Getting Out as Soon as Possible

Time flies like an arrow, and another month has passed in the blink of an eye. It's almost been six years since Li Fan transmigrated to another world to cultivate immortality.

At this moment, Li Fan was lying in the Tai Su Realm, on a rock bed cut from a large piece of amethyst, basking in the moonlight.

Li Fan's mood improved slightly; current mood is 17.6k/17.6k, fully charged.

"Ah--yawn, sigh, the Transformation Stage seems so far away..."

In fact, the crystal mine in the East Sea is a very simple world, with an especially strong presence of the False Moon and malevolent energy. One night of Moon Worship can increase one's income by 3,000 to 4,000. However, to avoid being monitored by some old foxes hiding behind him, Li Fan had to frantically complete the Zhenhai missions this month, looking for opportunities to go out to sea. He repeatedly used the dog frisbee and the system to confirm that no one was following him before daring to Moon Worship on a deserted island in the ocean. It was a case of being bitten by a snake once and suffering from Parkinson's disease for ten years.

After being so careful and procrastinating for over a month, he finally managed to calm his nerves down, but his Gui Xu Nascent Soul was still emaciated, barely growing a layer of flesh, as if he had anorexia. It seems he was truly injured.

Compared to a year ago, when he had just had a good night's sleep, Li Fan's long journey from Ink Bamboo Mountain to Penglai Mountain, despite overcoming numerous dangers and gaining a significant boost in his emotional capacity, has actually resulted in a substantial decrease in his actual cultivation strength.

Upon closer reflection, the most damaging thing isn't actually the self-destruction of the three mountain gods to defeat Shi Zai, because he can refine the mountain god's body again. If he finds it too slow, he can simply max it out using his mood limit, which doesn't take much effort in the first place. As for the many demons and monsters in the East Sea, with sea monsters corrupted by the False Moon causing trouble from time to time, he can always go to the Yulin Manor to get some octopus roe sashimi if he's feeling hungry. There will definitely be enough Devil Embryo to go with his drinks. Refining them again will only take a month or two.

The real damage was caused by the time the Thousand-Faced Immortal possessed him.

I remember the first time I saw the reflection of the Thousand-Faced Immortal at the Lei Marsh Swamp spaceship ruins, I was nearly killed. This time, that one leap of his body completely crippled Li Fan's chubby, purple-red Gui Xu Nascent Soul, exhausting all its true essence and flesh, leaving it almost a skeleton! Now Li Fan is really worried that when he gets old, he'll be as skinny as Real Person Liang!

Sigh, these Dao Ancestor level cultivators are really deadly...

'However, Li Fan, you need to prepare to leave Penglai. This deviation value has reached astronomical levels.'

'They killed the Legion's apostles, ravaged the Legion's mines, and destroyed the Legion's railguns; the Legion couldn't possibly remain completely unresponsive.'

'You won't be so lucky forever. Staying near Penglai to Moon Worship will eventually lead to your true identity being discovered by the other apostles or those Dao Lords. You'd better find a way to escape as soon as possible.'

'Yes, anyway, the fish have all been found.'

... You guys are only thinking about those few fish. You brought them back and then said it was a failure. What's wrong with you...?

However, the golden-scaled fish were indeed found. After all, no matter who stole them, they wouldn't have turned these ornamental fish into soup. Instead, they were treated as spirit beasts and specially given to the manor for upkeep. So, Li Fan found them while visiting various islands during his sea patrol mission.

After all, it's not unreasonable for a newly Zhenhai Real Person to ask for a hundred pure black and white carp as a tribute, right? In fact, if Li Fan hadn't firmly refused, let alone a few fish, the entire family of the man would have dressed up as Jin Qing and practically offered themselves to him!

In short, Li Fan now put all the carp in his residence in Penglai for the Huan family's maids to keep so they could remember their home. He only kept two 'barely acceptable' carp, one black and one white, as instructed by the system, and continued to raise them with fish bait and the Qi of Heaven and Earth. This way, the side quest could continue.

