The Path to Immortality Begins with the Life-Extending Lamp

Chapter 18 will include the lamp-offering ceremony.
The Dragon Banner Guards were stationed on the outskirts of Corpse Mountain, rising from the southeast corner.

With twenty or thirty carts and supplies forming a ring, they felled logs, burned wild grass, drove away poisonous insects, and set up camp. Only two shifts of armored soldiers were assigned to take turns on night watch, and the army ended their busy day.

The next morning, the soldiers who had been on night duty carried several drooping weasels and began to boast about them.

"Hey, I've heard that these weasels are incredibly vengeful. If they block your way, they'll have your whole family burned alive. I'm just afraid some might escape..."

"Look, yesterday those few bastards tried to sneak in and gnaw on the donkeys and horses, but they got caught in the animal traps that my son hid!"

These two simply dressed armored warriors were from generations of hunters, and their traps and hunting skills were excellent. These few yellow weasels, which were about half a person's height, were their spoils.

These few weasels were alright, but two white-haired zombies wandered over from the northern camp that night. Fortunately, the military officer discovered them early on patrol and impaled them on the ground with two spears, beheading them both.

This was the first time the Dragon Banner Guard had entered Western Mang, and he had truly witnessed the dangers of the Western Mang Corpse Cave.

Just by setting up camp in the valley outside the mountains, they encountered weasels occupying the mountain and walking corpses roaming around. It truly lives up to its name as a corpse cave!

However, what kept these soldiers tossing and turning all night was the divine magic they had witnessed firsthand. That Li Jijiu blew out a candle to ignite an ancient tree, shattered a mountain rock with a single finger, and slaughtered a weasel's nest with just two pieces of paper.

The strange tales from those stories come to life right before your eyes. How could such a fusion of dream and reality not be incredibly exciting?
They even witnessed firsthand how the terrifying paper figure, which slayed demons as easily as killing chickens, was treated like a plaything in the hands of the priest, its power waned, folded into paper effigies, and its splattered demon blood wiped away one by one...

Which young man doesn't love the Dharma? Which man doesn't yearn for immortality?
After one night, when they saw the libationer again, it was as if they were seeing a god!
Meanwhile, Li Qing was in the main tent watching the white-boned beauty wash the sun-shining cinnabar, carefully grinding the yang-quality spiritual blood with the sun-shining cinnabar to make vermilion-purple spiritual ink.

Only when the spiritual ink in the white jade vessel was finally mixed did the old Taoist priest and the armored soldiers, who had been sitting upright in the sacrificial tent for a long time, dare to breathe a little.

"Dragon Banner Army? I have been left here as its chief priest, and I will naturally not shirk my responsibilities."

"However, I entered this Western Wilderness Burial Mountain with a grand plan in mind!"

"Commander Bai, Marquis Bai, tell me what the mission of the Dragon Guards is under this military order?"

The completion of the Spirit Ink and the high-grade Zhu Ze improved Li Qing's mood somewhat. She raised her eyes and discussed the matter of entering the mountain with several valiant soldiers whose muscles were trembling.

However, since the Dragon Ridge Guardian Temple is so small, yet it insists on accommodating such a large Buddha statue, how to treat this large Buddha statue is another matter entirely.

The camp had barely been set up, and the entire army was likely to be decided by the words of this young Taoist disciple.

With his official background and bizarre, terrifying magic, even Bai Du, Bai Yang, and the old Taoist Zhao could only bow and comply, and everything depended on the attitude of this priest.

"Lord Chief, our department doesn't really have any special military orders. It's just about clearing away the haphazard graves and leveling that old forest in this branch of the Western Barbarian tribe. We can go as far as we want..."

The military officer chuckled and bowed as he stepped forward, explaining to the Chief Priest Li.

"If the Chief Minister has a grand plan, everyone in our camp is willing to serve him like a dog or a horse!"

Given the magical abilities Li Qing displayed last night, how could these soldiers not submit? They immediately expressed their allegiance.

Even the old man stood up and bowed, offering advice to the Tiannan Daoist disciple at the head of the table.

"Our small force is only enough to sweep the outer perimeter and conduct a patrol."

