“Master, are you about to achieve enlightenment?” All three were astonished. Before the thatched cottage, Ye Fan’s heart and body were still, contemplating his own path. In that moment, he felt a profound clarity within.

What he saw was not merely the scenery before him, but also the memories of the past sweeping through his heart — drop by drop, so many, so many, impossible to forget. As time passed, many old recollections faded away, like dust rising into the air, revealing a crystalline immortal platform that reflected certain memories carved into his very bones: someone gazing up at the starry sky, calling out his name; someone who had fought to the death against a Supreme Being and departed from him forever…

All of it converged on that moment when he had shattered and scattered across the universe — beginning in the past, breaking off here. Of those three hundred years, the greater part was a blank, which had given rise to his current state.

Only in recent years had he fully recovered, yet still his head ached at times, and whenever he looked back, it felt as though a blade was cutting through his primordial spirit.

He could clearly sense that his physical body had grown even stronger — after being reforged, it surpassed what it had been before. Moreover, fragments of the Dao’s laws were sealed within his flesh, entwined throughout his blood and muscle, yet he could not draw upon them.

Ye Fan let out a soft sigh and rose to his feet. “Don’t worry about me,” he said. “Go walk your own paths. I need to think seriously.”

In the days that followed, Ye Fan wandered among the hills and came upon a tree that had been struck by lightning — its entire body charred black, dead and silent for years, yet now once again sprouting new branches and tender shoots.

He lingered there for a long time, sensing a vigorous surge of life within it — the power of rebirth after calamity — and it resonated deeply with him.

Ye Fan stood in that spot for a very long time without moving, remaining still for several days as though turned to stone, becoming a statue. During this time, birds landed on him and wild beasts drew near, ignoring him entirely, treating him as a piece of deadwood without a second glance.

Not until half a month later did he stir. He then began to explore himself inwardly, to study other paths, and to move toward his next destination.

By this time, his entire being radiated an aura of vitality — like that lightning-struck tree, nurturing new hope after a great tribulation, cultivating a trace of a different kind of life force within his blood and flesh.

Ye Fan’s body glimmered with a crystalline light; his whole person had become somewhat translucent, with Life Essence diffusing outward. In the far distance, his three disciples gazed on in astonishment.

“Master has no fragments of Dao’s laws manifesting, so why do I feel a Dao force in motion? This is truly strange.”

“No — that is a kind of instinct. It is the life force lying dormant within his blood and flesh. It is the resonance of his Dao, which has been sealed away.”

“Master is defying the heavens! Everyone else is studying the Emperor Venerables’ immortal scriptures, yet he seeks his own understanding. This isn’t just about restoration — he intends to soar to the heights in one leap!”

Seeing this, all three of them understood in an instant. They knew that Ye Fan was walking his own path, truly seeking to break free from the dead end he had reached and thus shatter the shackles that bound him.

“It would be bad if Yin Tiande or Yao Guang were to arrive — they would interrupt Master’s quiet contemplation. We should stay close.”

“No need. Even if they came, they could not do anything to Master on the Immortal Ascension Battlefield. I sense that his primordial vitality is even more flourishing than before — unfathomably deep.”

In the end, the three disciples withdrew beyond the horizon. Though they had not truly gone far, they were no longer within sight, so as not to disturb Ye Fan’s thoughts.

A lone wolf had collapsed on the ground — old and frail, unable in the end to withstand the assault of time — and closed its eyes forever.

Ye Fan walked over and stood in silence for a moment. A wisp of deathly energy drifted about as the wolf’s body grew cold, leaving behind only stillness.

“No next life. No reincarnation. Life must ultimately reach its end…”

Ye Fan walked some tens of paces away, then stopped. He sat down on a rock and gazed calmly at the mountains and rivers stretching before him.

Several vultures came soaring down and landed on the ground, beginning to tear apart the wolf’s carcass — instantly, blood ran everywhere. As more and more vultures arrived, only scattered remains were left upon the ground. The scene was brutal.

“It has reached its end at last, with no path forward.” Ye Fan moved on to the next place.

It was a desert. The golden grains of sand were scorching hot, yet even here, life was multiplying — snakes, ants, cacti — harboring vitality within despair.

Ye Fan turned and looked back toward where the wolf’s body lay, then looked again at the desert before him. A few similar threads of life force pervaded the air, giving him a slight start.

