Chapter 160: Occupying the Magpie's Nest, Pointing to Transform the Other Self

"Twenty years?"

Zhang Xuan glanced at it, quite surprised; compared to the previous two hundred years, twenty years was indeed quite good.

But for Zhang Xuan, it was still a little long.

He felt a tiny bit of regret.

"If only it could be planted now and ripen tomorrow."

Sighing, Zhang Xuan felt that twenty years was actually quite reasonable; after all, even in the Zhetian World, he could plant things between Tier 8 Heaven and Earth, and it would only take two hundred years to mature.

Putting it here and needing only twenty years was already very fast.

In the area where the Nine-Orifice Stone Man was planted, Zhang Xuan also saw wisps of Hun-tun Qi surging within; although it was planted in the Shenmo Lingyuan, it seemed as if it were planted in a piece of heaven and earth that had not yet fully evolved from chaos.

The Hun-tun Qi surged and was then absorbed by the Nine-Orifice Stone Man, making the entire appearance of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man increasingly resemble a human form.

Its body surface even seemed to become transparent, and Zhang Xuan could see that inside the body, which was mostly petrified, there appeared to be existence like one meridian after another, with Heaven and Earth Essence moving along those established paths.

It was just like the meridians and blood vessels in a human body, with endless Essence traveling along those meridians and then submerging into the heart area of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man.

The heart area, which already carried a blood-red color, seemed to truly turn into flesh and blood amidst such changes.

Under Zhang Xuan's gaze, it actually vibrated gently, just like a human heart beating.

"This... is it really going to come alive?"

The Nine-Orifice Stone Man was originally going to be cut open prematurely under Ye Fan's hand and then born, dying young before it had truly gained sentience.

After coming into Zhang Xuan's hands, with the changes in Zhang Xuan's thoughts, the Nine-Orifice Stone Man strangely survived instead.

Now, seeing the Nine-Orifice Stone Man, it seemed it was truly going to gain sentience, and Zhang Xuan instead became a little uneasy.

Just now, when the heart vibrated gently, a powerful force surged; Zhang Xuan could see extremely complex rules gestating within it. Once a stone man gains sentience and walks out from within, it is directly an existence of Alternative Enlightenment, comparable to an Ancient Great Emperor.

As long as it cultivates slightly, it can truly step into the Great Emperor realm; it can be considered a peerless creature truly born of heaven and earth.

Zhang Xuan had originally thought that whether the Nine-Orifice Stone Man gained sentience and lived to be used as a clone, or was used to cultivate the Indestructible Heavenly Art, it was a top-tier good thing under heaven.

But now, seeing the Nine-Orifice Stone Man truly about to come alive and displaying that kind of power that dominated heaven and earth, he suddenly sobered up.

"It can truly reach Great Accomplishment in twenty years. By that time, my strength and realm will still be far behind. Based on the performance of my current realm alone, by then, I suspect it won't be me refining it into a clone, but rather it easily refining me into a clone."

The Hun-tun Qi between heaven and earth surged, not changing because of the vibration of Zhang Xuan's thoughts.

The Plantation possessed unfathomable great power; although planted in this piece of heaven and earth of the Shenmo Lingyuan, it could communicate with chaos and inhale and exhale Heaven and Earth Essence from the chaos.

This also seemed to fit the heaven and earth of the Shenmu World perfectly; in the Great Dao Shenmu, the innate creatures in the world were all born from chaos and were naturally born with incredibly powerful abilities.

Hun-tun Wang was a powerful existence born in chaos and had even confronted the reincarnated body of Mo Zu head-on.

He could be considered a top-tier powerful existence between heaven and earth; species born in chaos were naturally formidable.

Another powerful existence that Chen Nan would have to cross the Time River to kill in the future was also a terrifying figure born in chaos.

It could be said that any species gestated innately was extremely extraordinary. The Plantation utilized the special innate foundation of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man to extract power from chaos, which seemed to subtly cause changes within the Nine-Orifice Stone Man.

It seemed to become even more powerful; Zhang Xuan even saw wisps of Hun-tun Qi faintly emanating from the heart area and even the Wheel Sea area of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man.

This situation made one both happy and worried.

"The Nine-Orifice Stone Man is mature, but how will I harvest it then?"

Zhang Xuan was truly dumbfounded.

Sitting cross-legged in the void above the Shenmo Lingyuan, just silently pondering for a while, Zhang Xuan thought of a countermeasure.

"In the future, when the Nine-Orifice Stone Man matures, it will of course be invincible in heaven and earth, but now it is far from reaching that stage, so there is much more room for maneuverability here."

