Chapter 104: Disposable Puppet

The Teleportation Array is expensive and has many restrictions; at most, it can only transport one a few hundred kilometers at a time. If she wants to go from Nanzhou to the Central Province, she will need to transfer at least three or four times in between.

The Sect Master saw her to the location of the first Teleportation Array, which was in a town closest to the Xuanbing Sect. Seeing the few Xuanbing Sect disciples guarding the array, Ruan Xing realized only then that this was actually her own sect's property.

The ticket is two mid-grade Spirit Stones, which is to say two hundred low-grade Spirit Stones. However, since she is one of their own, the ticket at the starting station can be waived. Once she passes through the Teleportation Array to the next station set up by another sect, she will have to pay.

Unfortunately, under Ruan Xing's expectant gaze, the Sect Master did not prepare any Spirit Stones for her.

After stuffing a jade tablet into her hand as proof, he just smiled and waved at her.

Well, perhaps in the eyes of a big shot, two mid-grade Spirit Stones are as ordinary as two copper coins; he never even considered whether Ruan Xing would feel the pinch.

Tears welled up; she currently only has a little over two thousand low-grade Spirit Stones in her Storage Bag, only enough for five trips on the Teleportation Array.

In other words, after she goes to the Central Province, she won't even have the money to come back.

This is just too miserable.

Sighing slightly and bidding farewell to the Sect Master, Ruan Xing turned and walked into the Teleportation Array.

After a brief moment of dizziness, when she opened her eyes again, she had already changed to an unfamiliar place.

Before her, a Foundation Establishment Cultivator skillfully opened the protective shield of the teleportation formation to let her out; on his pale gold disciple robe, the characters for "Jinxia" were faintly embroidered.

Jinxia Sect.

She silently recited it between her teeth; it was a sect she had never heard of before.

"This fellow Daoist, please, don't block the way," the disciple said to Ruan Xing politely yet distantly, his brow slightly furrowed.

"Uh, sorry." Ruan Xing hurriedly walked out of the Teleportation Array. A white light flashed behind her, and two more cultivators appeared in the array, stepping past Ruan Xing and leaving in a hurry.

It seems that the closer one gets to the Central Province, the more prosperous it is. At the Teleportation Array set up by the Xuanbing Sect, not a single person used it in the quarter-hour she spent talking to the Sect Master.

Besides being expensive, it is also because that area of theirs is not exactly a good place.

Seeing Ruan Xing not leaving for a long time, the Jinxia Sect disciple stepped forward to ask, "Fellow Daoist, are you looking to transfer to another place? The room next door is for that."

"Thank you, not for now." Ruan Xing declined the Jinxia Sect disciple, noted the location of this place in her heart, and turned to leave.

She will have to delay her journey to the Central Province for a few days.

First, she summoned Sword Lai. She had previously let Sword Lai wait outside the Xuanbing Sect for her, but she didn't expect that she wouldn't find a chance to pick him up later. For this journey of several hundred miles, Sword Lai will have to work hard and run a stretch himself.

Secondly, she still has ten thousand points in her Simulator that she hasn't used. While waiting for Sword Lai, she must improve her Cultivation.

Ruan Xing found a broker in the city and spent thirty Spirit Stones to rent a quiet room for two days. The quiet room is soundproof, enclosed, and has good defensive properties, suitable for a Cultivator to not be disturbed. Adding some more Spirit Stones could even activate a small Spirit Gathering Array, but since Ruan Xing didn't rent the quiet room for the sake of cultivation, she wouldn't spend that extra money.

For the sake of safety, Ruan Xing also activated the defensive Array Disk she had scavenged from Xie Huai. This formation can also block Divine Sense, so as to avoid being disturbed by idle cultivators with heavy curiosity.

Opening the Simulator and glancing at her character panel, Ruan Xing started the Text Simulation.

【Simulation in progress】

At seven years old, you leave Nanzhou and arrive at the Central Province Xuanbing Sect. After entering the sect, you stay behind closed doors, relying solely on the sect's monthly stipend to focus on closed-door cultivation.

At twenty-two, your Cultivation has improved, and you are only one step away from the Foundation Establishment Late Stage. You propose the idea of traveling to the sect and leave the Xuanbing Sect.

At twenty-three, Demon Cultivators invade Nanzhou. The major sects are on high alert and have all conscripted their disciples to provide support. You turn a deaf ear to the sect's summons and go to Dongzhou instead.

At twenty-four, the atmosphere in Dongzhou is not as tense as in the other regions. You find a peaceful place in Dongzhou, where you make and sell Pills and talismans while purchasing resources for your own cultivation.

At twenty-five, you break through to the Foundation Establishment Late Stage and continue to cultivate with a calm heart.

At twenty-six, having not responded to the sect's summons for three consecutive years, the Xuanbing Sect has deemed you a traitor and expelled you. No righteous sect in the Xianyuan Continent will take you in, so you use a Dharma Artifact to hide your Cultivation, use the Illusion Technique to change your appearance, and move to a new residence where you live in seclusion every day.

