Chapter 389: Five Elements Heaven Secret Realm

"Master?" Hearing this word, Li Fan felt a bit dazed.

In today's Cultivation World, practicing cultivation itself was not easy. Who would still go about teaching and resolving doubts?

Since stepping onto the path of cultivation all these years, he had never seen a proper Master-disciple relationship.

Driven by curiosity, Li Fan looked toward the direction the voice came from.

Beside this giant crossing dust boat stood an old man and a young boy, two Cultivators whose clothing and temperament were remarkably similar.

Both wore green robes. The old one had white hair and a youthful face with a ruddy complexion, while the young one had a face full of vicissitudes, looking like someone who had seen through the world.

To Li Fan's surprise, the tender voice of a child he had just heard actually came from the mouth of the white-haired old man.

He looked naive and full of curiosity, looking down at the child beside him and asking.

The child appeared to be only five or six years old, but the words he spoke were definitely not those of a toddler.

"All things come from nothingness and return to nothingness."

"Five Elements United is merely returning to its original state."

The child in green robes replied with a smile.

The old man in green robes thought for a moment, suddenly feeling he knew the answer, and said happily, "I see, Master. You mean that before long, this place will return to a state of Chaos Void Realm, just like what we saw before. Right?"

The child chuckled and looked at the old man with kind eyes: "You're right. If there's no outside interference and it's allowed to develop and evolve freely, that's indeed what will happen."

"But if one day, outsiders break in here and take away some of the matter within this Cave Heaven… then it's hard to say."

The child looked at the Five Elements Cave Heaven below and sighed with some emotion.

Hearing this, Li Fan was slightly startled, then he narrowed his eyes and carefully observed the pair of Master and disciple before him.

This old and young pair acted completely as if Li Fan didn't exist.

The old man's brow was furrowed, as if pondering his Master's words.

After a moment, he came to a sudden realization: "This Cave Heaven has the Five Elements circulating in a perfect, unified whole. It can divide into five or have the Five Elements United again. But if an outsider takes a portion from each of the Five Elements, it will cause an imbalance. And then…"

"And then…"

At this point, the old man seemed to be stuck, unable to think of what came next no matter what.

The child in green robes smiled faintly and continued for him: "Actually, if it's just small-scale extraction over a long period, the Five Elements Cave Heaven can rely on its own attribute circulation and self-regulation to avoid an imbalance."

"The fear is that in a short time, resources from certain attribute Cave Heavens are looted in large quantities…"

"The Cave Heaven's regulation mechanism won't be able to keep up, causing the Five Elements balance within this Five Elements Cave Heaven to be completely lost."

"Master, what happens after it's completely out of balance?" the old man in green robes asked curiously.

The child in green robes stopped smiling: "Do you still remember the Five Elements Sect I once told you about?"

The old man nodded: "I remember. That Five Elements Sect is a subsidiary Sect of the Great Dao Sect. I even saw their Sect Leader when he came to our Due Sect to pay a visit a few years ago!"

At this moment, hearing the conversation between the Master and disciple, Li Fan's heart shook violently.

He finally confirmed that the two people before him did not truly exist on this crossing dust boat.

Instead, they were a mirage-like phantom!

The conversation between the Master and disciple clearly took place in the ancient Cultivation World, before the Great Tribulation had arrived and when the Sects still existed.

Li Fan scanned the surroundings and found people coming and going on the crossing dust boat, but for some reason, no one else could see this phantom except for himself.

Without making a sound, Li Fan continued to observe the conversation between the Master and disciple of the ancient Due Sect.

The child in green robes continued: "This Five Elements Sect was actually not weak back then. Aside from our Ten Immortal Sects, it was considered one of the top cultivation Sects in the Xuanhuang World. Within the Sect, there was a Secret Realm called the 【Five Elements Heaven】. It was almost a world of its own, with resources so abundant they could be called infinite."

"Compared to the Five Elements Great Cave Heaven here, it was far superior."

"Relying on that Secret Realm, if the Five Elements Sect had developed slowly over hundreds or thousands of years, it might have eventually become one of the world's leading Great Sects."

"Unfortunately, the predecessor of the previous Five Elements Sect Leader, Lan Xiangfeng, was short-sighted…"

Saying this, the child in green robes snorted coldly, a flash of anger at his failure to live up to expectations appearing in his eyes.

The old man in green robes widened his eyes, not daring to speak, waiting for what came next.

After a moment, the child in green robes said: "At that time, the Heavenly Sword Sect reportedly needed a massive amount of 【taiyuan refined gold】 to forge that legendary 【World-Breaking Divine Weapon】."

"This taiyuan refined gold is very rare and only appears randomly in metal Ore veins; it's a matter of luck. The Heavenly Sword Sect had already scavenged almost everything available on the market, but it was still far from what was needed."

"Hearing that there might be a large stockpile in the Five Elements Heaven Secret Realm within the Five Elements Sect, the Sect Leader of the Heavenly Sword Sect personally went to their door to request it."

"How proud that notorious old fellow was, yet he actually bowed his head to the Five Elements Sect. Lan Xiangfeng immediately became conceited and was overjoyed beyond reason."

"Coupled with the fact that the price offered by the Heavenly Sword Sect was truly too high, all the Elders of the Five Elements Sect were also persuaded."

"Thus, the Five Elements Sect began to mine 【taiyuan refined gold】 on a large scale in the Secret Realm. Even so, it wouldn't have caused the subsequent tragedy."

"But they were somehow bewitched by someone who said that the various metal Ores unearthed during the mining process shouldn't be wasted and might as well be sold along the way. Other Sects also heard the news that the Five Elements Sect had a large amount of metal Ores and came one after another to purchase them."

"Blinded by greed, the Five Elements Sect's mining of the metal attribute veins became increasingly frenzied."

"Lacking enough manpower, they even hired Loose Cultivators."

"Finally, one day, the massive loss of the metal attribute caused an imbalance of attributes within the Five Elements Heaven."

"It inevitably evolved toward the state of extinction of the Five Elements United."

"Furthermore, when the missing metal attribute could not meet the requirements for the Five Elements United, the remaining four attributes—wood, water, fire, and earth—underwent disordered and never-ending energy collisions…"

"The final result was a massive explosion that completely destroyed the Five Elements Heaven."

"The losses of the entire Five Elements Sect could not be described as merely heavy. Their core strength was nearly wiped out, and from then on, they never recovered."

"To survive, they could only take the initiative to seek refuge with the Great Dao Sect, becoming a subsidiary Sect based on a bit of past sentiment."

After finishing his speech, the child in green robes sighed with emotion.

Li Fan, who was listening in, suddenly felt a chill in his heart.

Wasn't the fate of the ancient Five Elements Heaven exactly the same as the current Five Elements Great Cave Heaven?

In that case, after the Five Elements United, would a world-shaking explosion also occur here?

Cursing inwardly, when Li Fan looked at the Master and disciple from the Due Sect again, he found their figures becoming more and more blurred.

The sounds of their words as their mouths moved could no longer be heard clearly.