After some deliberation, Li Fan chose not to question He Zhenghao directly. Instead, he sent a message to Daoist Jingxuan.

As He Zhenghao’s immediate superior, Jingxuan’s status was far higher. If Lv Junyi were truly promoted to Chief Commander, he would undoubtedly reap substantial benefits.

Jingxuan did not reply at once, and Li Fan did not press the matter.

He then turned his attention back to Immortal Venerable Jicheng’s bounty for life-extending treasures.

There were only a little over eight months remaining before the three-year deadline.

According to unofficial rumors circulating among the public, aside from the already established frontrunner—the longevity fruit that extended lifespan by five hundred years and was virtually guaranteed first place—the competition for second and lower rankings was extraordinarily fierce.

It had become so intense that professional cultivators were being hired to verify the precise length of lifespan extended, down to the exact month.

The Rebirth Longevity Fruit only grants three hundred extra years...

Li Fan sighed inwardly.

The temptation of using the Derivation Jade was simply too great. The competition was even harsher than he had anticipated. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝒆𝔀𝒆𝙗𝓷𝒐𝙫𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝓸𝓶

It will be tough, but finding another life-extending treasure is already impossible. I can only rely on the fortune I have in this lifetime.

Closing the Tianxuan Mirror, Li Fan suppressed his wandering thoughts, calmed his mind, and began cultivating.

Not long after going into seclusion, however, he was interrupted by a sudden influx of cultivation feedback.

Though not on the scale of what he had received when He Zhenghao and Su Xiaomei advanced to the Golden Core realm, the feedback flowed in a continuous stream.

Even so, it was an unexpected boon for Li Fan at this moment, greatly accelerating his progress toward the mid-stage Golden Core realm.

This is...

After sensing it briefly, Li Fan was somewhat surprised.

Xue Mu?

He went to see the Mortal-to-Spirit Transformation Wall and actually gained something?

Judging by the amount of feedback, he must have at least formed a Three-Law Golden Core.

Interesting. The Mortal-to-Spirit Transformation Wall truly lives up to its reputation. It seems I should pay it a visit once things here are settled.

As Li Fan was reflecting on this, an excited message from Xue Mu arrived.

“Haha! Fellow Daoist Li Fan, I succeeded!

“I truly must thank you. If not for your recommendation of that place where myriad laws resonate, how could I have formed a Golden Core with three laws?

“I will never forget your kindness, Fellow Daoist!”

Li Fan smiled faintly but did not reply.

Your diligent cultivation is the best repayment you can offer. He thought.

Putting away the spirit talisman, Li Fan refocused his attention on cultivation.

Unexpectedly, just over two months later, he was once again forced to stop as another powerful surge of cultivation feedback poured in.

This time, the feedback was several times stronger than what Xue Mu had provided. Clearly, this individual’s ties with Li Fan ran deeper.

This is... Xiao Heng? He’s broken through to the mid-stage Golden Core realm?

Sensing their vague connection, Li Fan felt a surge of pleasant surprise.

He should still be in Shilin Province. Unfortunately, the distance is too great to observe him with Formless Killing Mechanism.

Undergoing another breakthrough in such a short time means he must have encountered some fortuitous opportunity.

With another source of assistance, the difficulty of Li Fan’s own advancement dropped yet again.

It seems reaching the peak of early-stage Golden Core before the deadline won’t be a problem.

The only question is how troublesome the Heavenly Tribulation bottleneck for this cultivation stage will be.

With a renewed sense of vigor, Li Fan threw himself back into cultivation.

The events of the following months brought him a great harvest, yet also stirred a nameless dread within his heart.

Over the span of more than half a year, aside from Su Xiaomei and Zhang Haobo, who had vanished within the ruins of the Chaoyuan Sect, everyone else had broken through one after another. This included He Zhenghao, the Yin sisters, and even Zhao Dabao and Su Changyu.

One had to remember that Su Changyu had intended to cultivate using the Self Foundation method. On top of that, the amount of cultivation he fed back this time was far beyond what a typical Foundation Establishment cultivator should possess.

Could it be... he had succeeded in establishing a Self Foundation?

Yin Shangren had only achieved partial success even after dissecting over a hundred of his own corpses. Since when had Su Changyu's aptitude become so exceptional?

What concerned Li Fan even more was this: if one or two cultivators breaking through simultaneously could be explained away as a coincidence, then the phenomenon of cultivators breaking through en masse within such a short timeframe forced Li Fan to suspect that some inexplicable change was underway.

With that in mind, Li Fan could no longer focus on his cultivation. To verify his suspicions, he accessed the Tianxuan Mirror to search for information.

Using "breakthrough" as a keyword, Li Fan discovered that the volume of related information from the past year was indeed far greater than in previous years, even showing signs of an explosive surge.

From the excited chatter of the cultivators, Li Fan learned that during their recent breakthroughs, the vast majority had, incredibly, not encountered the bottleneck of the Heavenly Tribulation. Once their cultivation had progressed to the limit of their realms, they had advanced naturally and successfully.

And this phenomenon was not an isolated case. Many cultivators who had been trapped at bottlenecks for years had also, quite mysteriously, broken through their realms.

"Cultivation seems to have become easier," many cultivators said.

Because the number of low-level cultivators was so vast, and many still had not broken through, the overwhelming majority simply dismissed such talk as boastful gloating after a successful advancement, paying it little mind.

But Li Fan did not think so.

Could the Myriad Immortals Alliance's frantic haste to construct the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays be related to this? Li Fan couldn't help but connect the two matters.

The number of cultivators must not be too many, nor too few. Through that previous mission to hunt the red-haired exotic beasts on that island, Li Fan had understood that the Myriad Immortals Alliance intentionally controlled the number of cultivators under its banner.

Their urgent construction of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays implied that something capable of affecting, or even overturning, the Alliance's rule was about to occur. To maintain its own stability, they had no choice but to resort to this rather extreme solution.

Is this another anomaly of heaven and earth? Is the cultivator population about to spiral out of control? Li Fan narrowed his eyes.

If his speculation held true, then it was almost certain that in the near future, both the Myriad Immortals Alliance and the Five Elders Council would begin large-scale reductions in the cultivator population through various means.

Outright slaughter was probably not feasible. Perhaps it would be another war. Or perhaps...

Struck by a thought, a sudden chill gripped Li Fan's heart. He stood up abruptly, feeling as if he had plunged into the depths of winter.

From the Myriad Immortals Alliance's propaganda, the establishment of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Arrays was supposedly to root out spies from the Five Elders Council.

The actual effectiveness of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array had already been thoroughly proven in Jiushan Province. Cultivators placed immense trust in its miraculous power.

Once the arrays were fully constructed, with those pillars of light piercing heaven and earth, no spy could possibly hide.

But the core hub device of the Tianxuan Soul-Locking Array was the Tianxuan Mirror, which possessed a will of its own.

What if the Tianxuan Mirror deliberately marked a genuine Myriad Immortals Alliance cultivator as an agent of the Five Elders Council? Under the glare of those light pillars, would any other cultivator believe you were innocent?

The more Li Fan thought about it, the colder his heart grew. A grand, public massacre might be imminent.