Regardless of whether it's fish or not, the system wasn't wrong; Penglai is still too dangerous. There are too many Dao Lords and Divine Lords, and the connection with the system is intermittent. Recently, they even started mining for the legion. It's really not suitable for Moon Worship and cultivating the Tai Su Dao here for a long time. Now that Li Fan has caught his breath, he has to find a way to slip away.

After stretching and returning to the Taiji Realm, Li Fan's first action was to draw a prize.

Unfortunately, although his reactor battery was still intact, the plasma cannon and teleportation sword, two powerful system weapons, were too formidable, and he was forced offline by a plot twist after only one experience.

However, going offline might not be the case. Analyzing the behavior of those tech-savvy individuals, who always kept their equipment hidden in anti-detection packages, it's clear the system's apostles also have methods of detection among themselves. Using too much technology will inevitably expose their identities sooner or later. Li Fan has truly experienced the power of the system's technological ambush this time; a sudden sniper strike followed by a nuclear attack—who the hell can withstand that...?

Anyway, let's do a lottery. This time the limit is 17.6k, so hopefully we'll get something amazing.

'Prize has been delivered'

A purple bell, no bigger than a walnut, fell into Li Fan's hand. He shook it casually, but it didn't make a sound. Perhaps it was some kind of disguise.

'The bell, developed based on the analysis of the Thousand-Faced Immortal, could theoretically be a device that can trigger ripples in a membrane using gravitational waves, thereby traversing extra dimensions.'

Note that the bell is a disposable item and unexpected phenomena may occur.

'Note that contacting the membrane will consume a massive amount of True Essence.'

Note that the destination reached by traversing extra dimensions is unknowable.

'Note: When traversing extra dimensions, please use the Thousand-Faced Immortal's Dao Body to prevent accidents.'

Note that membrane fluctuations can cause a sharp increase in deviation values within the region.

So what is this thing?

"It's a replica based on the data you recorded when you imitated the Thousand-Faced Immortal into the door, but it's subtly different from our technology—well, hugely different. So we don't know what it is."

Consider it a disposable emergency escape device.

Oh... it consumes a massive amount of True Essence... is there really any chance of survival using this to escape?

However, this bell is essentially a one-time escape device equivalent to an Enlightenment-level teleportation skill. If it weren't for sneaking into the Penglai lair, where in the world would there be so many Enlightenment cultivators? At least if you're reduced to a desperate situation, using the bell to escape is better than being possessed by the Thousand-Faced Immortal and ending up half-dead, right?

One life isn't so bad, is it?

So Li Fan put the bell in his pocket, cleaned up the Revered Heavenly Demon Dojo, and prepared to fly back to Penglai.

Actually, leaving the East Sea isn't difficult. Now he's Li Datang, the True Zhenhai Real Person of Penglai, the Sect Leader's disciple, Zhou Chengxue's sworn brother, and a prominent figure in the Three Immortal Mountains of the East Sea. If he wants to go to the Central Plains for training, no one will stop him. He just needs to register with the sect, hand over the Golden Seal of the Sea, and take on any other mission to leave the mountain. After all, not many people are willing to take on the job of the Zhenhai Real Person.

Yes, after completing a month of tasks, Li Fan discovered that the Zhenhai Real Person was both a lucrative and a difficult one. Some people might covet it but can't get it, while others might see it as a burden and wouldn't mind turning it down.

It's obvious that this job is arduous; there's a mountain of mundane tasks, and there's always something to do. Tasks refresh constantly, and you can never finish them all. Forget about practicing the Five Arts, refining pills and treasures; there's no time left for cultivation or Qi refining. That's why cultivators in the Inner Sect of Penglai really avoid it like the plague.

