Cultivating Immortality Begins with Rejuvenation.

Chapter 237 Puppet Inheritance

Witnessing this series of changes, Li Ji'an subconsciously took two steps back.

The moment he removed his mask, an aura different from that of a Foundation Establishment cultivator emanated from his body.

Moreover, this aura was the strongest Li Ji'an had ever seen.

It was at least equivalent to the pressure of a mid-stage Core Formation cultivator.

"Fellow Daoist, this is..." Li Ji'an tentatively asked in response to the man's thanks.

"Fellow Daoist, do not be afraid, Xiaoying is not human."

"..."

"Xiaoying is a puppet created by the Master!"

"A puppet!" Li Ji'an narrowed his eyes slightly. It was exactly the same as his initial guess. However, he had consulted many puppeteers back then and ultimately rejected this possibility.

"Long ago, the Lord created Xiaoying, not only giving her flesh and blood, but also endowing her with spiritual consciousness. Unfortunately, in the midst of the turmoil, Xiaoying failed to protect the Lord. Not only was she sealed by a powerful figure, but she was also separated from the Lord."

After an unknown amount of time, Xiaoying awoke and sensed that her master's life force had ceased.

Xiaoying's spiritual consciousness originated from the Lord, and it should have been extinguished after the Lord's life force was cut off.

But for some reason, a wisp of obsession arose, and this obsession sustained Xiaoying's determination to find her master and sleep with him.

In the long years that followed, it was this obsession that haunted him.

"Just now, upon seeing the Lord's remains and sensing that familiar aura, my original memories were finally awakened. Xiaoying can finally go and join the Lord..." As she spoke, Xiaoying's body began to slowly collapse.

Her hair fell down, her skin and flesh separated, and in a moment, all that remained was a humanoid body made of various materials.

And once that beautiful hair and flesh were stripped away, it instantly turned to ashes.

"Fellow Daoist, wait a moment. Do you still remember the cultivation technique from before?" Seeing that the puppet support was also beginning to transform into Dao, Li Ji'an hurriedly asked about the main purpose of this trip.

"Xiaoying doesn't remember anything, but you can wear that Formless Mask. It's a Dao artifact that the Lord found for Xiaoying back then. Perhaps it contains some of her memories from all these years..." After saying this, the last piece of his body turned into ashes and scattered on the humanoid skeleton.

Li Ji'an concentrated his divine sense to the extreme and sensed that a faint divine soul had completely dissipated, leaving only his own aura in an instant.

“A single obsession sustained it through thousands of years, all in the pursuit of finding its master…” This scene touched Li Ji’an slightly.

"In this way, they are even more reliable than spirit beasts!"

"I just don't understand how this puppet spirit possession technique works?"

After settling in the Immortal City in this life, he did consider refining puppets to protect his path.

A puppet you create yourself, one that you give commands to, is more reliable than anything else.

Unfortunately, after learning about the puppetry techniques here, he ultimately gave up on this idea.

Because the puppets in this world are all inanimate objects without self-awareness, they need to be controlled by the master with their soul and require spirit stones as an energy source. Once one rejuvenates, one's initial spiritual consciousness is basically unable to control puppets above the late stage of the first tier, so it is still somewhat difficult to use them for protection.

Moreover, puppetry is considered one of the most difficult skills among the many top-ranked martial arts and skills.

It requires not only basic crafting skills but also inscription of runes, setting up of arrays, and ultimately, guidance by the divine soul.

A seasoned puppeteer must have a foundation in weapon crafting, talisman making, and array formations, and their spiritual sense must also be strong enough.

Furthermore, puppets consume a lot of materials and require substantial financial resources.

But now that he had witnessed this ancient puppet with sentience, Li Ji'an's desire to study the art of puppetry was rekindled.

After waiting quietly for a while and seeing no further abnormalities inside, Li Ji'an waved his hand and took the Formless Mask that Xiaoying had shed from the stone chamber.

The mask was as thin as a cicada's wing and emitted no aura whatsoever. If it weren't for the blood essence flowing on it, it would be easy to miss.

