At first glance, Luo Chen did not look at the wine jars. Instead, his gaze settled on the corpse.
A gaping wound pierced its chest. Every trace of aura had vanished, yet a lingering look of dying astonishment remained frozen upon its pale face.
It was none other than Jinling's corpse!
A gentle breeze seemed to stir within the hall.
Jinling's corpse drifted slowly into the air.
Luo Chen waved a hand across the empty air, closing those unseeing, resentful eyes. Then, under the Black King's bewildered gaze, he began sending one incantation seal after another into the body.
*What is Master trying to do?*
Watching this unfold, the Black King could not make sense of it.
Only when Luo Chen suddenly paused—an aura radiating from his body that made the serpent tremble—did he finally realize Luo Chen's intention.
*No way...*
In the next moment, the fluctuations of Luo Chen's magic power took on a distinct cadence, as though his entire being resonated with heaven and earth.
A streak of intermingled cyan and white light drifted slowly from Luo Chen's body and cautiously settled upon Jinling's corpse.
*Swish!*
Those eyes snapped open once more!
The Black King shuddered, crying out inwardly, *Is Master going to refine him into a puppet?*
*Thump.*
The corpse, which had seemed to spring back to life only a moment earlier, dropped abruptly to the floor, as though nothing had happened at all.
Staring at the remains with profound, sunken eyes, Luo Chen sank into deep thought.
The Black King dared not make a sound, prostrating himself respectfully off to the side.
Only when Luo Chen spoke did he snap back to his senses.
"Huh?" the Black King stammered, startled.
Luo Chen looked away from the corpse and pointed to the dense cluster of jars at his feet. "Have you tested these spiritual wines?"
The Black King nodded. "I've tested most of them. There are seven types in total. Aside from the jar labeled Zhenling Millet, which I didn't dare touch, the other six are all beneficial to cultivation and completely free of toxins."
With a single glance, Luo Chen spotted the jar of Zhenling Millet.
With a flick of his sleeve, the small jar flew into his grasp.
"What is so unusual about this wine that even you dared not drink it?"
The Black King had originally hailed from the black-scaled python tribe before his latent potential was stimulated, transforming him into a black-scaled flood dragon. Thick-skinned and durable, he was virtually immune to all poisons.
After years of cultivation, his poison resistance had become second to none.
Back when he was dispatched to explore Purple Spirit Island, his immense poison resistance had been on full display.
That was why Luo Chen had tasked him with this small chore to see whether any of the wines were lethal.
Yet unexpectedly, there actually was a toxic brew he dared not touch!
The Black King looked at the jar, a trace of dread flitting through his eyes. "I don't know what venomous creatures were used to brew this wine. It smells intensely fragrant and seductive, but it possesses terrifyingly corrosive power against flesh and blood like mine.
"Had Master not warned me beforehand, I'm afraid I might have drunk it.
"Later, to resist that seductive pull, I was forced to seal it away using my gastric juices before I finally felt better."
Hearing this description, Luo Chen raised an eyebrow.
He gently pried open a sliver of the sealing mud. Instantly, an intoxicating aroma wafted forth, making his throat bob with an almost irresistible urge to drink.
Right before the Black King's eyes, Luo Chen extracted a single drop and took it onto his tongue.
"Master, don't..."
*Nothing seems amiss!*
Yet just as the toxic wine entered his stomach and Luo Chen felt nothing out of the ordinary, a sharp, piercing pain suddenly tore through his lower abdomen.
His expression remained unchanged as he opened his mouth and spat!
*Sizzle...*
The undigested drop of spiritual wine was spat out, enveloped in a pale white flame, and incinerated into nothingness midair.
Luo Chen stared at the jar, wariness creeping into his eyes. "What kind of wine is this, that even my mid-fourth-rank Ancient Desolate physique offered no resistance whatsoever—and from merely a single drop?"
Not daring to test it again, Luo Chen carefully stowed the jar away separately into his storage belt.
He could not drink it, but keeping it did no harm; perhaps it would prove useful down the road.
