You Xuexin: The Advantage Is Mine!

Wang Ping had not lied. He truly had arrived at Youshen Temple long ago, having rushed over almost immediately after slaying Xu Bingzheng. He had been on the verge of stepping inside the temple. Then, by chance, he witnessed the scene where Shen Monkey unleashed the Dragon Head Guillotine, only for Perfected Youshen to block it with a bare hand. Decisively, Wang Ping pulled his foot right back. It was not out of fear. Mainly, he wanted to give the two imperial enshrinees, Shen Monkey and Xu Dog, a chance to show what they could do. Rather than rashly rushing in to throw his life away, it made far more sense to deal with the fiends outside the Taoist temple first. Farm a wave of minions first and return once he was powered up. Along the way, Shen Monkey and Xu Dog could serve as the vanguard to test the depths of Perfected Youshen's strength... That was why he had waited until the very last moment to intervene. The benefits of doing so were remarkable. Faced with the Dragon Head Guillotine driven by Shen Monkey, Perfected Youshen had been forced to cast the spell Qi Restriction to resist it. Furthermore, to maximize Qi Restriction's effect and achieve invulnerability to blades and spears, it had been compelled to expend magical power. With that single exchange, Wang Ping had seen right through its foundations. As Wang Ping's words fell, Shen Monkey and Xu Dog both widened their eyes, looks of confusion lingering on their faces... He had already seen through the puppet's origins? What did that mean? By contrast, on the other side, You Xuexin's heart sank slightly. Behind Perfected Youshen's bronze mask, a pair of green fiery eyes flickered and danced unsteadily. Of everyone present, she was likely the only one who understood what Wang Ping meant. Just as Wang Ping had said, the current Perfected Youshen was in truth merely a puppet. In essence, it was identical to the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag: both had been infused with her spiritual sense and magical power before being cast into the Eight Trigrams Furnace. Thus, it possessed the exact same fatal flaw as the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag. 'And that is magical power!' Gazing at Perfected Youshen, Wang Ping's eyes burned brightly as he calculated inwardly: 'As long as I completely exhaust the enemy's magical power, the victor will naturally be me.' 'And on this front, I hold an absolute advantage!' The reason was simple: the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag was a superior-grade magical artifact, whereas Perfected Youshen, being a puppet, could never possess materials superior to his own. 'After all, this venomous woman practically bankrupted herself back then just to forge the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag. Where would she find the money to purchase even better materials?' In comparison, superior materials could undoubtedly contain more magical power. Thus, Wang Ping was entirely certain that the magical power within this Perfected Youshen fell far short of his own. If it came to a war of attrition, his odds of winning were much higher... If there was any variable at all, it lay in efficiency of application. 'This venomous woman is a true disciple of an immortal sect after all.' 'Not only does she possess an endless array of spells, but the cultivation methods she practices are bound to be better than mine, and her efficiency in using magical power should far surpass my own.' When it came to enemies, Wang Ping never hesitated to overestimate them. Therefore, upon reflecting time and again, he still placed himself at a disadvantage, believing that if he engaged in a direct frontal confrontation to defeat Daoist Nun You, the chances were genuinely slim. "However... that is only if it were just me." Before his words faded, the flag fluttered behind Wang Ping. A dense shadow expanded alongside piercing laughter as tens of thousands of fiends howled and surged forth. "Kill!" At Wang Ping's command, the fiends poured out en masse, lunging toward You Xuexin. The heavy, foul, turbid yin qi immediately caused this immortal sect true disciple to knit her delicate brows. She could not understand. Ever since suffering the previous betrayal, she had specifically asked her master to reforge the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag, adding numerous restrictions to suppress the artifact spirit. In theory, it was impossible for this magical artifact to turn on its master again. Especially with her master—as a Qi Refiner, if the artifact still carried the risk of turning on its master, there was no way her master would have failed to notice, much less be unable to resolve it. But why? Even stepping back ten thousand paces, what about the restrictions within the artifact? Reason dictated that once the artifact spirit rebelled, her magical power inside the artifact should have already obliterated it by now. 