Whether it was the Eight-Nine Profound Art, the Indestructible Heavenly Art, or the Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art, all had methods to refine the Origin of others and turn others into puppets or clones under one's own control.

Of course, the premise was that the other party would not resist, and now that the Nine-Orifice Stone Man had not even gained sentience, truly succeeding in refining the Nine-Orifice Stone Man could not be considered too difficult.

It was just that Zhang Xuan thought about the traditional methods of refining an external avatar and did not directly use them.

To him, no matter how strong the avatar's strength was, it could not compare to his main body.

A small horse pulling a big cart was not good at all; he preferred his main body to have stronger power to suppress everything.

Therefore, he did not rush to act for a moment and stopped.

When it came to refining Origin, the Indestructible Heavenly Art was rare in the world and could be considered the most supreme technique under heaven.

But at this moment, refining the Origin of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man would not work, because the Nine-Orifice Stone Man was still just a stone and had not truly gained sentience.

The corresponding Origin had not yet truly condensed and could not be considered a treasure.

Even if one or two years passed later and the Origin was gestated, plundering the Origin at that time would be considered a waste of a heavenly treasure.

After all, if it walked the normal path, it could form a Great Accomplishment Saint Body, invincible in heaven and earth upon birth; refining its Origin prematurely would be the greatest waste.

Therefore, the method in the Indestructible Heavenly Art was temporarily put aside and not directly used.

But Zhang Xuan himself was not very fond of using the methods in the Eight-Nine Profound Art to refine a clone.

A clone must be under the control and manipulation of the main body, and if the Saint Body truly reached Great Accomplishment and was refined into a clone, Zhang Xuan's own main body strength was too poor; controlling a Great Accomplishment Saint Body would instead become a drag.

Just like later, when Ye Fan controlled two Great Accomplishment Saint Body corpses, it was difficult to make a real Ancient Emperor or Heavenly Venerable suffer injuries during the Darkness turmoil despite relying on the relevant strength.

It was because a bronze-level character logged into a king's account; even with a king's appearance, the operation would immediately reveal the truth.

"Must think of a better way."

A flash of inspiration shone in his heart; Zhang Xuan sat cross-legged in the Shenmo Lingyuan, and endless light rain drifted down from the sky.

More of it was Zhang Xuan sitting cross-legged in the Shencheng, deep in thought.

Then, very quickly, Zhang Xuan had a set goal: to refine it as a clone.

But it was not to refine a pure clone, but to borrow the method of "pointing to transform his other self" from the Eight-Nine Profound Art to turn the Nine-Orifice Stone Man into Zhang Xuan's "other self."

The Nine-Orifice Stone Man itself had no much connection with Zhang Xuan, so he had to take an extra step.

Borrowing parts of the methods from the Indestructible Heavenly Art and the Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art, he would split a wisp of Origin into the Nine-Orifice Stone Man's body before it gestated its true self, and then let this bit of Origin become the dominant force within the Nine-Orifice Stone Man, growing and developing together with the Nine-Orifice Stone Man.

To use a simple analogy, it was like grafting.

Grafting a plum tree to become an apple tree.

Of course, the principle sounds very simple, but actually achieving it is quite difficult and extremely complex.

Having determined his idea, Zhang Xuan did not act immediately, but instead silently deduced it above Shencheng; only after dozens of consecutive rounds of deduction, and confirming that his current attainments in the Indestructible Heavenly Art and the Eight-Nine Profound Art could achieve this,

did a smile appear on his face; of course, during this process, the Indestructible Heavenly Art and Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art annotated by Qingdi, as well as the Eight-Nine Profound Art annotated by the Heavenly Venerable, played a small part.

It was mainly Zhang Xuan's ingenious ideas that perfectly fused the essence of these two techniques together.

And the methods annotated by Qingdi and the Heavenly Venerable allowed Zhang Xuan's unique inspiration to fall into reality.

After all, no matter how ingenious an idea is, if it cannot be achieved in reality, it is just groping in the dark.

With Zhang Xuan's current strength and realm, it is very difficult to put this into practice even if he has the idea.

But whenever Zhang Xuan felt something was lacking, he would look at the annotations of Qingdi and the Heavenly Venerable, and then combine the essence of these two parts; standing on the shoulders of these two giants, achieving this goal became much easier.

When Zhang Xuan felt that the deliberation was about right, he woke up from his enlightenment; before he had time to implement it, a massive Heavenly Tribulation struck down from above his head out of thin air, instantly striking Zhang Xuan until he vomited blood.

"Damn it, I forgot that creating a technique in the Zhetian World requires being struck by lightning."

Zhang Xuan cursed angrily.

Although he had already undergone a considerable amount of Heavenly Tribulation and ordinary lightning could no longer hurt him, he had just been immersed in a deep state of enlightenment and had no defense at all.