Next, his gaze fell upon the remaining eighty jars of spiritual wine.
Ganli, Jade Nectar, Longevity Spring, Golden Wind and Jade Dew, Blooming Tumi, and Five Shrines Immortal Brew!
Six varieties of spiritual wine in all, every one of them cellared by the Dieyun Sect across countless years.
Under the Black King's explanation, Luo Chen learned the approximate uses of each.
"Ganli is a bitter wine. It is bitter the moment it touches the tongue—drinking a mouthful is more bitter than all the hardship Xiao Hei has endured in this lifetime. But once it passes the throat, an immense, lingering sweetness arises, lasting for days on end. Among all the spiritual wines, it is the one that leaves the deepest impression."
"Has your life really been that bitter?"
"Uh..."
"Continue!"
"Right. The Jade Nectar possesses extremely heavy yin energy, making it unsuitable for males like us. It was likely crafted specifically for female cultivators. As for its exact effects, Master will have to find a woman to test it—Tianxuan would be a good choice.
"Longevity Spring, true to its name, presumably extends one's lifespan. But exactly how many years it can grant, Xiao Hei cannot tell."
Luo Chen's gaze rested upon the solitary jar of Longevity Spring, contemplation in his eyes.
If it truly had the power to prolong life, it might be bestowed upon meritorious sect members approaching the end of their longevity, such as Qu Lingjun.
However, it was better not to send it over just yet.
Without pressure, that lad might lose his relentless drive to forge ahead.
He would keep it for an unexpected need!
"Golden Wind and Jade Dew should be immensely useful to Master. This wine contains terrifyingly dense spiritual energy—drinking a single mouthful can instantly restore an enormous amount of magic power!"
Luo Chen's eyes lit up. He beckoned a jar into his hand and savored a tiny sip.
Sure enough, it was packed with an immense quantity of exceedingly pure spiritual energy.
Furthermore, all five elements were fully balanced, drawing extraordinarily close to so-called primordial true qi.
Having been cellared for a millennium, the wine had grown even more mellow, brimming with vitality.
A mere sip replenished nearly one to two-thousandths of his magic power.
What about a large gulp?
What about an entire jar?
And there were ten whole jars of this Golden Wind and Jade Dew!
In other words, so long as Luo Chen did not exhaust all his magic power in a single instant, this wine would effectively grant him limitless reserves for a substantial period!
Truly, when the golden wind and jade dew meet, they surpass countless worldly wonders!
"As for the effects of the Five Shrines Immortal Brew..."
"No need to explain that one. I know it."
What Luo Chen valued most was precisely the Five Shrines Immortal Brew, which made up the largest share of the jars.
He had drunk this wine before—a century-old vintage—and it possessed an excellent nourishing effect on the internal five viscera.
A thousand-year cellar vintage could only be far superior!
With the help of this batch of Five Shrines Immortal Brew, he might finally break through the bottleneck in his body refinement that had stalled for years.
"Why didn't you introduce the Blooming Tumi?" Luo Chen suddenly asked.
An embarrassed look crossed the Black King's face. He fidgeted awkwardly. "This wine is rather... indecent."
"Is it poisonous?"
"Not poisonous, exactly. It's just, well... once you drink it, you really want to do that sort of thing."
Luo Chen stared blankly at the plain, ordinary jar before the realization gradually dawned on him.
"You mean to say this jar is meant as an aphrodisiac?"
"Mhm, mhm." The Black King nodded repeatedly.
Heaven knew that his recent restless tossing and turning deep underground had been caused by drinking a bit of this very brew, which had left him thoroughly agitated.
The Luotian Sect cultivators had simply assumed he was rolling over in his sleep.
Luo Chen did not know whether to laugh or cry, but he quickly understood.
A Blooming Tumi capable of stirring lust in a fourth-rank desolate beast was certainly no ordinary wine.
Having built his foundation by refining the Myriad Wonders Pill, he understood full well the marvelous potency of such spiritual items.
"In a certain sense, the Dieyun Sect possessed profound heritage after all. Their mastery over the Dao of brewing reached the pinnacle.
