now.

He cast aside his distracting thoughts and began cultivating 《 The Jade Realm Thousand-Arts Golden Canon 》.

This ancient technique of the Celestial Mysteries Sect was profoundly abstruse and difficult to comprehend. It was vastly different from the Minor Ripple Water Art that Li Fan had previously practiced, as though the two belonged to entirely separate systems.

Even with the constant aid of the glazed pearl to enhance his comprehension, it still took Li Fan a full nine months or so before he barely managed to grasp the basics.

The difficulty was so extreme that Li Fan had at one point considered going to the Celestial Mystery Mirror and cultivating 《 The Jade Realm Thousand-Arts Golden Canon 》 under its super-assisted cultivation mode.

But in the end, he suppressed that notion.

At the root of it, Li Fan still couldn’t bring himself to trust the Myriad Immortals Alliance.

Judging by their methods, the Myriad Immortals Alliance was clearly no benevolent organization.

If he attracted the Celestial Mystery Mirror’s interest, revealing a Nascent Soul level technique wouldn’t be a major issue—but if the existence of Return to Truth were exposed, that would truly spell irreversible catastrophe.

So Li Fan would rather cultivate slowly on his own.

Just like that, a year passed.

Li Fan returned to Ten Thousand Immortals Island, collected his compensation for serving as acting warden—800 contribution points—then exchanged them for the late Qi Refining stage portion of the Minor Ripple Water Art.

After cultivating for five days under the Celestial Mystery Mirror’s assisted cultivation mode, he reluctantly returned to Tai’an Island.

Those five days of accelerated cultivation had given Li Fan the faint sense that he was already not far from the late Qi Refining stage.