Chapter 436: Corpse Cultivation

Sister Situ was torn between laughter and tears. "Who taught you that?"

"Elder Yu!"

"The Elder Yu from the Xiancheng Hunting Guild?"

"Mm." Mo Hua nodded.

Sister Situ sighed and agreed:

"Elder Yu speaks wisely. You should listen more to Elder Yu and less to your Uncle Zhang."

Mo Hua nodded outwardly, but inwardly grumbled:

"You haven't heard Elder Yu curse yet, or you wouldn't say that…"

Sister Situ had little contact with Elder Yu and didn't know what kind of elder he really was.

She probably still thought Elder Yu was one of those of high virtue and great prestige, whose words were "kind and approachable"…

Mo Hua shook his head internally and added:

"Let the zombies burn. Zhang Quan has done too many evil deeds—there'll be other clues. We'll just look again."

"But this isn't all bad," Mo Hua mused further:

"At least now we know Zhou Zhangsi's backside is crooked. Next time, we'll be more careful."

"Mm."

Sister Situ nodded, her mood lifting slightly.

She had worked all day yesterday and was exhausted; she'd only rested an hour, let her guard down a little—and the Zhou Zhangsi had secretly sabotaged everything, turning it all to ashes, rendering all her efforts useless…

Sister Situ felt anxious, self-blaming, and guilty toward Mo Hua.

Yet she hadn't expected Mo Hua to not mind at all—he was comforting her instead.

What a good child…

Sister Situ said solemnly:

"This time it was my negligence. I owe you a favor. Next time you need help, don't hesitate to ask."

Mo Hua smiled brightly. "Alright!"

After sending Sister Situ away, Bai Zisheng and Bai Zi Xi emerged—they'd been eavesdropping nearby.

Bai Zisheng asked:

"We kept a few zombies. Should we tell Sister Situ?"

"Not yet."

"Why? Isn't she on our side?" Bai Zisheng frowned.

Mo Hua considered for Sister Situ's sake:

"Let Sister Situ handle the cleanup. She's only Qi Condensation. Zhang Quan is Foundation Establishment—and a corpse cultivator. If they clashed directly, Sister Situ would be in grave danger."

Bai Zisheng thought it over. "You're right."

Bai Zi Xi nodded as well.

Yet none of them realized that all three of them were still only Qi Condensation…

The zombie matter was temporarily put on hold.

Dao Ting Si had destroyed the evidence. With no leads, there was no progress, no way to investigate further.

It seemed like a major incident, but publicly, it faded into nothing.

No one knew that Mo Hua had secretly hidden a few zombies—and even fewer knew why Mo Hua was keeping them…

Inside the small side room.

Before Mo Hua stood two coffins.

Inside the coffins lay the zombies Mo Hua had stolen.

Around them, Mo Hua had painted countless arrays.

A soundproof array, a qi-sealing array, a earth-stabilizing array, a ground-fire array, a earth-prison array, a wood-binding array…

Bai Zisheng glanced around and asked:

"Aren't there too many arrays?"

Mo Hua's face turned serious. "Even a lion fighting a rabbit uses all its strength. You must be Zhou Mi—leave no room for error…"

Bai Zisheng looked again at the arrays around him, speechless.

You're being too "Zhou Mi"…

It looks like a spider's den…

Mo Hua's spiritual sense now had twelve patterns, and his array skill far surpassed Grade One.

These casually drawn Grade One arrays were applied like they cost nothing—layer upon layer, piled high…

Bai Zisheng thought Mo Hua was simply bored and wanted to draw arrays for fun.

Mo Hua still wasn't satisfied.

He checked the arrays again, found empty corners, and added a few more, filling the entire side room to the brim.

Now it looked just right…

Mo Hua nodded, then began "opening the coffins to examine the corpses."

Bai Zisheng opened the coffins. Inside, the zombies lay stiff and motionless, not a stir.

Mo Hua didn't understand zombie behavior well, so he asked Bai Zi Xi:

"Little Master, won't these zombies move?"

Bai Zi Xi said: "Zombies come in many types—some arise naturally, others are artificially cultivated…"

"Accumulated resentment, gathering yin energy, corruption seeping into the body—over years and years, this leads to natural corpse transformation."

"Naturally reanimated zombies are ferocious, greedy for blood and flesh, and will keep killing, eating, and even consuming other living creatures."

"Artificially crafted zombies are weaker; they require a cultivator to control them with dark artifacts. If left uncontrolled, most will lie dormant in their coffins, nurturing corpse qi, with only occasional instinctive movements..."

"But if an artificially crafted zombie loses control, it becomes just like a naturally reanimated one—drawn by blood qi, killing and eating people..."

"Oh oh." Mo Hua nodded vigorously, then pointed at the coffin and asked:

"So these ones haven't lost control, have they?"

"They have." Bai Zi Xi said.

Mo Hua was startled, "They've lost control?"

Bai Zi Xi nodded, "They have, but these low-grade walking corpses are too weak and have exhausted their corpse qi. Even if they've lost control, they can't move—unless..."

"Unless you feed them blood?" Mo Hua said.

"Mm. Anything with blood qi will do."

"And then what?"

Bai Zi Xi's gaze flickered slightly, "They'll come back to life themselves, endlessly seeking flesh and blood to consume..."