When you stick it on your face, you feel almost nothing.

However, at this moment, one's divine sense was already able to enter it.

There are three grooves inside. The first groove contains a drop of essence blood and a trace of soul power, while the other two are empty.

"This aura... Chishi Sanren?" After a moment of sensing, Li Ji'an found that the aura of that drop of blood essence was very familiar.

Immediately, with a thought, that wisp of essence blood was activated.

"Om~"

The next moment, Li Ji'an felt a slight tremor throughout his body, including his sea of ​​consciousness, which vanished in an instant.

"Hmm?" Before he could notice anything unusual, Yu Guangzhong was suddenly drawn to the disheveled Taoist robe on the body.

He immediately assessed himself.

“This…” Upon seeing it, his eyebrows immediately rose.

Reaching out to gently stroke his cheek, which had transformed into the face of the Red Stone Hermit, Li Ji'an took a deep breath.

At this moment, not only are their appearances exactly the same, but even their magical aura is completely identical.

Moreover, with his divine sense, which surpasses that of ordinary pseudo-core cultivators, he could not detect the slightest flaw.

Most importantly, a new, independent memory suddenly appeared in his mind.

Li Ji'an immediately composed himself and invaded the memory with his divine sense.

"These are all fragments of Chishi Sanren's memories?" Li Ji'an was shocked after quickly browsing through them.

These memory fragments all belong to Chishi Sanren. They include not only his key memories before entering the wasteland, but also his memories after his death when his essence and soul were absorbed by the Wuxiang Mask.

It turns out that Chishi Sanren's real name is Zhao Xin. He is a member of a fake alchemy family in Daoyuan Prefecture. Three thousand years ago, during the war between the righteous and demonic forces in Tianyuan Prefecture, he fled to the wilderness in order to avoid being recruited by the Wanfa Palace.

At that time, the wilderness had not yet been extensively cultivated, and it was fraught with danger, with many desperados among the inhabitants.

Chishi Sanren accidentally discovered the puppet Xiaoying, which was sealed by an ancient cultivator. Mistaking it for a human cultivator, he attempted to commit evil deeds, but unintentionally broke the seal that had been corroded by time. After Xiaoying awoke, he instinctively killed it, and the Wuxiang Mask devoured its essence and soul.

After that, Xiaoying sealed herself off, leaving only a wisp of obsession, and her temperament and behavior were gradually assimilated by Chishi Sanren...

"The Mask of No Form... truly worthy of being a Dao artifact!"

After understanding the effects of the Faceless Mask, Li Ji'an was overjoyed and praised it.

It devours the essence, blood, and soul of others, along with fragments of their memories. This is not only a disguise of appearance, but also an imitation of magical aura from the inside out, and even of their words and actions.

Li Ji'an repeatedly deduced that, apart from being unsure whether the Nascent Soul or Nascent Soul could see through it, he was certain that the Core Formation stage divine sense could not see through it, not even the peak Golden Core stage.

The only pity is that there is a threshold for using the Formless Mask. At the very least, it requires the activation of divine sense. The spiritual sense of a Qi Refining stage cultivator cannot activate the essence blood it devours.

If the essence blood it devours cannot be activated, it cannot achieve the effect of disguise. However, the Formless Mask itself does have the effect of protecting the sea of ​​consciousness, so it can be considered a protective tool for the soul.

In addition, the Mask of No Form also has a certain cost to use. After activating the essence blood within it for a long time, one's behavior and even thoughts will be assimilated by the original essence body.

The degree of assimilation is directly proportional to the duration of role-playing.

However, this assimilation will gradually fade after the role is removed.

After understanding the uses and advantages and disadvantages of the Formless Mask, Li Ji'an used his divine sense to gather the essence blood of Chi Shi Sanren and restore his original appearance, but he did not remove the Formless Mask.

Just then, Guagua returned, and Li Ji'an composed himself, focusing his attention back on the stone chamber.

According to Xiaoying the puppet, the owner of this stone chamber was an ancient puppeteer, and there must be a puppetry tradition within it.

