***
Yet, shielding mortals from the killing mechanisms of heaven and earth was clearly no simple task.
Li Fan initially believed that the disaster had already passed.
What he hadn’t anticipated was that the true catastrophe had only just begun.
One year, two years, three years...
The sky showed no signs of rain.
The sea level began to recede, and the waters pulled farther and farther from the islands.
Even with the seawater desalination arrays, the mortals of Tai’an Island found it increasingly difficult to obtain water.
Each trip required them to traverse great distances over long periods of time just to find a source.
They didn’t understand why heaven had inflicted such a calamity upon them, but they feared the Congyun Sea would eventually dry up completely.
And so, household after household enshrined wooden statues of Li Fan, praying to him day and night without cease.
Li Fan was powerless to change their fate.
The changes of heaven and earth were not something he could hope to oppose.
The only silver lining was that the killing mechanisms targeting cultivators had gradually faded from the world over the past three years, perhaps because most of the Congyun Sea’s cultivators had already perished.
Li Fan seized this opportunity to cultivate anew, reaching the mid-stage Qi Refinement realm.
The day you stop praying to me shall be the day I return to the anchor point. He resolved silently, finding the constant adoration of mortals day and night to be a peculiar experience indeed.
He activated the Discernment of Mechanisms divine ability, observing the ever-thickening aura of death above the mortals’ heads.
Wait. Why is there a faint thread of white hidden within this black aura of death? Li Fan was taken aback.
Since restoring his cultivation, he had inspected the energy mechanisms of Tai’an Island every day without fail.
This time, for some reason, he detected a faint aura of vitality he had previously failed to notice.
Where was this vitality coming from?
Li Fan pushed the Thousand Mechanisms Jade Cosmos Scripture to its limits and discovered that the survival of the people of Tai’an Island was connected to him!
This only deepened his confusion.
After verifying it repeatedly, Li Fan finally confirmed that the vitality did indeed originate from him. Not from Li Fan himself, but rather, from an object he carried. Something he had nearly forgotten.
It was the Curio of heaven and earth: the Deepsea Pearl.
As it had not yet fully formed, he had stored the Deepsea Pearl away in a corner of the Taiyan Boat.
It was only today, under the illumination of the energy mechanisms, that he remembered it.
Unlike when he had first seen it over a decade ago, it now shone with a deep blue hue, thick with moisture that clung to its surface. It looked as if a sea was gestating within.
"As one sea perishes, another is born."
Li Fan stared blankly at the Deepsea Pearl in his hand, then a sudden thought struck him.
He boarded the Taiyan Boat and ascended, climbing higher and higher until he reached an altitude of ten thousand meters, then looked down.
After the long drought, vast stretches of the Congyun Sea’s seabed were now laid bare.
One after another, previously submerged mountain ranges gradually revealed their true forms.
The islands of the former Congyun Sea were, in fact, the peaks of these very mountains.
A vision of Kou Hong's enthusiastic face suddenly flashed before Li Fan's eyes.
.....
"No matter. Once you leave this place, you can look for me in Lingtian City, within the Congyun Mountain Range."
......
Li Fan shook with laughter, pressing his hands to his face.
Congyun Sea, Congyun Mountains.
So they were the same place all along.