Mortal: The Path to Immortality

After advancing to the next level, Lu Nanzhu glanced at the "Taiyi Muhua Scripture," his main cultivation technique, with his divine sense, and then put it away.

He has now cultivated his natal technique to the sixth level, and his magical power far surpasses that of others of the same level. It is time for him to consider cultivating some other auxiliary techniques to consolidate his foundation and strength.

He took out several other jade slips of cultivation techniques that were faintly glowing from his storage bag. After searching them with his fingertips, he picked out the jade slip that contained the "Controlling Meridians and Transforming Spirit Technique".

"Now that I've successfully advanced, I'll start by practicing this technique. My rapid progress in cultivation before was largely thanks to the help of this technique."

After saying that, Lu Nanzhu closed his eyes, probed the jade slip with his divine sense, and began to carefully read the incantation for the third level of the cultivation technique.

According to the cultivation method, if a cultivator cultivates the "Pulse Control and Spirit Transformation Technique" to the third level, in addition to greatly enhancing the strength of their own meridians and soul, they can truly help other cultivators construct the main meridians of their bodies. It is truly a rare and profound divine power.

For the next two years, Lu Nanzhu spent most of his time analyzing and studying these techniques bit by bit.

Two years later, he opened his eyes and let out a long breath.

With his own comprehension and concentration, he finally succeeded in cultivating the "Pulse Control and Spirit Transformation Technique" to the third level, and he also successfully completed the second level of the "Great Evolution Technique", which consumes a lot of spiritual energy.

As for the more mysterious "Legend of the Rising Sun," although Lu Nanzhu possessed several rare medicinal herbs needed to practice the third level of the technique, he could not begin cultivating it because his current cultivation level had not yet reached the Core Formation stage, and his meridians could not withstand that level of tempering.

After completing the stage of his cultivation technique, Lu Nanzhu stood up and went down the stone steps to the herb garden at the bottom.

Arriving at the herb garden, he looked at the hibiscus tree, the sandalwood tree, and the spirit-devouring vine that was constantly absorbing earth-attribute spiritual energy. After years of continuous ripening, these three spiritual plants now exuded the unique spiritual energy of ten-thousand-year-old spiritual plants.

This section of Fusang wood can be kept to help him cultivate the "Azure Yang Divine Fire" in the future; as for the remaining two ancient spiritual plants, Lu Nanzhu plans to harvest them to make a high-level puppet.

Lu Nanzhu took out a jade slip, which was the "Puppet Manual" he had obtained from the Hu family. He probed it with his divine sense and began to study it carefully.

The jade slip details a very special method of puppet making: to make this kind of puppet, the cultivator needs to prepare a special secret spiritual liquid in advance and soak the corpse of the cultivator who has just died in it.

This kind of spiritual liquid can penetrate into the bones and blood of a corpse, completely preserving the activity of most of the body's tissues.

After soaking for a period of time, the completed flesh puppet can be further refined using secret techniques. After that, it can be directly controlled by divine sense.

What Lu Nanzhu valued even more was that the physical puppets created in this way could not only perfectly preserve 80% of the cultivator's cultivation level before death, but also had the ability to continue absorbing spiritual energy and cultivating to advance while under control.

After repeatedly pondering and understanding this secret technique, Lu Nanzhu withdrew his divine sense from the jade slip, stroked his chin, and said in a deep voice:

"This method of crafting puppets is quite novel. It's just a pity that the ancient recipe for the key spiritual liquid is missing from the jade slip."

However, with the cultivation techniques I currently possess and these ancient materials, if I put in some effort, it would be enough to create a similar substitute.

Having made up his mind, he immediately stepped forward and carefully removed the two enormous ancient sandalwood trees and spirit-devouring vines from his sight. Then he turned and returned to the alchemy room on the upper floor.

After returning to the alchemy room, Lu Nanzhu took out several bags of "Spirit-Solidifying Ash" that he had previously purchased at the Tiandu Street Market from his storage bag. Then, he activated his internal magic power and drew out a clear spiritual spring from the nearby spring.

After the gray soil and the spiritual spring water were mixed and stirred evenly, a huge clump of brown soil floated steadily in mid-air, supported by magical power.

Lu Nanzhu chanted a spell, skillfully taking a small clump of soil from the giant object and placing it in front of him. He then used his magic to mold it little by little into the required bones and joints, and finally spat out a ball of flame to burn and fix it.

He patiently carried out the tasks one by one, and only after refining and sintering the entire pile of huge soil into various molds did he turn around and begin to process the two genuine ten-thousand-year-old spiritual materials.

However, when faced with that piece of ancient black sandalwood, which was purplish-black in color and exceptionally hard, Lu Nanzhu frowned slightly.

"To process a ten-thousand-year-old spiritual object of this size, even a high-level cultivator in the Core Formation stage would probably have to refine it for one or two days without sleep using their internal alchemical fire, let alone myself now."

He gave a bitter laugh to himself. This wasn't entirely his fault; under normal circumstances, only high-level cultivators were qualified and capable of obtaining and refining ancient spiritual treasures.

