Chapter 619 - 425: Divine Puppet Technique

However, Huo Bai clearly hadn’t given up despite Fang Qingyuan’s polite refusal. Sixty years ago, Fang Qingyuan was a nobody, but the Fang Qingyuan of today was a hot commodity.

This was no longer just a growth stock; it was a monster stock, and Huo Bai was determined to get a firm grip on it.

However, Huo Bai also understood that haste makes waste. After raising the subject, he saw that Fang Qingyuan hadn’t let Huo Yao’Er’s beauty go to his head. This earned Fang Qingyuan a bit more of his approval, and he set aside the idea of finalizing things in one fell swoop.

.....

Leaving Huo Bai, Fang Qingyuan wore a puzzled expression. Though Huo Bai looked miserable—like he was at death’s door—Fang Qingyuan’s keen eyes told him that he was definitely not as wretched as he appeared on the surface.

Furthermore, the vital energy within his body, while very similar to that of the Blood Saber he’d encountered, had subtle differences. That was very strange.

’What is Huo Bai hiding?’

Shaking his head, Fang Qingyuan pushed the matter to the back of his mind. It had nothing to do with him right now, anyway. He had too much on his plate to spare the energy for probing into Huo Bai’s secrets.

Huo Bai, Huo Hu, and Huo Yao’Er were no longer walking the same path as him.

But when he recalled the sight of Huo Yao’Er’s face, with the faint traces of tears, his heart fluttered. ’Just give up on such an exquisite beauty?’

Fang Qingyuan silently cursed himself for being so easily swayed by a pretty face, unable to stick to his principles. Then he soared into the sky and flew straight back to the Qingyuan Sect.

A day later, after only a brief rest at the Qingyuan Sect, Fang Qingyuan ventured deep into the Barbaric Wilderness once more, making for Bear Wind’s cave abode.

"This is the token you spent fifty thousand Top-grade Spirit Stones on?"

In his underground cave abode, thousands of feet deep, Bear Wind held the Pardon Decree Fang Qingyuan had given him, examining it again and again.

Fang Qingyuan didn’t answer Bear Wind’s question, simply reminding him,

"We only have three months, so you need to hurry up and pack everything you want to take. Once you leave, there’s no telling when you’ll be able to return. Therefore, it’s best if you also pack up valuable resources like your High-tier Spirit Plants.

But don’t damage anything you have to leave behind. The Beast Taming Sect isn’t stupid, and they’re already bottling up their anger. Don’t provoke them over something like this."

As Fang Qingyuan went on, Bear Wind simply continued to examine the Pardon Decree, nodding casually.

Meanwhile, Qiqi, Confusion Insect, and the other Golden Core Demon Beasts had already returned to their own lairs to pack up their belongings.

A great number of demon beasts were migrating, and Fang Qingyuan wanted to avoid any mishaps. The Beast Taming Sect had already stationed many disciples around the perimeter of Bear Wind’s territory, partly to prevent outsiders from harassing Bear Wind, and partly as a show of their own strength.

Among them were three Nascent Soul Cultivators and over a dozen Golden Core Cultivators. With them standing guard, the Loose Cultivators of White Mountain couldn’t dream of disrupting such a major territorial handover.

There wasn’t much more to arrange with Bear Wind. It had been more than a decade since Fang Qingyuan first approached him with the plan to feign allegiance to Lechuan as a cover for their secret maneuver.

Bear Wind had been making preparations in secret all these years. He hadn’t even halted the plan when the Great White Bear died. So, while there was officially a three-month deadline, the time both parties had actually invested in this was much, much longer.

After handing over the token, Fang Qingyuan had to rush back to the Qingyuan Sect. Bear Wind was responsible for the Bear Beasts’ side of the move, but Fang Qingyuan was even busier—he was in charge of receiving them.

But with the Qingyuan Sect being just a Third-Order Lower Grade Spirit Land, Fang Qingyuan knew it couldn’t possibly handle the demand if so many Bear Beasts, all with a need for Spiritual Qi, suddenly flooded in—especially with a few gluttons for Spiritual Qi among them.

Fang Qingyuan needed Spiritual Qi for himself, and so did the four Golden Core Demon Beasts, including Qiqi and the Confusion Insect.

Add to that the Golden Core Female Cultivator Tu Dai’Er, who was also in the Qingyuan Sect, and their already scarce Spiritual Power would be stretched even thinner, unable to cover the demand.

’Speaking of which, isn’t Tu Dai’Er leaving? Does she still have some unfinished mission here?’

’That makes six Golden Cores.’ Fang Qingyuan predicted that only a Third-Order Upper Grade Spirit Land could satisfy the needs of so many Golden Core experts. Otherwise, with so little Spiritual Qi to go around, if everyone was trying to use it, nobody would get any cultivation done.