It's obvious that it's a cushy job. As long as the offerings from the various immortal islands meet the sect's quota, you can pocket the rest. It's basically a tacitly accepted cut and a hard-earned reward.

But the real reason why no one wanted to take the Zhenhai Seal was that the lucrative position of Zhenhai Real Person was a thing of the past. Now it was just a miserable job.

This time, Li Fan personally toured the East Sea, searching for fish while observing the true nature of Penglai. In addition, he inquired about the local situation with Xiao Yushi and learned a lot.

First of all, the Supreme Nine Truth Sect truly lives up to its reputation as one of the top Nine Great Xuan Sects; it is genuinely powerful. To put it bluntly, the bloody battles among the Cheng generation have had no real impact on the Nine Truth Sect as a great tree. Perhaps at most, only the Lingzhen Palace lineage will suffer some damage. But so what if one generation is cut off? The direct bloodline of the Three Mountains has a total of ten characters from 'Ju' to 'Da'!

The Supreme Nine Truth Sect, a behemoth, possesses sufficient resources to withstand war-level damage. Moreover, its selection mechanism is still functioning normally. What's even more 'remarkable' is that the entire sect is exploiting the resources of the entire East Sea with near-machine-like, extremely cold-blooded efficiency.

In fact, when the Nine Truth Sect Oldest One took over Penglai, it was a fairly normal ordinary sect. The rules they Oldest One established with the various races and islands of the East Sea even had a bit of the feel of winning people's hearts like the Four Officials and Six Commoners. Moreover, as a famous and orthodox sect, it was very popular with the Spirit Race and independent cultivators of the East Sea. They flocked to it, offering food and drink, just like Lou Guan.

However, after dominating the entire Three Immortal Islands of the East Sea and bringing the entire territory under the banner of the Nine Truth Sect, the entire sect began to implement 'rational and efficient planned production'.

Organized by the Nine True Palaces and divided into islands and sea areas, large-scale centralized management is implemented. The Nine True Palaces specially design and arrange corresponding magic arrays and barriers, modify the weather and spiritual vein arrays, and each island has its own division of labor to centrally produce specific cultivation resources, which are contracted and managed by the families of disciples of the Penglai Palaces in order to maintain maximum management and production efficiency.

For example, a certain island might specialize in cultivating a particular herb for alchemy, which is then processed at a unified alchemy workshop. The task of the Cultivation Family on that island is simply to maintain the operation of the magic array, focus on nurturing the spiritual herb, and drive away demons. Based on the harvest of the herbs that year, 40% of the harvest is handed over to Penglai for allocation, while the remaining 60% is freely disposable. However, any trade must be conducted within the Nine Palaces through the transportation of the herbs to the three major immortal islands.

Therefore, the powerful clans and noble families of the Central Plains flocked to Penglai to gain the right to trade with the Three Immortal Mountains in the East Sea. Going to sea without the permission of the Nine Truth Sect was tantamount to smuggling, and the consequences of being caught were self-evident. In short, through this means, a large number of powerful clans, wealthy merchants, and influential figures gathered under the umbrella of Penglai along the coasts of the Gen, Zhen, and Xun kingdoms, obeying its commands. Their fates were intertwined, whether they suffered or prospered.

Each island only produces a single type of cultivation resource, which means that breaking away from the Penglai system is tantamount to suicide. Other outside sects have no place to settle down. These East Sea Cultivation Family naturally support the Nine Truth Sect. Even if they can accumulate some resources, they use them to train their clan members, continue to take exams, and stay in Penglai to cultivate, thus providing a continuous stream of talent.

Although there were many problems, such as Zhenhai Real Person a highly lucrative position) lining his own pockets, various immortal island families exaggerating their harvests, the Divine Lord's family still violating sect rules by smuggling rare materials, the varying resources and harvests of the sea areas managed by the different palaces of Jiuzhen leading to disputes, some palaces supporting many Daoist disciples while others were resource-poor, and some practicing nepotism, etc., overall, the benefits remained within the family, and the Nine Truth Sect grew larger and larger.