Even if a low-level cultivator happens to obtain this item by chance, they will most likely sell it off as quickly as possible and exchange it for auxiliary materials suitable for their current realm. They would never be as foolish as him, trying to refine such a ten-thousand-year-old material on their own while still in the Foundation Establishment stage.

However, having already come this far, Lu Nanzhu decided to try using his own innate true fire.

He immediately sat cross-legged in front of the alchemy furnace, took a deep breath, and exhaled a ball of innate true fire, completely enveloping the piece of purplish-black sandalwood.

However, despite being scorched by the raging fire for a long time, the surface of that piece of spiritual wood only flickered with a faint spiritual light, showing no sign of change whatsoever.

Seeing this, Lu Nanzhu's eyes narrowed, and he immediately increased the activation of his magic power. Relying on his self-made spiritual liquid to replenish his spiritual power, he did his best to increase the output of the innate true fire.

After more than a month of relentless effort in the alchemy room, the stubborn piece of sandalwood finally melted completely under the continuous scorching of the innate true fire, turning into a slowly wriggling purplish-black viscous liquid.

By this time, Lu Nanzhu was already exhausted, his face pale and his body drenched in sweat.

He mustered his strength, gritted his teeth, and used all the remaining magic power in his body to carefully inject the purplish-black liquid into the various molds that had been sintered earlier.

After finishing all of this, he hurriedly took out a bottle of homemade spiritual liquid from his storage bag and drank it down.

After his magical powers had recovered for a while, he stood up, slowly walked to the stone bed, and fell into a deep sleep.

After an unknown number of days, Lu Nanzhu awoke from his deep sleep.

He rubbed his temples to clear his head, then walked straight to the clay molds that had been infused with the liquid from the ancient sandalwood.

He carefully removed the completely cooled and solidified sandalwood components one by one from the mold and neatly arranged them on the large stone table.

After finishing tidying up, Lu Nanzhu took two steps back and looked at the stone table. His eyebrows twitched involuntarily, and he vaguely felt that the scene was a little frightening.

The puppet components placed on the table, if forcibly assembled, at first glance resemble a purplish-black skeleton. Only the occasional wisps of golden spiritual light emanating from the surface of the bones reveal the profound essence of the millennia-old spiritual materials they are made from.

Suppressing a strange feeling in his heart, Lu Nanzhu turned around and continued to deal with the ten-thousand-year-old Soul-Devouring Vine.

Compared to the incredibly hard Xuan Tan wood, which required more than a month of painstaking work, the method for dealing with this Soul-Devouring Vine is obviously much simpler.

Because this vine has a natural affinity for earth elements, and its texture is tough yet soft, Lu Nanzhu directly summoned a sharp magical flying sword and neatly cut it into hundreds of pieces of various sizes along the vine's grain.

Then, he walked back to the stone table and, following the direction of the muscles and meridians of the human figure, pasted the cut Soul-Devouring Vines one by one onto the puppet skeleton made of sandalwood components.

Once everything was attached, Lu Nanzhu took a deep breath, formed hand seals, and began to continuously pour his own magical power into the assembled puppet.

Guided by the blue-green spiritual energy, the Soul-Devouring Vines that wrapped around the skeleton began to wriggle slightly, extending countless tiny spiritual tendrils that fit and connect tightly with the inner sandalwood skeleton layer by layer.

Then, he used his magic to condense a carving knife and meticulously carved the surface of the puppet, referencing the figure of an ordinary cultivator.

A moment later, a lifelike humanoid puppet with dark bronze skin was completely assembled.

Looking at the body before him, entirely constructed from millennia-old spiritual materials, a flicker of excitement flashed in Lu Nanzhu's eyes. However, he quickly calmed himself down, for the real finishing touch was yet to come.

He walked to the stone table, calmed his mind, and gently placed his right palm on the puppet's cold forehead. The "Controlling Meridians and Transforming Spirit Technique" within his body immediately began to circulate.

Lu Nanzhu closed his eyes and began to carefully search his mind for the rudimentary meridian patterns of the exceptionally talented cultivators he had killed in Tiannan.

Under the precise control of his divine sense, he used his magic power to penetrate the puppet's flesh and began to meticulously and patiently replicate a network of meridians within the body that was about 80% similar to that of a normal cultivator.

This is also the profound divine power that he could only unleash after cultivating the "Controlling Meridians and Transforming Spirit Technique" to the third level.

Several more days passed, and the magical fluctuations within the stone chamber finally dissipated slowly.

Lu Nanzhu withdrew his hand from the puppet's forehead, took a few steps back, and stared at the puppet lying quietly on the stone table with expectant and nervous eyes.

The stone chamber was quiet for a moment.

However, after a short while, the puppet, which had been lifeless, suddenly opened its eyes. As the first wisp of spiritual energy spontaneously circulated within its meridians, it actually moved its fingers on the stone table as if it were a living person, and then slowly sat up.

This entirely new type of puppet turned its neck and looked directly at Lu Nanzhu standing to the side, its eyes filled with bewilderment.