What Li Ji'an cares about most right now is the secret technique of imbuing puppets with spirits. "Croak~" Looking at the croaking creature that had burrowed into the ground, Li Ji'an took out a healing pill and fed it to it.

After more than two years of training, Guagua is now covered in wounds. The most striking feature is the diagonal wound above his left eye, where both his upper and lower eyelids appear to have been torn apart by the claw.

After offering a few words of reassurance, Li Ji'an allowed him to enter the stone chamber.

Besides the humanoid corpse in the center of the stone chamber, there were four other remains covered in dust.

After Guagua blew away the dust, its true form was revealed.

They were the remains of four puppets, corroded by time.

Li Ji'an recognized several materials that had not decayed; they were all third-tier metal spiritual materials, but due to their long existence in the Spirit-Severing Stone Chamber, the spiritual essence of the materials had been severely lost.

However, Li Ji'an still made Guagua swallow all four puppet remains.

Then, beneath the main body's remains in the center, they found a storage bag that had long since turned to ashes, containing several jade bottles and jade talismans.

"Does the Xuanji Pavilion employ puppeteers?"

"Peak Core Formation stage, yet a fourth-tier puppeteer?"

……

After reviewing and organizing all the information on jade talismans, Li Ji'an gained a certain understanding of this ancient puppeteer.

Also a rogue cultivator, he possessed extraordinary talent in puppetry. Through learning various puppetry techniques, he eventually collaborated with another enshrined puppeteer from the Xuanji Pavilion to develop a secret art for imbuing puppets with spirits, and successfully experimented with it.

"The inheritance of a fourth-order puppet!" Finally, Li Ji'an picked up the jade talisman that was imprinted with the inheritance of a fourth-order puppet, as well as many insights and experiences, and he could no longer suppress the smile on his lips.

"With this inheritance, crafting a fourth-tier spirit-enchanted puppet that can protect one's path will no longer be a dream!"

With the protection of a fourth-tier spirit puppet, Li Ji'an should have no worries about rejuvenating in the entire Tiancang Domain and even the surrounding major cultivation domains.

"It's a pity there's no method for refining the spirit! I need to pay more attention to soul cultivation techniques in the future." After quickly scanning through it, Li Ji'an discovered that this puppet inheritance had very high requirements for the soul. The reason why this ancient predecessor was able to refine a fourth-order spirit-attached puppet with his peak Core Formation cultivation was because of the soul cultivation techniques that were popular in ancient times.

After putting away the jade talisman, Li Ji'an carefully searched the stone chamber again with his divine sense. Confirming that there was nothing else inside, he bowed to the withered remains, closed the stone door again, filled in the passage, and returned with Guagua.

Only after reuniting with Xiao Qiao and having her pilot the flying boat did Li Ji'an carefully sort through the fragments of Chi Shi Sanren's memories once again.

However, after careful consideration, Li Ji'an frowned.

Although its memories of more than three thousand years are mostly fragments of key nodes, the amount of work involved is still enormous, and it is not easy to accurately find the memory where the technique was placed.

Moreover, this method of searching through such a vast amount of memories in one's sea of ​​consciousness is extremely taxing on one's spiritual energy. After only three days, he felt a sharp pain in his sea of ​​consciousness.

The only option was to quickly exit and allow one's consciousness to rest.

A month and a half later, the flying boat returned to the Strange Stone Forest.

"Please, Uncle Li, protect me!" Xiao Qiao mustered her courage and pleaded as soon as she returned to the Qishilin Dojo.

During the three years away, Xiao Qiao honed her magical power while using the power of the earth's spiritual energy. Now, if she goes into seclusion for another two or three months, she can indeed attempt to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage.

"Okay!" Faced with Xiao Qiao's rare request, Li Ji'an agreed without hesitation.

Of course, besides genuinely wanting to help Xiao Qiao, it was also because he received a message from Xiao Changfeng in the wilderness. Xiao Changfeng had been in seclusion for three years after returning to the sect, and he only came out of seclusion now that Elder Fang of the sect had returned.