However, with prolonged peace, the three Penglai Mountains, far overseas, had escaped several rounds of calamities in the Central Plains Inner Sect cultivators had also increased significantly. Moreover, the critical issue was that the resource requirements for ancient cultivation methods were growing exponentially. Furthermore, all the orthodox Xuanmen disciples were already Nascent Soul Stage the Nascent Soul stage, and with a little effort, they could reach the Divine Transformation. The Nine Truths Palace also possessed the life-saving immortal medicine, the Changchun Pill. As a result, a group of old divine lords on the mountain all claimed they needed to go into seclusion and simultaneously attained enlightenment, making them completely unusable!

At first, they were just guarding the mountain gate; having an elder in the family was like having a treasure. But now there are too many deities, and even with the wealth of the East Sea, they can't afford to support them. The Nine Truth Sect has begun to show obvious deficits, and its income is not enough to cover its expenses.

Moreover, when the Luo Sect rebelled and the Beichen Clan was wiped out, Penglai itself suffered few casualties, but its resources were depleted, so the situation became dire. After Xianhua came to power, he made some reforms, which ultimately led to him being awarded the 'honor' of being the most hated sect leader in Penglai's history.

Actually, it can't really be called a 'reform'. The manifestation is that the ranking and reward system has been slightly strengthened, the distribution method of the nine palaces has been adjusted, and in order to ensure the supply of cultivation resources for the Inner Sect cultivators, a minimum performance evaluation has been added, and, well, taxes have been increased.

Specifically, the allocation of resources is determined based on the ranking of contributions made by each sect.

All basic cultivation needs of the Inner Sect are covered by the sect, and this remains unchanged. However, any additional costs beyond the basic cultivation requirements will be distributed as rewards, but only to those Nascent Soul Realm with the potential to comprehend the Dao. Therefore, for the nine subordinate palaces, each additional Dao child with the hope of comprehending the Dao will bring enormous benefits and substantial rewards from the sect. On the other hand, each additional Divine Lord who has no chance of comprehending the Dao will only waste their own resources.

As a result, the rewards for elites have been greatly increased, with almost all Winner receiving everything. Meanwhile, those ranked lower not only receive no rewards, but are also subject to minimum performance standards for various tasks. In other words, the sect does not support idlers, nor does it allow tasks to fail. If you fail, you have to pay out of your own pocket to compensate the sect for its losses.

Of course, the reason why the Inner Sect is so busy is ultimately due to insufficient resources. After all, Penglai disciples don't fight each other much, nor do they drink together. Therefore, in order to ensure that the Inner Sect disciples have enough cultivation resources, the sect as a whole determines the tribute quota for the islands of the East Sea based on the number of inner sect disciples of Jiuzhen Inner Sect.

In this way, the harvests from the islands in the East Sea were also included in the ranking. The amount to be paid was not limited to 40% of the harvest; various resources were also subject to minimum payment standards based on the overall needs of the sect. In reality, it has now far exceeded '40%', even reaching around 80%.

If the output of each immortal island fails to meet the standards, the contracting families will have to go bankrupt and subsidize the production; if they can't even cover the costs, they will be eliminated. If the amount of materials submitted by a certain island is consistently too low, resulting in losses year after year, not only will the local aristocratic family lose its qualification to contract for the production of immortal islands, but even the disciples of that family will lose their sect salaries and be punished. Furthermore, if this person is not a genius with any Dao Seed talent, has low test scores, and has no family to provide cultivation resources, the masters of each Dao Palace will have to consider carefully before accepting them into their Inner Sect, lest the Dao Palace have to use its limited resources to subsidize the cultivation of others. In this way, ordinary talents of the lower-middle rank are practically cut off from the path to immortality.