At thirty-seven, you reach the realm of Foundation Establishment Perfection. Although you have a Breaking Boundary Pill, without the Golden Core Stage cultivation method of the Tongxuan Scripture, you dare not break through rashly, so you turn to seek a breakthrough in alchemy.

At forty-one, through several years of accumulation, you use most of your savings to buy the pill formulas for third-tier and fourth-tier Pills at a small auction and begin to painstakingly study their refinement.

At forty-five, after years of refining experience, your alchemy skills have grown.

At fifty-seven, your alchemy skills have reached the third tier through improvement.

At ninety-one, your alchemy skills have reached the fourth tier through improvement.

At one hundred and four, your alchemy skills cannot be improved, and you have never encountered another fifth-tier pill formula that you could obtain, which is very regrettable.

Your Cultivation has also remained at Foundation Establishment Perfection without change. You have a premonition that the status of a fourth-tier alchemist no longer allows you to hide with a level-two Illusion Technique, so you choose to use the Breaking Boundary Pill to attempt a forced Golden Core formation.

The Golden Core formation fails, and you die.

【Simulation ended】

Ruan Xing is somewhat surprised; one hundred and four years old, this is an age she wouldn't even dare to imagine!

To think she lived for so long.

So Dongzhou is the true pure land of the world of Cultivation, always stable and safe.

The result of this simulation is not bad; not only did her Cultivation improve, but her alchemy skill also increased. The pity is that she cannot choose everything at once.

She first chooses the Cultivation realm. Suddenly, the Spiritual Power within her body surges, reaching Foundation Establishment Perfection. She immediately sits cross-legged on the meditation cushion, assumes the five-hearts-facing-the-sky posture, and circulates her Qi to adapt to it.

After half an hour, the Spiritual Power that had suddenly appeared in her body becomes calm, and she has adapted to her new Cultivation realm.

Subsequently, Ruan Xing simulates again following the previous route and chooses random skills; her alchemy skill also breaks through twice in succession to reach the fourth tier.

For the third simulation, Ruan Xing chooses memory. This time, she obtains the two pill formulas auctioned in the simulation.

Her delicate eyebrows arch slightly as Ruan Xing quickly flips through the two pill formulas in her mind. Pill formulas that can be put up for auction are generally not popular ones. Pills that assist in cultivation, healing, or breaking through realms are the foundation of an alchemist's livelihood; they are guarded tightly, and even one's own direct disciples must pass through tests to learn them. Alchemists cultivated by large sects are even less likely to let pill formulas leak out.

Therefore, in most cases, only unpopular and useless pill formulas are released, but even so, it makes many second-tier rogue alchemists flock to them.

One third-tier pill formula is called the Qingshui Pill. This is for feeding Monster Beasts in captivity; it can suppress the bloodthirsty and cruel nature of the Monster Beast and also has the effect of purifying the bloodline a little bit. Some small sects often keep Golden Core Stage Monster Beasts as guard beasts, which are also the face of the sect. Therefore, although the Qingshui Pill is not very useful, it has some market.

The fourth-tier pill formula is called the Flesh-Regenerating Pill, which can make severed limbs grow back. It is considered a high-level pill for healing, but the price is expensive. I'm afraid only those at the Golden Core Stage or above can afford it. However, at the Nascent Soul Stage, one can reshape the physical body; at that time, any defects in the body can be reshaped. As long as there is no major impact, isn't it fine to endure it and cultivate for a few more decades to reshape the body? So the Flesh-Regenerating Pill looks impressive, but in reality, the sales volume is not large, and it is mostly used by disciples of immortal families.

It seems that neither of these two types of pills can earn her a large amount of funds in the short term.

Putting them aside with some regret, Ruan Xing simulates a dozen more times. After adjusting the details slightly, she chooses random items for all of them.

This feeling is as addictive as a lottery; the ten-pulls in certain pay-to-win games, where the light representing gold or orange cards flashes, always make one's heart race uncontrollably.

Although there are no such rare prizes in her prize pool.

She looked through the records in her mind, taking inventory of the pile of items that had suddenly appeared before her.

【Congratulations, you have obtained five hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones.】

【Congratulations, you have obtained one mid-grade talisman brush.】

【Congratulations, you have obtained a string of Spirit Fruits containing faint Spirit Qi.】

【Congratulations, you have obtained one Muscle-Regenerating Pill.】

【Congratulations, you have obtained three hundred Low-grade Spirit Stones.】

……

There weren't many valuable things; Ruan Xing did a rough count and had obtained about five hundred plus Spirit Stones, which wasn't bad. Her Simulation today had cost nearly two thousand points, but depositing those five hundred plus Spirit Stones would yield over five thousand points, so in that sense, she had actually made a profit.

She felt a bit unable to control the urge to keep drawing cards.

However, Ruan Xing still restrained herself. She did not have a cultivation technique for the Golden Core Stage, so no matter how much time her future self spent, the things she obtained would be limited to what could be gained at Foundation Establishment Perfection. If she wanted to draw cards, it wouldn't be too late to do so after obtaining a Golden Core Stage technique. Before forming her Golden Core, she could spend heavily in the Simulator; after all, the prices would surely rise again once she reached the Golden Core Stage.

