In the Quantan Cave, within a secluded stone chamber.
At this moment, a black-robed Mo Fan was sitting cross-legged in the stone chamber, and opposite him sat a white-robed figure who looked exactly like him.
Apart from the different colours of their robes, it was as if they had been carved from the same mould.
The reason it was called a person was that this white-robed Mo Fan emitted no trace of demonic aura; instead, he possessed a faint spiritual energy, truly no different from a human cultivator.
The one in black robes was naturally Mo Fan himself.
The one in white robes was also Mo Fan, though merely a Water-Moon Avatar.
Not long ago, Mo Fan had used the ability of the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror to create this avatar.
After meeting the mysterious Zhantai Xuanyue in his previous dream, Mo Fan had immediately begun refining the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror using the ancient treasure-refining method she had taught him in the dream.
While refining the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror, he naturally came to understand its abilities.
In summary, the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror had two abilities, both extremely heaven-defying.
The first was the capacity to reflect a certain degree of attacks through mirroring, just as Mo Fan had once used the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror to reflect tribulation lightning when leaving the Dragon Ruins.
This ability alone was already heaven-defying. In Mo Fan’s view, the power of that tribulation lightning had been nearly comparable to a full-strength strike from an Ancestral Realm cultivator.
This meant that the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror could at least reflect attacks from Ancestral Realm cultivators.
As for whether it could reflect the power of a great demon at the level of the Fire Phoenix Holy King, that remained unknown.
Even so, this ancient mirror left Mo Fan quite excited. In his opinion, the “mirror reflection” ability alone made it a defensive treasure.
More importantly, beyond “mirror reflection”, the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror possessed an even more exaggerated ability: using mirror power to create a Water-Moon Avatar!
However, this avatar had a major flaw: when first created, it possessed no cultivation whatsoever, and cultivation would need to be built from scratch.
Because it was formed from mirror power, the avatar would feed back part of its power to the main body during cultivation, especially insights gained from practice, as well as everything it saw and heard, with almost no distance restrictions!
This meant that Mo Fan not only gained an additional avatar, but could also obtain all of the avatar’s insights, experiences, and even a portion of its power!
To create such an avatar, however, Mo Fan had paid a tremendous price, to the point where his realm nearly became unstable, and he even drew out a sliver of his soul.
The extraction of his soul even damaged part of his origin source, which even his regeneration divine ability would struggle to repair in a short time. This caused his cultivation to drop considerably, but he ultimately managed to hold it at the King Realm without falling further.
Though the cost was so great, Mo Fan felt it was worth it.
With his regeneration divine ability continuously repairing the damage, his injured origin source would eventually heal; it would simply take a very long time.
Furthermore, when he eventually merged with the avatar in the future, his soul would become far stronger! His strength would naturally advance by leaps and bounds!
Yet every advantage has its drawbacks. If during this period the avatar were destroyed by someone, that sliver of Mo Fan’s soul would be forever annihilated, which would be a price Mo Fan could hardly bear, at least for the current him.
It is worth mentioning that, since the avatar was created from mirror power, it innately possessed a water spiritual root representing the power of mirrors!
What satisfied Mo Fan most was that no matter where the avatar was, as long as there was no spatial barrier, he could instantly teleport it back to his side using the power of the Water-Moon Spiritual Mirror.
However, this teleportation was one-way only; it could bring the avatar back, but not send it out again.
Undoubtedly, the greatest weakness of the Water-Moon Avatar was its complete lack of cultivation, requiring slow training from the beginning. Mo Fan naturally could not wait that long, so he directly employed the simplest method.
Transplanting a golden core!
The idea of transplanting a golden core was something Mo Fan had come up with on the spot, a bold experiment.
In fact, golden cores from different cultivators possess different powers and are almost impossible to transplant successfully; otherwise, if mishandled, the golden core’s power would erupt and shatter the recipient body.
Thus, throughout history, although the cultivation world occasionally heard of methods to create golden core experts through transplantation, not a single success had ever been recorded.
But Mo Fan was different. Because this Water-Moon Avatar was created as a perfect mirror of his original body, identical from inside to out, he directly transplanted his own golden core into it.
At first, Mo Fan had worried that it might destroy the avatar.
But once the golden core entered the body, he realised he had overthought it.
The golden core was perfectly compatible with the avatar, showing no rejection whatsoever, as if it truly had been cultivated by the avatar itself.
This outcome left Mo Fan overjoyed. It meant he had gained a true human cultivator avatar!
Of course, what delighted him was not the human identity itself.
If it had been during the early days of his cultivation, given the chance to become human again, he might have been too excited to sleep.
But now, asking him to return to human life? He was one hundred and twenty percent unwilling.
In Mo Fan’s view, he was doing perfectly fine as a demon. Going back to being human would simply mean something was wrong with his head!
Human society was full of complicated rules. How could it compare to the flavourful life of a demon?
At least in his own territory on Black Wind Mountain, he had the final say!
When he did not feel like striving hard, he could simply lie low and slack off, and no one would dare say a word!
If he grew bored, he could have the little demons below make some noise, hold a banquet, or organise a few teams to specifically collect protection fees from passing minor demons…
Occasionally raiding other demon mountains for spoils was not bad either!
With his current prestige and demonic connections, it seemed there was nowhere in the entire Phoenix Cry Mountain he could not go. Those usually ferocious demon kings would treat him like a living Buddha, offering the best food and drink, with beautiful demon courtesans available for the choosing…
That was the joy of being a demon!
However, not wanting to be human did not mean Mo Fan had no interest in understanding the human race of this world, especially their cultivation holy lands!
To be prepared was always better. From the recent Demon King Grand Ceremony, he had learned many secrets from Granny Que, including the wager between the White Tiger Holy King and Inverted Mountain.
A hundred years might seem long, but on the endless path of cultivation, it was actually too short.
Once those hundred years passed, the Ten Thousand Great Mountains would certainly no longer be as peaceful as they were now.
That was why Mo Fan wanted to make preparations in advance.
He already had some plans in mind: to send the Water-Moon Avatar into human territory, then do everything possible to uncover human secrets, ideally even entering one of the human holy lands!
“From this day forward, you are me!”
Mo Fan smiled at the Water-Moon Avatar.
“Good!”
The Water-Moon Avatar nodded, grinning in exactly the same way. “From this day forward, you are Laibao, and I am Mo Fan!”