Therefore, after making his rounds, Li Fan discovered that the Cultivation Family in Penglai were all forced into infighting, exhausted from production, yet receiving no substantial rewards. Consequently, they were extremely dissatisfied with the manifested exorbitant taxes, but dared not refuse to pay. After all, the position of Zhenhai Real Person the martial arts world) required collecting offerings; otherwise, the task would be far more complex than simply patrolling the sea. Some, like Zhou Chengxue, were more lenient and would even contribute their own money, while others, like the three from the Huan family, would exploit the extinct and slaughter the entire clan. The Xuanmen (a martial arts world) was vast; there were bound to be both types. Which one he would encounter was a gamble...

In the world of cultivation, sects are the most powerful and violent groups. Although the Nine Palaces are all criticizing Manifestation, the three Great Dao Lords are definitely on the same side when it comes to the big decisions regarding sect distribution. It's just a matter of some playing the good cop and others the bad cop.

From the perspective of the Nine Truth Sect, with so many Divine Lords and True Immortals, everyone needs to seize their limited lifespans for cultivation and enlightenment. Where would they find the time to meddle in resources, production, and construction? Now that Manifestation has taken on the blame and secured all these resources, what does it matter if he protects his own and gives the True Truth lineage a little more? A few casual criticisms are enough; why would he truly oppose it?

Therefore, the decision to abandon lower- and middle-grade talents and focus on cultivating top-grade geniuses was absolutely correct. Because that was the only option. Moreover, he had calculated exactly how much the Manifestation Sect would collect. He would squeeze a little this year, a little more next year, but always ensure a tiny bit of leftovers. This way, each family could cultivate one or two Golden Core Stage disciples as a 'hope for a comeback,' preventing them from being pushed too hard. It also fostered a positive and diligent learning environment from a young age—wasn't that wonderful?

Sigh, they are really insidious...

Therefore, although the cultivation families of the East Sea hated Manifestation to the core, they were helpless. After all, the East Sea wasn't covered up; if you were dissatisfied, you could go back to the Central Plains to develop your cultivation...

Unfortunately, the reality is that the powerful clans of the Central Plains are now fleeing like madmen, surging towards the islands of the East Sea, further squeezing out the space for local Cultivation Family, because the situation in the Central Plains is becoming increasingly chaotic.

The Ruler Xiao's Country has passed away.

Yes, he's gone. As soon as Li Fan returned to the mountain, before he even had a chance to feed the fish, Xiao Yushi threw herself into his arms and cried for a while. He could hear her sobbing and saying a bunch of things incoherently.

To summarize, roughly within this month or so, the internal strife in Penglai was intense, while the fighting in the Central Plains was even fiercer. Hou Gu's rebel army, after flooding and burning, finally captured Taicheng.

The Ruler Xiao's Country died, the Crown Prince was captured and immediately ascended the throne as the new King of Zhen Country. Of course, in reality, he had become a puppet in the hands of Hou Gu, who directly appointed him as the King of Han, Grand General, Chancellor, and Commander-in-Chief of the military affairs of Zhen, and forged an imperial edict to dismiss the armies that came to his aid.

And the Xiao Family was truly beyond saving; they really did fall apart just like that!

After all, Lanling had been completely wiped out by Hou Gu's rebel army, and Taicheng had been turned into a blood swamp, with mountains of corpses, piles of bones, and rampant plague. Nothing of value was left, and there were still more than 100,000 rebels and the rioters they had coerced. The whole place had gone from a hot commodity to a hot potato, and of course, no one was willing to take it over.

So they waited until the desired result was achieved. The princes of the Xiao clan immediately obeyed the summons, led their armies back, and returned to their respective homes. Of course, these regional princes, now that their fathers were dead, were at ease and no one could control them. They tore off the last veil of pretense, each raising their own armies to establish their own independent regimes, waging wars Fourth Department, expanding their territories, and joining the game of vying for supremacy.

Within just one year, the entire state of Zhen Country collapsed, and the world descended into chaos.