"Your Excellency may give the order directly. If it is necessary to excavate the Yin land or collect any spiritual materials, these 180 armored soldiers will certainly save Your Excellency a lot of time."

On the very second day, he turned the tables and all the armored soldiers of the Dragon Banner Guard followed this Tiannan Daoist's lead.

Sima Baidu's expression changed several times, his heart filled with sorrow, but he had no choice but to go along with the crowd and express his opinion.

This chief priest is highly respected at the moment, and it is not a problem that the soldiers bow down to him. However, judging from the way Chief Priest Li is acting, he is probably not a good person!

I fear that these young men of the Dragon Clan will all be used by Li Jijiu as tools to obtain supplies, and will needlessly lose their lives in this grotto!
But at this point, he was helpless. He had been blinded by greed, thinking he could recruit a Taoist disciple to serve him, but instead, he had brought back a mountain tiger and a river-crossing dragon. What use was worrying now?
"Can!"

"The mission of the Dragon Ritual Department and the tasks of this sect do not conflict; the two can be carried out simultaneously."

"I wish to subdue evil spirits, capture ghosts and foxes, and seize mountain spirits... to perform a ritual using various evil spirits and strange creatures. What does Supervisor Zhao think?"

After putting away the spirit ink, Li Qing sat on one side of the table, leaning forward, but her gaze wandered over the people in the tent, finally settling on Old Zhao.

The ritual for prolonging life and burning eternally has been thoroughly memorized. The blood ink is ready, and the spirit paper is plentiful. All that is needed is to use the rotten silver from the East Sea as the base, the spirit paper as the surface, the vermilion ink dots for patterns, and the lamp divided into six sides. Then, various spirits and ghosts will be summoned, and the ritual of offering sacrifices to the Southern Dipper to borrow life will be performed, forcibly extracting six times the number of lifespan light to fall into the lamp wick...

At that time, the spirit lamp will lift its sleeve, and the six directions will be viewed in a flash. The life-giving flame within the lamp will keep things stable, and all evil will be terrified.

Only those lamps refined through such bizarre rituals can be considered life-extending lamps!

However, for a spirit to be born with intelligence by combining the six elements, its innate destiny must not be too bad; it seems that the weasel is not qualified.

Such a level of refinement is already considered extremely complex among many beginner-level magical artifacts. It should be noted that the Black Dog Nail refined by the Insect Master only required the refinement of one Black Dog Spirit.

"Then... perhaps we should first level this valley, erect an altar, and also collect logs and vines to build a beast cage?"

After a moment's thought, Old Zhao immediately completed the preparations for the rituals to be performed for Li Qing. However, at that very moment, Old Zhao's heart suddenly sank. He glanced at the armored soldiers out of the corner of his eye, thinking to himself:

"It seems that he wasn't some inexperienced Taoist disciple who was fooled by seasoned soldiers, but rather that he had long set his sights on this small force, which was powerless to resist and was fit to be used as his subordinates?"

If what this Tianan Daoist said is true, and he wants to command the Dragon Banner Guards to capture mountain spirits, demons, ghosts, foxes, and corpses for him, then many of the soldiers will likely suffer quite a bit!
Are mountain spirits and monsters so easily captured?
However, since the Dragon Ridge Guard had obtained this "Great Buddha" statue, he had no choice but to comply with its wishes and properly worship it.

Perhaps it's just as the old saying goes: you gain some things and you lose others.

The Dragon Banner Guards, stationed in the southeast of the grotto, remained stationed for many days, instead engaging in large-scale construction in the valley.

They transformed the camp tent into a wooden arch structure, opened a drill ground, and erected a fence, as if they intended to stay there permanently. However, they also wove many large cages, each the same height, out of giant trees and old vines, which was truly unbelievable!
Half a month has passed.

Only then did the chief priest, along with the supervisor, the military commander, and the military officer, personally lead the armored soldiers towards the mass grave of corpses.

Even a lion uses its full strength to hunt a rabbit, let alone such a destructive act as destroying graves and mountains. Apart from leaving two teams of soldiers with powerful bows and crossbows to guard the sentry towers and camps, the rest of the Dragon Banner Army entered the mountains.

However, among the armored soldiers, there were hardly any knights, only a handful of twenty or thirty. And traveling through this dense forest covered with deep leaves, with poisonous insects everywhere and fallen leaves like slush, was truly difficult.