She stuffed the other items into her Storage Bag, which was about to burst at the seams again. Aside from the loot and materials she had harvested—which she didn't dare sell for Spirit Stones while the spotlight was on her—the bag was also filled with several corpses.

Not to mention Cai Jiao and Fu Qinghong, who were lying quietly in the Storage Bag surrounding two pieces of Soul Nourishing Wood, there were also the corpses of Elder Xu and the other three.

She took out the mid-grade talisman brush she had obtained from the draw; it was of a higher grade than her original one. After testing the feel of it slightly, Ruan Xing took out the four corpses.

Following her usual routine of cleaning them and stitching up their wounds and mouths, her hand holding the talisman brush hesitated for a moment.

The Demon Lord's words had actually left a certain impact on her. Previously, she had wanted to restore the consciousness of Sword Lai, Cai Jiao, Fu Qinghong, and the others because she hadn't been the one to kill them. If they could regain their consciousness, she wouldn't have to divide her attention to command them every time she fought.

Take Sword Lai from last time, for example; after he regained some consciousness, he actually took the initiative to save her when she was in danger.

He would do things she hadn't ordered him to do.

But Fu Qinghong at that time was different; she ordered him to hold off those two Foundation Establishment Early-stage cultivators, and not only was Fu Qinghong unable to exert his full strength, he was also wounded by those two.

But what about these people? These people who were her enemies while alive and were refined into Puppets by her after death—wouldn't restoring their consciousness be a wasted effort?

Perhaps they would hate her to the bone if they retained their memories from life, and in a life-or-death moment, they could become her greatest vulnerability.

So... those predecessors who practiced the Ghost Dao, were the Soul Summoning Incantations they used when refining Puppets really flawed, or were they meant to erase consciousness? She could now understand those predecessors. However, she still intended to continue restoring the consciousness of Sword Lai and the others. As for the Puppets refined from the others, she planned to use them as consumables. As for how to modify them, she would still need to study it further.

She had previously discovered that the talisman section of the Nether Ghost Record was somewhat similar to the Puppet section.

Could she then modify the talismans drawn on the Puppets to give these Puppets new functions?

For example... a major killing move of the Golden Core Stage: Golden Core self-destruction. If one were caught off guard and faced it head-on, it could even kill a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator.

It was just that few Golden Core cultivators had the courage to burn their bridges like that. After all, the cultivation they had painstakingly practiced for nearly a hundred years wasn't meant to end in that final sound.

No one wanted to die if they could survive until the very last moment.

Ruan Xing's gaze turned toward the corpse of Elder Xu.

Elder Xu also had a Golden Core, after all...

Could she possess such a self-destructing Puppet that was comparable to a nuclear weapon?

She exhaled a breath of turbid air and activated the Real-scene Simulation.

Then she would just try it over and over again.

At first, she attempted to use the 【Break】 Talisman method to achieve the effect of a self-destructing Puppet. After countless attempts at modifying the plan, she did indeed succeed.

The Puppets gained the self-destruct function, and even the two new Puppets at the Foundation Establishment Early-stage could be turned into one-time self-destruct items.

However, what dissatisfied her was that the power of the self-destruction was not as strong as the legendary Golden Core self-destruction.

Wasn't it said to be able to kill a Nascent Soul Stage cultivator? Why did it look like it would struggle even against a Golden Core cultivator?

After pondering for a long time, Ruan Xing felt it was because the principle she used for modification was to treat the Puppet itself as a carrier and draw the talismans. This principle was correct, because the original method of making Puppets in the first version of the Nether Ghost Record was to create a mind-link through the Puppet's essence to issue commands and suppress it, and then achieve control through the talisman patterns all over the Puppet's body.

But for a Golden Core self-destruction... the main body is the Golden Core.

Could it be that she had to draw talisman patterns on the Golden Core? But it seemed there was no way to start. To draw such a large expanse of talisman patterns on a Golden Core the size of a thumb, her talisman brush definitely wouldn't work. Then use Divine Sense to draw? Her Foundation Establishment Stage Divine Sense couldn't leave any marks on a Golden Core.

And even if she could draw it, would the mind-link be established with the Golden Core or the Puppet when the time came?

If a Golden Core is separated from the Puppet's body, is it still called a Golden Core self-destruction? That would just be a hidden weapon; who wouldn't be on guard against that?

Think about it: an enemy sees a Puppet flying over, and their reaction might be to pull out a Dharma Artifact to fight; but if an enemy sees a Golden Core flying over, wouldn't they dodge for their life? There would be no element of surprise at all.

Ruan Xing bit her lip and hung her head in deep thought, when suddenly a flash of inspiration struck.

Isn't a Golden Core also a material? Would it be feasible to use Elder Xu's Golden Core as his Puppet essence? Thanks to book friend 20231101115211924 for the tip~ Thanks to Dao Yuan for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Darkness Without Light for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to Lingzi0428 for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to YoungMay for the monthly ticket~ Thanks to 666Hainabaichuan666 for the monthly ticket~(End of chapter)