Treasure Gathering Immortal Furnace

The following night, Lu Fan was restless and unable to concentrate on his cultivation, his eyes fixed on the stone door of the secret chamber.

Fortunately, Mo Li did not break in, since he had not yet dismantled the remaining puppets, which meant they still had some value.

As the moon sets and the sun rises.

The next morning arrived.

Lu Fan pretended to be nonchalant and opened the stone door to walk out.

At this moment, Mo Li had already put Zi Yuan into his storage bag and sat cross-legged in the cave for the whole night.

Seeing Lu Fan come out, Mo Li didn't say anything.

Lu Fan picked up the bone-disassembling knife and continued working.

Although his hands were busy working, Lu Fan's eyes kept darting around.

He calculated his chances of escaping if Mo Li attacked him.

No matter how you calculate it, a Qi Refining Stage cultivator facing off against a Pseudo-Core Formation Stage cultivator is tantamount to suicide.

Moreover, he is not one of those peerless geniuses who can easily cross borders and challenge others.

Although a Qi Refining expert at level 20 is invincible during the Qi Refining stage, they are only a slightly troublesome opponent in the eyes of a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator.

Furthermore, Lu Fan has not learned any spells yet, and his combat experience is completely blank.

It seems like this is a doomed situation.

Just as Lu Fan was dismantling the puppet, Mo Li, who had been keeping his eyes closed, suddenly opened them and calmly said, "You saw everything last night?"

These unexpected words made Lu Fan's boning knife tremble. He quickly replied, "This disciple was cultivating last night and does not know what you mean by that, Uncle."

"What are you afraid of? I'm not doing anything shameful. It's okay if you peek," Mo Li said, raising her hand slightly.

Lu Fan stopped what he was doing and asked, "Uncle-Master Mo, which fairy was your Daoist partner last night?"

When asked, Mo Li paused for a moment before saying, "I suppose so. Two hundred years ago, I met Zi Yuan in the Feng Kingdom. We made a promise to become Daoist partners after we reached the Foundation Establishment stage, and then travel through Canglan to seek opportunities."

"But I wasn't very talented. When Zi Yuan formed her core, I was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, but she still accompanied me."

"However, Zi Yuan is exceptionally talented, so her sect naturally wouldn't agree to her becoming a Daoist partner with a Foundation Establishment cultivator like me. Zi Yuan's sect even sent a mid-stage Core Formation elder to hunt her down across thousands of miles."

"After a fierce battle, we survived by sheer luck, but Ziyuan was seriously injured and lost an arm. We finally arrived in Da Yan, only to be attacked by evil cultivators. Ziyuan died protecting me."

At this point, Mo Li sighed helplessly and shook his head.

Lu Fan felt a sense of resonance upon hearing this. That's just how it is in the cultivation world; there's a natural gap between low-level and high-level cultivators.

If two people are not on the same wavelength, it is difficult for them to come together.

Just as Lu Fan was deep in thought, Mo Li continued, "Before Zi Yuan fell, she asked me to refine her into a puppet so that she could always be with me. She loved beauty when she was alive, and I couldn't bear to see her exist in a crippled body. So for the past hundred years, I have neglected my cultivation and studied the art of puppet making. But unfortunately, things didn't go as planned, and I have never been able to restore her body."

Upon hearing this, Lu Fan comforted him, "Uncle Mo, as long as a cultivator's soul remains intact after death, they can still enter the cycle of reincarnation. Perhaps Senior Zi has already been reincarnated. Why do you insist on persisting?"

Upon hearing Lu Fan's words, Mo Li's eyes instantly turned cold: "Hmph, what do you know, you mere Qi Refining cultivator! If you encounter someone you want to protect, you would do the same. Although cultivators have severed ties with the mortal world, they are not heartless."

"When my uncle was reprimanding me," Lu Fan quickly bowed and clasped his hands.

He really didn't have anyone to protect. After all, along the way, Lu Fan had only seen others bully and humiliate him, but no female cultivator had ever given him a second glance.

"You keep going. I'm going out for a bit. When I come back, you can leave," Mo Li said, then got up and left the cave.

Lu Fan finally breathed a sigh of relief after Mo Li left.

He could tell that Mo Li wasn't inherently bad, but he was too stubborn, even bordering on madness.