'Why can it still move as freely as ever?' Perplexed and unable to fathom it, You Xuexin immediately pinched an incantation seal in secret, attempting to seize control of the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag. Yet every command she sent vanished like a stone dropped into the sea. This only inflamed her fury further. Narrowing her fine eyes, she lightly tapped her fingertips. Immediately, a resplendent light rose gracefully to illuminate all four quarters, sweeping forcefully across the incoming surge of fiends. In an instant, the scene was like snow melting before spring sunshine. Under the radiance of that light, every fiend collapsed and crumbled, shrieking as they burned into glowing heaps before quickly dispersing into wisps of grey-green smoke. Seeing this, the other fiends that had luckily escaped the light scurried aside, scattering like birds and beasts, daring not step within a hair's breadth of that radiance. Seeing this, You Xuexin finally smiled with satisfaction: "Did you think that just because I am in a puppet's body, I can do nothing to you? In the end, they are mere sinister, filthy creatures. Even if you gather them into an army, they remain nothing more than clay chickens and pottery dogs!" Within immortal sects, fiend-subduing techniques were hardly scarce. What she had just cast was the most universal spell of the immortal sects, known as Light Generation, which could manifest various protective divine lights according to the caster's will. Such as that ray of Subduing Fiends Divine Light just now. This technique was reputed to 'subdue all fiends with a single sweep of divine light.' Its use here could be called thoroughly apropos, and it was the very reason You Xuexin had remained calm and composed all along. 'In the end, it is merely an artifact spirit with limited means.' 'Even if it can mobilize the mystical properties of the magical artifact itself, it amounts to little. Lacking any orthodox immortal sect arts, it knows only how to crudely drive fiends forward to gnaw and bite.' 'Against methods like these, let alone ten thousand fiends, even if a hundred thousand or a million more came, it would be nothing that a single sweep of Subduing Fiends Divine Light could not resolve.' At this thought, she grew even more at ease. Seeing this, Wang Ping shook his head with an expression full of emotion. "The orthodox arts of the immortal sects truly live up to their name. It seems ordinary fiends really are nothing more than an empty waste of magical power." "Then, what about this?" As his voice fell, Wang Ping suddenly took a step back. His hands formed incantation signs and pressed together into a mudra held erect before his chest. Exhaling to project his voice, he incanted aloud: "Three Corpses feast on life, Nine Worms spawn from filth!" Instantly, surging flames erupted across Wang Ping's entire body, each bearing distinct shapes and hues. Three colors stemmed from the soul and nine colors belonged to the physical vessel, billowing outward in all directions. Wherever that shimmering kaleidoscope of colored light washed, the fiends—originally formed from nothing more than the souls of the common folk, stiff and bereft of any extraordinary qualities—began howling one after another, undergoing transformations in turn. Not only did their height shoot up past eight feet, but sharp fangs and claws also sprouted from their limbs. At the same time, they blurred from solid form into an ethereal state, turning hazy and indistinct. Often, a single flicker would vanish them from where they stood, evading detection by spiritual sense. Even the spirit light in their eyes surged several times over, betraying hints of cunning. "Jie-jie-jie!" In the next second, accompanied by piercing screeches of laughter, the fiends surged forth once more. Both their speed and strength had exploded exponentially, a world apart from before! You Xuexin's complexion shifted slightly at the sight. "This is... the Secret Record of Dispelling Calamities Through the Three Corpses and Nine Worms? How did you learn this?!" As a true disciple, she naturally recognized the method Wang Ping had just displayed. What was more, this was originally a common cultivation method provided specifically by the immortal sects to rogue cultivators. Beyond being used for cultivation and breaking through realms, this method had another effect: the Three Corpses and Nine Worms symbolized a cultivator's life and longevity, and this technique allowed a cultivator's Three Corpses and Nine Worms to resonate with those of others, thereby sharing out one's own life cultivation. In short, it granted buffs to allies. As for why it possessed such an ability, the answer was straightforward: it was meant for rogue cultivators, who staffed the immortal sects' labor-intensive industries. In such industries, if rogue cultivators possessed a technique that could enhance their fellow workers' productivity, it was unquestionably beneficial to the industry itself. And You Xuexin had once been a beneficiary of this herself. After all, as a true disciple, numerous blessed lands founded by rogue cultivators sustained and provided for her—the Soul-Drooping Study, for instance, had been one such blessed land. And anything that boosted the working efficiency of rogue cultivators within those blessed lands was something she had naturally welcomed. She had simply never imagined that this very manual—one she had once praised so