Now is the time for him to confront Elder Tian head-on, and at the same time, he must begin to compete for the sect's Core Formation resources.

With the Supreme Elder absent, Li Ji'an had no idea why Elder Tian and Elder Fang would push things forward in this way, so he decided to hide for a while longer and wait until there was a result regarding Xiao Changfeng's matter.

So Li Ji'an settled down in the core Taoist temple of the Strange Stone Forest.
-
In the peach blossom grove.

"Why is this person here again? Is he going to cultivate here from now on?" Ning Yutan's tone was somewhat displeased.

"Hmph! You ingrate! Don't forget that if it weren't for him, you'd still be selling pastries in the market. If it weren't for him, you'd never have been able to buy this Foundation Establishment Pill in your entire life," Ning Sujin sneered.

"Oh dear, I know, but... what exactly is he up to? I'm worried about running into that beast Liu again."

"..."

"Is your method of seeking good fortune and avoiding misfortune truly unusable?"

"Help me get my physical body back first."

"How about... we just give up on that idea? The Myriad Laws Palace has Nascent Soul True Monarchs. I'll share my body with you, just take good care of it."

"Do not care!"

"Hmph, I'm more afraid you'll use my body for dirty deeds."

"Paws!"

"Snapped!"

"You old hag, you hit me again! Get down!" Ning Yutan covered her cheek, and with a thought, she suppressed Ning Sujin's soul.
-
Two months later.

"Uncle Li, I'm ready!" Xiao Qiao arrived at Li Ji'an's residence as soon as she came out of seclusion.

Li Ji'an carefully sensed his physical condition. Although his magical power was not particularly strong, it was still substantial, more than enough to overcome the first hurdle of magical power.

He couldn't see through the person's consciousness or make an assessment of their spiritual state, but given their status as an Earth Spirit Master, they were probably quite capable.

As for the physical body, it's barely enough.

However, this situation would definitely not be possible without using the Foundation Building Pill.

"Alright! Uncle Li will protect you."

In fact, given Xiao Qiao's condition, taking a top-grade Foundation Establishment Pill would almost certainly guarantee her success in establishing her foundation, with no unexpected complications.

The only thing to worry about is interference from outsiders.

Although Xiao Qiao didn't interact much with people, she didn't make any enemies.

However, as Qin Henian's goddaughter in name only, she feared that Qin Henian's enemies would retaliate against her.

Three days later, Xiao Qiao attempted to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage at Li Ji'an's residence.

With a third-tier spiritual vein dojo, a high-grade foundation-building pill, and Li Ji'an, a protector with the combat power of a pseudo-core cultivator, Xiao Qiao's foundation-building conditions are much better than Li Ji'an's back then.

As expected, two months later, Xiao Qiao successfully established her Dao foundation and advanced to the Foundation Establishment stage.

Li Ji'an stayed by his side at all times during this period.

However, to Li Ji'an's surprise, the Qin family had been secretly watching for quite some time during this period.

He wasn't sure if the other party had refrained from making a move because of him.

However, this is understandable upon reflection. The Qishi Forest is a sacred place for cultivators, no matter where it is located. If Qin Henian were to give this place to Xiao Qiao, there would definitely be some people in the clan who would be unwilling.

Perhaps they all hope that Xiao Qiao will fail to break through to the Foundation Establishment stage and pass away early, so that they can reclaim their Daoist abode.

Fortunately, the other party did not make a move.

On that day, news of the successful foundation building of the Master of the Strange Stone Forest spread throughout the surrounding area.

Meanwhile, in the peach blossom grove, Ning Yutan looked troubled: "Should we really ask him to protect us? What if..."

"If he truly had malicious intentions, why would he offer so much help? Moreover, he has been here for so long, and you have been avoiding him. Wouldn't that just arouse unnecessary suspicion?"
Of course, the most crucial point is that your frail physical body is truly inadequate. Without the protection of a Foundation Establishment expert, you would genuinely be in danger of exploding!

(End of this chapter)