’Spiritual Qi, Spiritual Qi... Where am I supposed to find more Spiritual Qi? Will I have to burn Spirit Stones and set up a Gathering Spirit Array just to meet everyone’s cultivation needs?’

Fang Qingyuan mulled this over. It was a shame everything had happened so abruptly. Initially, Bear Wind hadn’t intended to merge with the Qingyuan Sect. It had only taken Fang Qingyuan a short year to poach Bear Wind’s entire faction, but the Qingyuan Sect’s own foundation was sorely lacking.

Right now, many members of the Qingyuan Sect were bustling about, preparing for the imminent arrival of Bear Wind’s faction. Fang Qingyuan, however, paced toward the very core of the Qingyuan Sect—the source of the entire Spirit Vein.

It was located at the base of the original Celestial Eagle Mountain. A colossal underground Spirit Vein roamed millions of zhang deep within the earth, finally finding a small outlet here to gush forth, releasing the Spiritual Qi it had accumulated since time immemorial.

Tens of thousands of feet beneath the mountain, this Spiritual Qi had, over a vast period of time, formed a Spirit Stone Vein Ore of a single attribute. The Spiritual Qi people currently enjoyed was just a mixture of the qi from these ores and the qi surging up from the depths below.

Fang Qingyuan estimated that if they were to one day excavate beneath Celestial Eagle Mountain, they could probably extract several tens of thousands of Top-grade Spirit Stones.

But that would be killing the goose that lays the golden eggs. Once the excavation began, this Third-Order Lower Grade Spirit Land that supported everyone’s cultivation would be reduced to a barren ruin.

’Is there a way to raise the Spiritual Qi of this Third-Order Lower Grade Spirit Land to the level of a Third-Order Upper Grade in a short period of time?’

’The Spiritual Qi inside the Immortal Mansion, on the other hand, is plentiful. The entire seventy-square-li area of the Immortal Mansion is spiritual land suitable for planting Spirit Rice. This means that, in terms of sheer volume, the Immortal Mansion’s Spiritual Qi is definitely greater than that of an entire Fourth-rank Spiritual Land.’

’It’s just spread out over too large an area, making the overall quality seem low.’

’What if I use some special method to temporarily draw out the Spiritual Qi from the Immortal Mansion to tide us over?’

Fang Qingyuan considered the possibility. He really didn’t want to burn through his Spirit Stones for nothing, after all. But this idea presented several challenges.

First, opening and closing the Immortal Mansion and what could be brought out of it depended entirely on Fang Qingyuan’s will. He could extract the Spiritual Qi for a short time, but he couldn’t possibly spend every day doing nothing but mentally performing the action of drawing out the Immortal Mansion’s Spiritual Qi.

Second, even if that problem were solved and Fang Qingyuan could free himself from such a trivial task, the Immortal Mansion moved with him. Unless he remained in one spot indefinitely, the operation would halt whenever he left for even a day. Over time, that would surely arouse suspicion.

If these two key problems couldn’t be solved, he could forget about properly utilizing the Spiritual Qi within the Immortal Mansion.

And so, feeling troubled, Fang Qingyuan buried himself in the sect’s Scripture Pavilion, hoping to find the answers he needed—or at least some inspiration—among its vast collection of scrolls and records.

.....

「Five days later.」

Fang Qingyuan had an epiphany on the fifth floor of the Scripture Pavilion. He pushed aside a large pile of scattered jade slips and asked himself,

’The Divine Puppet Technique from the Forest Ghost Scripture? You sever a sliver of your own divine soul to create an incarnation. Unlike an ordinary Divine Splitting Technique, a puppet made this way possesses high intelligence and can perform extremely complex tasks. What’s more, when a Divine Puppet is made to perfection, it can even miraculously undergo a Celestial Tribulation in place of its creator.’

’It’s just that the Forest Ghost Scripture sounds like a Ghost Cultivation Technique from the name alone. My Scripture Pavilion may collect all sorts of records, but it definitely doesn’t have something like that. I’ll have to put in the effort to find it, and I’ll have to do it while staying out of sight of the Great Zhou Academy.’

’But the Immortal Mansion is already a top-secret, so what’s one more secret about a ghost scripture? If this method is feasible, the Immortal Mansion’s role will become even more immense. It will no longer be just a production base but can also become my most important Spirit Vein. Then I won’t need to fight for Fourth-rank or Tier Five Spirit Veins. Maybe, in the future, I can even undergo my Nascent Soul Transformation right here in the Qingyuan Sect.’

’If my physical body could even enter the Immortal Mansion, would I need to go to all this trouble? Why can’t my physical body enter when I’m the master? It’s so unfair.’

’Huh? Why does the origin of this Forest Ghost Scripture trace back to the Fire God Ant Mountain? Could it be that Gui You knows of this scripture as well?’