lavishly, meant only for rogue cultivator laborers—would turn around and bite back against her today. Rumble! The resplendent light flared, yet it no longer possessed its prior fiend-subduing divine might. Incredibly, several hundred fiends joined forces and held it at bay, pushing forward against the drifting grey-green smoke to bear down upon it! At this sight, You Xuexin's expression grew increasingly grim. She could certainly ramp up her magical power output to boost the potency of the Subduing Fiends Divine Light, but doing so would reduce the fight to a pure war of magical power attrition. And Wang Ping's deduction on this point was spot on: the magical power she had channeled into this puppet, Perfected Youshen, was far less than what she had poured into the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag. If it truly came down to an endurance contest, she would surely run out first, and when that happened, maintaining the repairs on the Longevity as Old as Heaven Gourd would certainly become impossible. "...Hmph!" Having assessed the situation clearly, You Xuexin remained unhurried. The howling Subduing Fiends Divine Light swung around leisurely, inverting to clamp down tightly within a three-foot perimeter around her. "When Wood meets spring, it thrives; let Jia dwell in the realm of You." As the incantation arose, an azure-emerald hue sprang from the divine light, settling over the shimmering gold and white radiance until it finally manifested the lifelike optical silhouette of an azure dragon. Baring its fangs and brandishing its claws, the azure dragon coiled its body around You Xuexin. While raising its head in a long roar, it clamped a five-toed dragon claw above You Xuexin, sealing off the spiritual qi of the four quarters. Then, like an old turtle, it remained utterly motionless. No matter how the fiends bit and tore at it, it stood as steadfast and towering as ever. This time, it was Wang Ping's turn to be dumbfounded. For You Xuexin's assessment of him was not wrong: having entered immortal sects three times, reaching at most the level of a rogue cultivator, he truly knew nothing about the higher methods of the immortal sects. Even so, Wang Ping could still read the situation. 'She's abandoned offense in favor of defense, conjuring a tortoise shell. Is she confident that by stalemating things this way, she will still emerge victorious in the end?' This was not hard to understand. Between the attacker and the defender, the defender had always held the advantage, able to counter greater numbers of foes at lesser cost. More importantly... as a rogue cultivator of shallow experience, he had no idea what method You Xuexin was deploying right now or what properties it possessed. In a contest of magical arts, this was the worst disadvantage. 'There is no unbreakable spell in this world.' 'So long as it is a spell, there is a countermeasure... By the same token, if one cannot discern the roots of a spell, then no matter how weak it is, it becomes an unsolvable dilemma.' At this thought, a contemplative look surfaced in Wang Ping's eyes. ...... In the immortal sect, before the Eight Trigrams Furnace. "Senior Sister, something seems amiss." The young Daoist Xuanhe, responsible for overseeing this "furnace firing," suddenly opened his eyes and frowned. "The refinement of the Longevity as Old as Heaven Gourd has slowed down." "Did something go wrong inside the furnace?" At those words, You Xuexin opened her eyes, yet responded with complete nonchalance: "Set your mind at ease. It is all part of the plan. Proceed as usual." "This... very well." Daoist Xuanhe was visibly dubious, but out of deference to You Xuexin's status as a true disciple, he obediently sat back down in his original place and did not press the matter further. Meanwhile, You Xuexin secretly breathed a sigh of relief... She had no choice. She could hardly admit that the Six Desires Heavenly Demon Flag she had tossed in had turned on its master yet again, causing the refinement of the Longevity as Old as Heaven Gourd to go awry. If word of that got out, how could she keep her standing as a true disciple? When it came down to it, why had she been having such wretched luck lately? First, the strongman she painstakingly captured had abruptly committed suicide. Then, the superior-grade magical artifact forged at the cost of countless precious treasures had turned on its master twice, even causing her to die once because of it. It was practically as if an immortal had set a trap for her. Could something go wrong this time as well? '...Impossible. Absolutely impossible.' You Xuexin shook her head, casting away the ill-omened thoughts in her mind. 'As long as I hold firm on the defense and do not venture out, the Longevity as Old as Heaven Gourd will finish repairing in three days at the latest. When that time comes, everything will return to track.' Steadying her thoughts, You Xuexin immersed her mind back into the Eight Trigrams Furnace. Even now, she retained her confidence. After all, as an esteemed true disciple of an immortal sect, even in merely a puppet's body, she was not someone mortals or an artifact spirit could ever defeat. In short—the advantage is mine!