Mo Hua frowned, "That's still very dangerous..."

Then he remembered something and asked weakly:

"What if someone gets bitten by a zombie? Will they turn into one?"

"It's possible."

"Why only possible?"

Bai Zi Xi said, "Zombies carry corpse poison."

Mo Hua frowned, "Corpse poison?"

Bai Zi Xi raised a small index finger and explained:

"Poison, in essence, is 'corpse qi'—similar to spiritual qi, but inherently malevolent."

Bai Zi Xi looked at Mo Hua and added, "This kind of corpse qi, when formed into corpse poison, corrupts a cultivator's blood qi, causing them to reanimate as a zombie."

"If the corpse poison is weak or scarce, it only causes partial transformation."

"But if the poison is too strong, or if it invades the heart meridian, the cultivator will become a zombie."

Then she warned Mo Hua, "You must not let a zombie bite you—you're frail, your blood qi is weak; if you're poisoned, your condition will be worse."

"Mm mm."

Mo Hua nodded vigorously.

He then began thinking internally—he needed a way to restrain zombies, to avoid being bitten, so he wouldn't panic if danger arose.

But that could wait for now.

"How are zombies artificially crafted?" Mo Hua thought for a moment and asked again.

"You need blood offerings, unclean substances, some malevolent herbs, and a corpse-crafting coffin—or what's called a corpse-nourishing coffin."

"I've never crafted one myself. I don't know the specifics."

Bai Zi Xi said crisply.

Generally, disciples of noble families are forbidden from learning dark or demonic knowledge, lest they develop corrupt thoughts and damage their moral nature.

Only when they grow older and prepare to travel or study abroad do their elders warn them directly, teaching them a few dark and demonic methods so they may guard against treachery and avoid dying without a burial.

Bai family likely wouldn't teach such knowledge either.

Bai Zi Xi knows these things probably because she studies hard, has broad cultivation knowledge, and reads widely.

Mo Hua looked at Bai Zi Xi as if she were an elegant, refined "Encyclopedia of Cultivation," and praised her admiringly:

"Little sister, you know so much!"

Bai Zi Xi's expression remained cool, but her bright eyes betrayed a hint of quiet pride.

Bai Zisheng snorted, "Suck-up."

"Do you know then?"

"I... don't know..."

Bai Zisheng stammered.

Bai Zixi has high talent, excellent memory, diligent cultivation, and broad knowledge.

In cultivation knowledge, he truly cannot match Bai Zixi.

Mo Hua patted Bai Zisheng's shoulder and nodded in praise:

"It's precious to know one's own limits..."

Bai Zisheng took a long moment to grasp it, then couldn't help scratching Mo Hua's small head.

Having learned the principle of corpse crafting, Mo Hua turned to studying the arrays.

First, the coffins.

These coffins are called corpse-crafting coffins, or corpse-nourishing coffins.

They combine corpse crafting, storage, and nourishment into one, and are considered a type of dark artifact.

Each zombie has one coffin.

Different levels of zombies correspond to different coffin qualities.

Zombies are classified as walking corpses, iron corpses, bronze corpses, gold corpses, etc. —their coffins are made of wood, iron, bronze, and gold respectively.

A zombie of a certain rank uses a coffin of matching quality.

Mo Hua couldn't help mentally grumbling.

While alive, people are divided by rank and status; even as corpses, their coffins must be ranked by gold, silver, bronze, and iron.

What a fuss to make over death.

Zhang Quan runs a coffin shop.

These coffins should all be ones he crafted himself.

But the formations on the coffins are definitely not ones he drew himself.

Zhang Quan is not an array master; he simply doesn't have that ability.

Mo Hua studied the formations on the coffins for a while, then furrowed his brow.

What was on the coffins was not an absolute formation, but an ordinary earth-attribute evil formation.

The core of the formation was an earth-attribute array—only its form was unorthodox. The ink was human blood, mixed with bone powder and some unidentified foul-smelling filth.

The array medium was bone fragments embedded in the coffins.

The array eye was a putrid heart, as if it had been refined, or perhaps pickled, with blood qi, filth qi, and spiritual qi mingled together, providing the driving force for the corpse-refining formation.

This formation looked bloody and terrifying, but the underlying array principles were somewhat crude.

Mo Hua didn't think much of it.

What truly caught Mo Hua's attention was the formation at the zombie's heart meridian.

If his guess was right, this formation was a true absolute formation.

Mo Hua called out: "Senior Brother."

Bai Zisheng nodded, then frowning and suppressing his nausea, took out a dagger and carefully sliced open the skin on the walking corpse's chest, revealing the formation fused into its flesh and blood.

Mo Hua watched while taking notes on paper.

At the same time, he released his divine sense to perform derivation, deducing the array patterns.

This process was slow and prone to error.

Once a mistake was made, he had to start over.

Mo Hua spent an entire day studying several corpses, cross-referencing and comparing them, before finally attempting to reconstruct a complete formation.

Mo Hua looked at the formation on the paper, his expression solemn.

This formation indeed contained twelve array patterns.

It was a true first-grade twelve-pattern absolute formation!

But he didn't quite dare to learn it, because this twelve-pattern absolute formation was very likely an evil formation used by the demonic path for refining corpses…

He couldn't exactly learn it just to refine corpses himself…

(End of chapter)