"I brought it back!"
Yue Qingqian nodded heavily, her tone full of pride and affirmation.
The fervent light in Lin Fan's eyes grew even more intense. Without another word, he took Yue Qingqian by the wrist and led her into the thatched cottage he considered his "absolute safe house."
As the door closed, Lin Fan made several hand seals. In an instant, layer after layer of invisible array light screens, like inverted bowls, completely isolated the entire cottage from the outside world. Soundproofing, spirit-proofing, anti-spying, anti-divination... At this moment, this small hut became the most secret place in the entire Sky Profound Sect, and perhaps even the entire cultivation world.
The light in the room dimmed instantly, and the atmosphere became solemn and grave, as if a secret intelligence handover of utmost importance, one concerning their very survival, was taking place.
From his storage pouch, Lin Fan took out several hundred blank jade slips that he had prepared in advance and arranged them neatly on a stone table.
"Junior Sister, sit down," his voice was low and powerful. "Calm your mind and spirit, don't rush. Imprint the content you have memorized, category by category, onto these jade slips."
Yue Qingqian nodded. She sat cross-legged, closed her eyes, and began the equally massive "unloading" project.
Under Lin Fan's guidance, she carefully channeled the vast ocean of knowledge in her sea of consciousness. Streams of information composed of pure spiritual sense extended from between her eyebrows, connecting to the blank jade slips on the table.
The only source of light in the cottage was the faint glow emitted by the jade slips being filled with information.
Fine beads of sweat gradually formed on Yue Qingqian's forehead. Meanwhile, Lin Fan stood by the table like the most efficient librarian, his hands moving so fast they were a blur. He quickly categorized and labeled each jade slip—Fragments of Ancient Alchemy Formulas, Atlas of Rare Herbs of the Southern Domain, Introduction to Array Formations, A Study on the Distribution of Spirit Mines, Records of Strange Tales...
The entire knowledge transfer process lasted for a whole night.
At dawn the next day, when the last jade slip lit up with a soft glow, Yue Qingqian finally couldn't hold on any longer. Her face was pale, and she fell into a deep sleep, mentally exhausted.
Lin Fan immediately stepped forward, placed a gentle pill that could nourish the soul, which he had prepared in advance, into her mouth, and then carefully carried her to the bed and tucked her in.
After doing all this, he turned around and looked at the table full of jade slips, glowing with the light of knowledge. There was not a trace of fatigue in his eyes; instead, they were filled with an unprecedented, almost frantic excitement!
To others, this might just be a pile of old papers.
But to Lin Fan, an ultimate paranoid patient who regarded "safety" as his lifelong pursuit, the value of the intelligence on this table far surpassed any divine weapon or immortal pill!
Knowledge was the most fundamental power that would allow him to become safer and to "stay home" with a clear conscience!
For the next few days, Lin Fan entered a state of seclusion, forgetting to eat or sleep.
He was like a dry sponge, madly absorbing the nutrients of knowledge from the thousands of years of heritage of Hundred Herbs Peak. His brain, like the most precise computer in the world, efficiently analyzed, deconstructed, summarized, and drew inferences from this vast amount of intelligence.
Soon, he reaped a huge harvest!
In an ancient text titled Miscellaneous Talks on the Dao of Arrays, he found the complete layout of a long-lost ancient concealment array. This array could be perfectly combined with his "Micro-Dust Void Array"! After a night of deduction, a brand new "Micro-Dust Void II Upgraded Edition Array," with its effect enhanced by at least fifty percent, took shape in his mind!
In an Illustrated Guide to the Yao Beasts of the Southern Domain, he discovered a record of a Yao beast called the "Earth-Burrowing Armored Beast." The scales of this beast were an excellent material for making Earth Evasion Talismans! He immediately marked the habitat of this beast on the map, and then, next to it, he drew a huge, blood-red cross and wrote a note—"Extremely Dangerous Area, Do Not Approach for Life!"
What surprised him the most was that in a tattered alchemy formula, he found the refining method for a pill called the "Turtle God Pill"!
According to the records, once this pill was consumed, it could allow a cultivator to enter a "feigned death hibernation" state for up to a thousand years. In this state, all signs of life would cease, and the soul would be hidden. Even if a Nascent Soul old monster were to see it, they would only think it was a worthless dried-up corpse!
"My heavens! This... this is the ultimate life-saving divine pill, tailor-made for me!" Lin Fan trembled with excitement.
He immediately circled the dozens of rare medicinal herbs needed to refine the "Turtle God Pill" and then solemnly added them to the procurement list for the second phase of the "Shearing the Sheep Plan."
Just as Lin Fan thought his harvest was already huge enough, Yue Qingqian, whom he had revived, brought him a real surprise that he had not expected at all.
"Senior Brother, besides these, I also found a very strange record. I stored it separately."
Yue Qingqian handed the jade slip that recorded the Northern Domain Travelogue to Lin Fan.
Lin Fan took it with a bit of indifference. In his view, travelogues were mostly the sentimental musings of scholars and had little value.
However, when his spiritual sense sank into it and he saw the record about the "strange valley," the relaxed and comfortable expression on his face gradually froze.
"...The soil in the valley was all a strange crimson color... could absorb spiritual energy... a forbidden land for cultivators..."
When he read this part, his brows only furrowed slightly.
But when he continued to read and saw the line—"from beneath the crimson earth, came an extremely weak, heartbeat-like throbbing sound... thump... thump... thump... like the pulse of the great earth..."
Lin Fan's pupils instantly contracted to the most dangerous, needle-like point!
All the color drained from his face at this moment! It was not fear, nor annoyance, but a mixture of extreme shock, disbelief, and a trace of frantic joy that even he himself had not noticed!
Crack!
The jade slip in his hand, due to his intense emotional fluctuation, was crushed into a puff of fine powder!
"Senior Brother? What's wrong?" Yue Qingqian had never seen her senior brother lose his composure like this and couldn't help but worry.
Lin Fan did not answer her. As if possessed, he paced back and forth, repeatedly muttering those few words.
"Crimson earth that absorbs spiritual energy... the heartbeat of the earth... the Northern Domain..."
Suddenly, he stopped abruptly, as if he had caught a crucial clue from the depths of his memory!
He quickly rummaged through a pile of jade slips and found a rare book he already owned, which recorded various strange tales of the world. His spiritual sense madly scanned through it and finally settled on a description of a "Primeval Ruin"!
The description seemed to have nothing to do with the travelogue that Yue Qingqian had brought back.
But when Lin Fan pieced the two pieces of information together in his mind and cross-verified them, a world-shaking, terrifying conjecture that was enough to subvert the entire cultivation world's understanding took shape in his heart!
He raised his head abruptly and stared intently at Yue Qingqian, his eyes burning with a strange light that she had never seen before, a mixture of horror, excitement, and disbelief.
His voice trembled slightly from the overwhelming shock.
"Junior Sister..."
"You... you might have... found a..."
"A 'lawless land' that can allow us... to completely escape the surveillance of the Heavenly Dao!"