Coupled with the fact that the Heavenly Tribulation for creating a technique is extremely terrifying and can truly hurt him, that bolt of lightning just now truly chilled him from head to toe, causing significant injuries and splashing blood high into the air.

Fortunately, Zhang Xuan reacted quickly; the Indestructible Heavenly Art operated at full power, and vigorous and majestic Life Essence gushed out from his body, quickly repairing his charred skin and shattered body.

Zhang Xuan even had the energy to transform into a beam of light and rush out of Shencheng to undergo the tribulation outside the city.

Along the way, the people in Shencheng were all shaken; the main reason was that the associated Heavenly Tribulation was vast, terrifying, and incomparably powerful.

And Zhang Xuan stood within it, his blood and Qi surging to the sky, equally terrifying and peerless.

Originally, some people who saw Zhang Xuan undergoing the tribulation in Shencheng were prepared to curse, but when they saw that vast and terrifying Heavenly Tribulation, all the sounds of cursing were swallowed back into their mouths, and they dared not say another word.

"Damn, that... what a powerful figure!"

"With such vigorous and terrifying blood and Qi, is there some fossil-level figure who has made another breakthrough on the original foundation?"

"That blood and Qi is very young; who has reached such a terrifying realm at such a young age?"

There were exclamations and discussions all along the way, but Zhang Xuan ignored them and rushed straight out.

Even with Zhang Xuan's current strength and realm, he did not have an easy time in this Heavenly Tribulation, experiencing multiple rounds of terrifying impacts in the void.

After half a day, the continuous mountain ranges were shattered.

That area became a completely deserted zone, terrifying and peerless.

And Zhang Xuan stood in this ruin-like place, his blood and Qi gradually recovering, his overall state much better than before.

However, Zhang Xuan did not feel uncomfortable; on the contrary, he felt refreshed throughout his body.

"Being able to trigger the Heavenly Tribulation at least proves that the technique I created is useful. Regardless of whether this technique is right or wrong, at least this technique can be considered truly useful..."

After being struck by lightning, Zhang Xuan did not have much dissatisfaction; after all, this is the corresponding rule of this world. Even in the process of being struck by lightning this time, his strength broke through another level, reaching the sixth small step of the Second Layer of the Immortal Platform Realm.

His overall strength had progressed steadily.

"Using the Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art to extract a portion of my Origin and bury it into the body of the Nine-Orifice Stone Man, then becoming the master of the Origin within the Nine-Orifice Stone Man's body, and letting it be grown in the Plantation... in a sense, that becomes my avatar.

"But because of that mass of Origin, in other worlds, in a sense, in that world, it is me. So when I use the method of pointing to my 'other-self' from the Eight-Nine Profound Art to communicate with it, it will become me, and then become a part of my body...

"And the process of letting it merge into my body has both the mystery of the Eight-Nine Profound Art and the mystery of the Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art and the Indestructible Heavenly Art, directly swallowing a Great Accomplishment Saint Spirit in one bite..."

Zhang Xuan silently recalculated it again; the whole process is theoretically completely feasible.

Of course, theory alone is not enough; it also needs to start from practice.

He has swallowed the Origin of others many times with the Swallowing Heaven Demonic Art, but this is the first time he has reversed the process to cut out a portion of his own Origin as a seed.

In this, one needs to be extra careful not to let the Nine-Orifice Stone Man develop relevant wisdom.

Once the Nine-Orifice Stone Man develops relevant wisdom, when Zhang Xuan communicates with his 'other-self', with the Nine-Orifice Stone Man's powerful strength, it is possible for Zhang Xuan to become the 'other-self' instead.

After all, the Nine-Orifice Stone Man can grow into a Great Accomplishment Saint Spirit after twenty years, while it is very difficult for Zhang Xuan to become a Great Emperor after twenty years.

"Since it would be troublesome if the other party possesses wisdom, then I simply won't give it wisdom. I will truly treat it as a seed, and in the process of extracting the Origin, I will actively grind away any possibility of it developing wisdom and consciousness..."

Zhang Xuan pondered silently and recalculated it repeatedly, feeling that there were no loopholes and that it could be practically carried out; only then did he nod.

But it is still only a theory at the moment; to truly implement it, practice is required.

"I must pull the Nine-Orifice Stone Man in front of me to perform the operation."

Zhang Xuan calculated silently in his heart; he did not do it immediately. After calculating it again and confirming that extracting a portion of his Origin from his main body would not affect himself, and at the same time confirming that he could truly grind away the wisdom produced by the Nine-Orifice Stone Man, he prepared to start.

(End of this chapter)