As the sun sank in the west, the dying light dyed the horizon red, then sank into the great desert. Without his having noticed, a great river had already rushed past beneath his feet. Ye Fan felt a sense of vast desolation, grandeur, and majesty.

He traveled alone, at the pace of an ordinary person — neither hurrying nor lingering — taking in the scenery of the great desert, experiencing the loneliness and cold of nights beneath the stars.

Finally, Ye Fan entered a great grassland and saw the withered thorns grow verdant again after a heavy rain — grass sprouting and growing, life flourishing in abundance. He experienced the process of vitality’s transformation firsthand.

And on one rainy night, he came upon a enormous carp at the edge of a lake, laboring to grind itself against the shore, tearing open its own belly, thrusting out sharp claws — evolving toward a higher form of life.

He had seen so much, with seemingly no connection between any of it. Ye Fan was simply contemplating his own path, wandering without purpose. When he paused at these sights, it did not necessarily mean he had gained any insight from them.

“Transformation — a process of new birth.”

Ye Fan returned to the thatched cottage. The lizard’s severed tail had long since grown back — stronger than before.

And the old serpent had made rapid progress as well. On this very day it had shed again, leaving behind a withered skin. This time the horns atop its head were more lustrous than ever, and small protrusions had appeared along its belly — as though dragon claws were about to emerge.

“A thousand years of accumulation, released in concentrated form within a single month. The serpent is truly about to transform into a flood dragon.” Ye Fan murmured to himself.

Accumulation, settling — and then an explosive breakthrough at a single moment, achieving a sublimation. This was his intuitive understanding, his first reaction based on what he had observed.

Ye Fan departed from the thatched cottage a second time, setting out from here and following the same path as before. The lightning-struck tree had come back to life — one could foresee a day when it would once again be lush and thriving.

“Within withering lies new birth; within despair, the first light of dawn appears once more.”

Ye Fan walked even farther this time. When he passed by the place where the wolf’s body had lain, he found there a vigorous surge of life — all the deathly energy had dissipated, leaving only the blossoming of vitality.

For a lush expanse of green grass had appeared in that very spot, growing with exceptional vigor: the remnants of the wolf’s body had nourished the vegetation here.

“Is there no reincarnation then?”

He stood there in a daze. The lone wolf had died and ceased to exist, yet it had nourished another form of life into being.

He raised his head and looked into the distance. Several vultures wheeled through the sky and then descended to the ground — they had clearly found a new target — fighting over it, tearing at it, blood-soaked and brutal.

In the places where the vultures gathered most, he saw great quantities of droppings, and the vegetation there was exceptionally lush and abundant.

“The six paths of reincarnation of this world.” Ye Fan suddenly said these words aloud.

In the distance, Ye Tong, Hua Hua, and Yang Xi were all thoroughly startled. That day, on a whim, they had followed from a great distance — for they felt that their master had been ceaselessly racking his mind over the path ahead without finding any solution, and they hoped to somehow participate.

“Hasn’t Master always disbelieved in a next life? He doesn’t dwell on the past, he doesn’t entrust his spirit to a future life — he contests only this lifetime. Why has he suddenly changed?!”

“What happened? How has Master’s outlook changed?”

“Could it be that Master’s physical condition is very serious — to the point where he needs to rely on reincarnation and transmigration to fully resolve it?”

All of them were startled, feeling something was not quite right, expressions of worry crossing their faces. Yet they did not go forward, remaining instead at the far edge of the horizon.

Ye Fan was briefly lost in thought. He had naturally not changed his convictions — rather, he was understanding reincarnation from another angle. The so-called six paths of rebirth and living only for the sake of the next life — those were not what he was contemplating.

What he perceived was a kind of transformation between pure matter and pure imprints. The wolf had died, becoming a corpse, decomposing into soil — this was the most fundamental and ordinary kind of dissolution and breakdown.

After it became soil, it was absorbed by the vegetation, which grew with exceptional vigor. The lone wolf had become a constituent part of another form of life — a different kind of transmigration.

The abundant grasses were consumed by deer and sheep, who were transformed into yet another form of life. What remained unchanged were those most fundamental elemental substances.

The herbivores became the prey of beasts; the wolf’s body became the food of vultures, becoming a part of their bodies — still carrying on this same cycle of reincarnation, a different kind of six-paths transmigration.