"No wonder the Mingyuan Sect regarded them so highly!"
Murmuring to himself, Luo Chen meticulously sorted the various wines into distinct categories.
The deadliest, Zhenling Millet, was placed alongside the most critical, Longevity Spring; neither was to be touched except in moments of dire need.
Ganli, which merely satisfied the palate, Jade Nectar, which might benefit female cultivators, and the aphrodisiac Blooming Tumi were grouped together. For him, these held little practical utility and would serve as mere collection pieces.
As for the Golden Wind and Jade Dew and the Five Shrines Immortal Brew, Luo Chen kept them where they could be accessed most easily.
"You may withdraw!"
Luo Chen waved a hand, and the Black King obediently vanished.
Once he was gone, Luo Chen took out a jar of Five Shrines Immortal Brew and, without the slightest hesitation, swallowed a large mouthful.
He then circulated the Convergence of Myriad Paths, channeling the refined medicinal potency toward his heart, liver, spleen, lungs, and kidneys.
A faint, airy buzz of intoxication brushed past his senses.
Then his five viscera churned, like boiling oil cast into a blazing fire!
In a split second, Luo Chen felt a tempest rage through his insides. It was as though his five viscera had gained sentience and were thrashing to tear free from his flesh.
*A miscalculation.*
*I drank too much!*
Luo Chen knew he had blundered. Relying on his past experience with century-old Five Shrines Immortal Brew to consume this millennium-aged vintage, he had subconsciously overlooked the fundamental difference between them.
Or perhaps it was not an oversight, but excessive confidence in the resilience of his own physique.
He had not anticipated that the surging vital blood contained within a millennium-grade Five Shrines Immortal Brew would be so terrifying.
*Who knows what method the Dieyun Sect used to brew these spiritual wines? If the chance arises, collecting a few recipes wouldn't be a bad idea.*
*A pity Chu Kui is gone. He always loved a good drink.*
Luo Chen enjoyed wine without being enslaved by it. In his youth, he had tasted many fine vintages: Old Man Yuan's yellow pear wine, monkey wine from the Guyuan Mountain Range, Taibai wine from the Taibai Market, and even local spirits from the North Sea.
Having drunk so much, even if he could not brew it, he could appreciate it.
With just one sip, he recognized the extraordinary nature of the millennium Five Shrines Immortal Brew.
However, the level of pain remained within his tolerance, leaving him with enough leeway to let his mind wander.
Reining in his thoughts, Luo Chen focused entirely on refining the immortal brew.
***
Three days later, Luo Chen slowly opened his eyes.
The churning within his five viscera had quieted.
In its place came an entirely new sensation.
With every breath, vast currents of air were drawn in and exhaled; blood and qi surged smoothly; his heart thumped with boundless vigor.
Luo Chen instinctively rubbed his stomach, a thoughtful look surfacing in his eyes.
His physique was undeniably formidable.
He had first pursued orthodox body refinement, then leveraged demon-like body refinement arts to cross into the third rank, and later relied on puppet-exclusive Black Emperor Paste to scale the peak.
Yet over the years, he had always felt something was amiss.
Only now did he experience a sudden awakening.
*It has all been external, not internal!*
*My strength stemmed from lightning strikes and fire tempering, making it supremely hard and yang-dominated, flourishing on the surface of my body.*
*Anyone weaker than me shatters upon contact. But if I encounter a truly powerful body cultivator, even if my limbs and skin can withstand their strikes, my internal organs remain far too fragile.*
The lethal techniques mastered by formidable body cultivators were never simple external strikes.
Take Wang Yuan, for example, who had long ago created the Blood-Melting Demon Finger, capable of driving force directly into an enemy's body and detonating it in an instant.
And that was merely the most direct example. Techniques like striking through armor or rupturing the heart and lungs were beyond count.
That was why, once a body cultivator established a solid foundation, they ceased pursuing sheer hardness and turned inward instead.
The Great Furnace and Flawless realms were built on precisely this principle.