"It seems that once I've dismantled these puppets, my death is imminent. I don't want to die here," Lu Fan said, somewhat anxious.

However, Lu Fan seemed to remember something: Mo Li had thrown that puppet-refining manual into the brazier earlier.

Thinking of this, Lu Fan hurriedly walked to the brazier and saw a pile of ashes.

"It's all burned to ashes. I wonder if my magical alchemy furnace can be restored?"

"Never mind, let's give it a try. What if it works?"

Lu Fan then grabbed a handful of ashes and stuffed them into his pocket before leaving the cave.

His idea was simple: if he could recover the manual, he could learn it quickly.

We'll tamper with these undisassembled puppets then, since there are still twenty or thirty left.

If Mo Li shows signs of trouble, Lu Fan can control the puppets to launch a surprise attack, giving him a one or two chance of winning.

Lu Fan then left the inner sect's back mountain with a handful of ashes and ran to the outer sect's forest.

...

Upon arriving at the forest, Lu Fan easily found the treasure tree. After confirming that no one was around, he took out the storage bag.

He then took out the alchemy furnace and sprinkled the ashes into it.

Sure enough, this alchemy furnace really did have that ability; the auspicious cloud pattern on the furnace was shimmering with light.

Subsequently, a complete manual on puppet refining was completed.

Lu Fan was also excited and quickly picked it up.

On the manual were five large characters: "Blood Transformation Heavenly Puppet Technique".

Lu Fan was intrigued by the domineering name of the manual and immediately opened it to read it.

Lu Fan was certain that Mo Li had obtained this manual from somewhere, but after reading only a few pages, he understood everything. He concluded that this manual was no ordinary manual!

It is precisely because this secret manual is so simple that it seems anything but simple; after all, the more complex the secret manual, the more worthless it is.

On the contrary, those simple yet powerful ones are the real secrets.

The great master who created this manual must have gone through countless refinements and experiments before finally creating it perfectly.

You can tell from Mo Li that even with his Foundation Establishment cultivation, he can still create lifelike Golden Core stage puppets like Zi Yuan, which is simply heaven-defying.

All puppets made using this method are nine-tenths human-like, and if the materials are sufficient, they can even be restored to nine-tenths of the puppet's cultivation level in its previous life.

Based on Lu Fan's understanding of the Dao Sect over the years, no matter what kind of puppeteer, if a puppet is made with all the materials, the puppet's cultivation level will still drop by one major realm.

In other words, a Nascent Soul stage corpse can only be refined into a Golden Core stage corpse, and a Golden Core stage corpse can only be refined into a Foundation Establishment stage corpse, and can only be used to refine puppets of the same level as itself.

However, the Blood Transformation Heavenly Puppet Technique can be perfectly refined, and it can also be used to refine puppets that are one realm higher than oneself. In other words, a Foundation Establishment stage cultivator can refine a Golden Core stage puppet, and a Golden Core stage cultivator can refine a Nascent Soul stage puppet.

Zi Yuan is a puppet in the early stage of the Golden Core realm.

Lu Fan continued flipping through the pages until he reached the last page, at which point he finally understood why the Purple Iris that Mo Li had crafted could not fuse with the arms of other puppets.

That's because this manual has both advantages and disadvantages. Although it can restore 90% of the puppet's power from its previous life, it requires the cultivator's own true essence to bind it.

To put it simply, if you just want the puppet to perform daily activities and engage in normal combat, then giving it some spirit stones is enough.

However, if you want the puppet to be able to fight with 90% of its former strength without collapsing, you must infuse it with true essence. Moreover, the consumption of true essence is terrifying, directly consuming nearly 80 years of lifespan.

Most importantly, puppets crafted using the Blood Transformation Heavenly Puppet Technique must be infused with true essence once they are created, regardless of whether there is a major battle or not.

Only in this way can the puppet truly recognize its master and its body stop cracking. Moreover, with the infusion of true essence, the master and the puppet are bound together by their souls, sharing vision and sensation. This is something that ordinary trash puppets cannot achieve.

However, if it is just a blood oath, it can only be considered as obtaining temporary use rights. Moreover, it must be infused with the blood of other cultivators rich in spiritual energy every once in a while, otherwise the puppet will crack and eventually collapse.

What is "bloodletting"? It means that the cultivator must be alive when blood is drawn. This is undoubtedly extremely cruel and a completely evil practice.