“I am a world. My Dao, my laws, my imprints — they undergo transmigration and rebirth within the world of my body, never having dispersed.” Ye Fan murmured to himself, and then he left that place.

He then entered the great desert again, where he saw the animal remains beneath the cacti, the predatory beasts on the hunt — all of this, too, was a cycle of reincarnation, a different form of transmigration.

In the vast desert, a lone column of smoke rises straight; over the long river, the setting sun hangs round.

Finally, even the path he had been walking was itself a cycle — ultimately returning once more to stand before the thatched cottage.

Transformation — from the small changes within oneself to the great cycle of reincarnation. Ye Fan’s heart grew tranquil. From the simplest natural scenes he had witnessed along the way, he drew associations to the problem of his own body.

On this day, he sat down cross-legged. His entire body glimmered with crystalline light, and there arose a vague and indistinct feeling — as though a supreme Dao was about to emerge and all under heaven would fall silent.

He sat with the serene dignity of a revered figure. Within his body, an awe-inspiring aura diffused outward, strand by strand and thread by thread, spreading in all directions. In the distance, Ye Tong, Hua Hua, and Yang Xi were all greatly astonished — the fluctuations of those fragments of laws filled them with a sense of terror!

“Boom!”

On this very day, everyone throughout these mountains and rivers felt a vast and overwhelming pressure — as if a peerless and mighty figure had emerged into the world, breaking free from a seal, sending out ripples of the supreme Dao that left all who felt them aghast.

“Has Master recovered?!” All three of Ye Tong’s group showed expressions of joy and excitement.

But soon their expressions turned solemn, and they observed carefully.

Ye Fan’s body glimmered with crystalline light. The fragments of laws revived, transforming one by one into stars, as his entire body became like a world — transformed into a great universe.

The scene was awe-inspiring. This was a change of heaven-and-earth-opening proportions. Primordial mists swirled; the fragments of laws reawakened and became rivers of stars, one after another, constructing the universe within a human body.

The three of them — Ye Tong, Hua Hua, and Yang Xi — breathed rapidly, watching all of this with tense focus. They felt a supreme and majestic authority, along with an unparalleled power of the Dao’s laws.

It seemed as though the supreme Dao of heaven and earth had entirely entered Ye Fan’s body, recreating a new expanse of heaven and earth — vast beyond measure.

Yet in the end, the result was this: Ye Fan’s eyes snapped open, and then his body shuddered violently. He shattered the endless rivers of stars, destroyed the ten-thousand-realm stellar formations — and the interior of his body dimmed all at once, its crystalline radiance extinguished as every star within him exploded.

“Master!” All three of Ye Tong’s group cried out and rushed forward.

“This is only my physical body. There is no need to engrave upon it a universe that already exists.” Ye Fan stood up. The powerful fragments of laws that had just revived disappeared once more, and the light in his eyes faded back to a quiet dimness.

“Master, are you alright?” Yang Xi asked with concern.

“I am well — better than ever before.” Ye Fan’s answer was entirely beyond their expectations. In his current state, he clearly had no fluctuations of magical power, and his cultivation had not yet returned — so why would he say this?

Afterward, Ye Fan sank into deep contemplation and remained still for a very long time.

“Master, what are you thinking about?” Ye Tong asked with worry.

“I am thinking about several problems: accumulation, transformation, sublimation, passing away, reincarnation, and eternal life.” Ye Fan answered honestly.

All three of them exchanged strange glances. The last two subjects on this list were clearly beyond the scope of what a Great Sage ought to be contemplating. What was their master trying to do?

“Master, are you alright?” Hua Hua asked.

“Thud!”

Ye Fan knocked him once on his bald head, causing him to grimace in pain. “Three hundred years have passed — why are you hitting me again?”

“We are going to the Emperor Pass.” At that very moment, Ye Fan said these words.

Ye Fan was coming — he was going to enter the Emperor Pass. The moment this news broke, it shook the entire magnificent ancient city, and many people felt a jolt in their hearts.

Had he not lost his cultivation? And he still dared to come here? This was not the Immortal Ascension Battlefield — it did not restrict the power of the laws belonging to other mighty figures. What did he intend?!

“The Sacred Physique, Ye Fan, is coming — he will arrive at the Emperor Pass!”

“The news is true. Only his three disciples accompany him; there are no other powerful experts. He fears nothing that awaits him here!”