Luo Chen did not grasp the subtle transformations of blood and qi, and the origin power within him arose from his physical origin, lacking the varied versatility of martial force or astral qi.
Consequently, the interior of his body lagged far behind the exterior that had been tempered by Black Emperor Paste for over a century.
*Too rigid, and it breaks easily; too yielding, and it withers. Only when hardness and softness temper each other can true mastery be attained.*
*If I can use this Five Shrines Immortal Brew to nurture my internal organs, I can mend this flaw.*
Having unraveled this mystery, Luo Chen felt immensely gratified.
Considering the overwhelming potency of the millennium Five Shrines Immortal Brew, he retrieved a clean purple-gold gourd, poured a full jar inside, and hung it at his waist.
This way, he could sip from it at any time.
It would also prevent him from drinking too much in one go and subjecting his body to searing pain.
By taking it step by step and steadily nourishing his five viscera, grand attainment would eventually arrive.
Having finished this, Luo Chen did not continue cultivating.
Instead, he turned his attention to the corpse.
The remains of a Nascent Soul expert—even with the Purple Mansion shattered and the Nascent Soul gone—were still the vessel of a Nascent Soul!
To squander such a material would be a crying shame.
Luo Chen had always respected the powerful.
Yet Jinling was not merely a powerhouse; he was also an enemy. Thus, he had to be put to the fullest possible use.
"Just as well. It's time to put all those years of puppet dao research into practice.
"I'll use you for practice!"
Luo Chen muttered under his breath, then slapped his crown. A wisp of gloomy light drifted out.
It was none other than his third soul!
All these years, he had studied the art of puppetry in an effort to master that White Tiger puppet comparable to a late Nascent Soul cultivator.
Given his current attainments in puppetry, he was not yet qualified to refine the White Tiger puppet.
However, when it came to crafting ordinary puppets, Luo Chen felt confident he had developed sufficient skill.
As for how to treat Jinling's corpse, Luo Chen already had a blueprint in mind.
Puppets came in many forms, distinguished by shape, material, spiritual anchoring, and methods of control.
Broadly speaking, they fell into two categories: mechanical puppets and flesh-and-blood puppets.
Mechanical puppets were constructed from rare materials, woods, and ores. This was the more difficult discipline, demanding exceptional skill from the puppeteer.
Flesh-and-blood puppets were simpler, though far more taboo.
So long as one had suitable raw material, refining could begin immediately.
As for what that raw material was, it went without saying.
Was it not lying right before him?
"Back then, Tianxingzi of the Luoyun Sect—who was honored posthumously as an elder despite being only at Foundation Establishment—refined Mi Shuhua's remains into a flesh-and-blood puppet, and I once cursed him for his cruelty.
"Now I have walked down this very same path. The boomerang has truly come back to strike me."
Though his words carried a hint of self-reproach, his expression remained completely detached.
Luo Chen pointed a finger. A streak of pale white flame shot forth, completely engulfing Jinling's corpse.
Amidst the searing flames, a scorched, foul stench instantly filled the hall.
The third soul beside him was not idle either, rummaging through the Thunder Accumulation Ring dedicated to crafting materials to retrieve the necessary auxiliary components.
Even a flesh-and-blood puppet required supplemental materials.
With both efforts proceeding in tandem, time slipped rapidly away.
It took seven days and seven nights for Luo Chen to thoroughly temper the Nascent Soul corpse.
By this point, Jinling's corpse had shrunken by nearly seventy percent, shriveled like a dry sheet of human skin.
Yet Luo Chen was thoroughly satisfied with this result.
Next came the filling of materials.
With a thought, Luo Chen brought out the Hunyuan Cauldron, tossed the prepared ores and metals inside, and summoned the Wither-Bloom True Fire into motion.
When a basin's worth of molten metallic liquid had been thoroughly refined, Luo Chen paused.
He did not immediately pour the materials in. Instead, his gaze fell upon the gaping hole in Jinling's chest.
After hesitating for a long moment, Luo Chen steeled his resolve.
"Armor off!"