Long Jie, Bai Du, Bai Yangshu, and the others were all fierce warriors with well-honed physiques. Wielding sharp blades, they swung them, and several more snake bodies fell to the ground...

"Old Taoist, why do you always take a little girl with you when you go out? Is she still breastfeeding?"

"Ha ha ha ha……"

The old Taoist priest Zhao had become very familiar with the soldiers in the camp over the past few days. Now that the soldiers were struggling to move, they started teasing the old Taoist priest.

"I am the only son in nine generations of my family, and this is my only grandson. Perhaps he will enter the Upper Temple to cultivate Taoism in the future!"

"Get out of here, you bunch of bastards, get the hell out of here..."

While joking and laughing with the soldiers, Old Zhao, with a worried expression, held the little girl tightly to his side, not daring to fall behind. Seeing that there were many snakes and poisonous insects in the forest, he lifted her up with one arm.

Only Li Qing, who was in front, seemed to be strolling leisurely. However, seeing the armored soldiers moving as if they were sinking into a swamp, and hearing the teasing behind him, he suddenly stopped and glanced at the people behind him.

But then they saw that the old Taoist's granddaughter had been following them since the capital, and had not cried or made a fuss along the way. Judging from her Taoist heart, she really had a good chance of entering the temple.

“This Western Mang Corpse Mountain is covered with tall, dense trees and leaves that resemble mud. There are old corpses and wild graves hidden beneath it. If I were to start a large fire, what do you all think?”

Li Qing rolled up his sleeves, his true qi swirling around him, and with a flick of his long whip, he suddenly swept up the corpse hidden beneath the fallen leaves. In an instant, a cracking sound was heard, and the emaciated corpse was smashed against an ancient tree, instantly separating its head from its body.

Seeing the leaves fall one after another, and the pale, emaciated old corpse instantly dismembered into several pieces, Li Qing turned his head to look at the crowd.

"This... perhaps we could give it a try?"

"However, we need to avoid the fire a little."

Upon witnessing this turn of events, the armored soldiers searching the mountain from the rear were filled with even greater surprise and doubt, and they retreated repeatedly, gathering together in a huddle.

The people at the front, seeing an old corpse hidden around them, were terrified and their hearts trembled. They stopped in their tracks and echoed each other repeatedly.

This ancient forest, which no one has dared to enter for hundreds of years, would be extremely difficult to destroy by human effort alone.

I'm afraid we can only do as the priest said and burn the mountain with merciless water and fire.

With the order from the chief priest, the soldiers were even more delighted. Before they had even ventured deep into the mountains, they all turned around and headed out of the mountains.

The soldiers had just left the mountains and were waiting for orders from the chief priest and military commander to return to the camp to fetch torches and tung oil when, to their surprise, as soon as they turned around, a burst of green phosphorescence erupted from the dark green forest behind them.

The chief priest, who was at the very back, flicked his right hand and raised the paper lantern high. In an instant, the green flames and phosphorescent light scattered in all directions like hundreds of jade threads.

Peng!
Dozens of sparks flew in all directions, and wherever they touched, intense phosphorescent fire immediately ignited. From the withered leaves on the ground to the ancient trees in the forest, flames that were ten feet high instantly ignited. Layer upon layer of decaying leaves, the fire spread rapidly and quickly became uncontrollable, turning the entire dense forest into a sea of ​​fire.

Everyone trembled with fear as they felt the hot wind blowing in their faces.

"Let it burn all the way first, and burn away the snakes and insects that are obstructing us."

"This fire will surely cause the old corpses in the mountains to riot! Zhao, you should take a troop of soldiers back to reinforce and redeploy our camp, and also make sure your grandson is properly settled back in the camp. The mountains are full of snakes, insects, and walking corpses; if he gets hurt, you'll regret it..."

"The rest of you, follow me!"

With a wave of his sleeve, Li Qing bypassed the Sima and the military commander and gave the order directly: fifty men were to follow the sorcerer down the mountain, while the rest of the elite cavalry and armored soldiers, fully armed, followed him around the leeward side of the dense forest.

Sure enough, howls gradually rose from all directions in the forest...

(End of this chapter)