The Xuanchen Armor slipped away, baring his lean, muscular upper torso.
Luo Chen flicked his right hand, summoning the Yuantu Sword, and slowly drew the blade across his own chest.
Blood welled up. The Yuantu Sword trembled violently, letting out sharp, chiming hums.
"What are you rejoicing for? Quiet!"
Luo Chen barked a low reprimand. The Yuantu Sword let out a sullen whimper, but could only obediently submit to Luo Chen's command.
Seeing this, Luo Chen exhaled softly.
After practicing the sword dao and saturating it with demon blood, the sword spirit had grown increasingly accepting of him.
This was a good thing.
Yet the sword spirit's desire to drink his own blood remained an undisguised fact.
Luo Chen would never indulge it. He would rather feed the sword spirit with the blood of Demon Emperors than nurture it with his own flesh.
Doing so would only feed the sword spirit's demonic nature until master and servant could no longer be told apart!
Having suppressed the sword spirit, Luo Chen endured the sickening discomfort of self-mutilation, slowly gouging out a substantial chunk of flesh from his rock-hard chest.
"Ugh..."
With a muffled grunt, Luo Chen instantly pressed the excised flesh into Jinling's corpse.
Meanwhile, within his own body, a torrent of origin blood converged, and new flesh began sprouting as if endowed with a will of its own.
It was the Ancient Desolate physique's innate talent for regenerating severed limbs!
Though it could not match the Black King's undying body, it remained immensely practical.
Ignoring the discomfort in his own body, Luo Chen meticulously fitted the flesh into the gaping wound on Jinling's remains.
Once it was fully integrated, he poured in the prepared molten metallic liquid.
Furthermore, his magic power drove strands of golden silk, which burrowed into the corpse's meridians and blood vessels like tiny worms.
When everything was prepared, the Wither-Bloom Divine Fire flared once more, enveloping Jinling's entire corpse to begin tempering it as a whole.
During this process, Luo Chen even channeled his comprehension of the Wither-Bloom True Intent from time to time, gently awakening the vitality carried by his own flesh and blood to make the body increasingly supple and alive.
All the while, the third soul sat silently beside him, watching the entire process.
***
A full month slipped quietly by.
A low shout echoed within the Luotian Great Hall.
A majestic, imposing aura erupted outward.
Yet a moment later, the aura vanished without a trace.
Within the hall.
Luo Chen looked upon the completed puppet, satisfaction gleaming in his eyes.
"Go in!"
Without the slightest hesitation, the third soul slipped directly into the puppet, simultaneously embedding a top-grade metal spiritual stone into its chest.
"Still not enough.
"At present, this puppet does not even possess half of Jinling's peak strength."
Luo Chen observed it for a moment, discerning where the shortcomings lay.
Without a Nascent Soul, it could not resonate with heaven and earth to manipulate free-floating spiritual energy.
Without magical treasures, it lacked combat power.
Yet these flaws could all be rectified.
With a flick of Luo Chen's hand, two golden plumes landed in the puppet's grip.
Taking hold of them, the puppet swung them without the slightest impediment, instantly conjuring a terrifying, razor-sharp aura within the hall.
They had originally been Jinling's natal magical treasures; with their divine soul imprints wiped clean, no obstacle remained.
Not only that, Luo Chen struck the armrest of his seat.
"Come forth!"
The Black King reappeared, eyeing Luo Chen with a look of deep grievance.
He had only just fallen asleep when he was summoned once more.
"Take him to the place with the richest spiritual energy in Baili Qingchuan to nourish him!"
The Black King looked at the puppet, swallowing hard.
His earlier suspicion had indeed come true.
Master truly had refined this fellow into a puppet.
He hurriedly said, "When Fenghua Palace was breached, the array confining the spiritual vein suffered a flaw. I drew a great deal of spiritual energy over, and beneath Mount Daqing, a small fourth-tier spiritual cave has already condensed. It is the most suitable place imaginable to nourish Master's puppet!"
Luo Chen started. An unexpected windfall like this?
Chapter 844