Bachelor [EN]: Chapter 132

A lizard cautiously crawled down a rock in the wilderness, its head darting around, seemingly ready to begin its hunt for the day.

However, before the lizard could take more than a few steps, a long, yellow creature sprang from the sand. It used its front paws and mouth to seize the lizard, biting its neck. Then, with the lizard’s corpse in its jaws, it dashed off.

The creature also had four legs, a tail, and a snout, resembling a giant lizard.

However, its entire body was hard, and it made creaking sounds with every step, indicating it was a mechanical construct.

The creature ran for a while before approaching a young man in yellow robes sitting cross-legged on a flat rock. It placed the lizard’s corpse beside him and then ran off again.

The man in yellow didn’t seem surprised. He leisurely reached out, and the lizard’s body floated towards him. Then, he placed his index finger on the lizard’s head and began to chant. As the incantation finished, a white light appeared, growing increasingly bright.

“Hurry!” he said softly, judging that it was enough. Suddenly, a white thread emerged from the white light on his fingertip.

The thread connected from his fingertip to deep inside the lizard’s head, and the man in yellow carefully pulled it slowly.

Finally, with his meticulous control, the white thread extracted a green ball of light from the lizard’s corpse.

A look of joy, as if he had found a treasure, appeared on his face. He took out a yellow jade bottle with his other hand, and the sunset-colored wisps inside the bottle enveloped the blue sphere of light.

He let out a long sigh and wiped the sweat from his brow, indicating that he had expended a considerable amount of mental energy.

“The Soul Extraction Technique is not easy to perform at the early Qi Condensation stage [a stage in cultivation]. The success rate is too low. I only succeed once after three or four attempts. It looks like I’ll have to stay here all day today,” the man in yellow muttered, looking at the jade bottle in his hand. He was none other than Han Li, who was practicing the Great Evolution Technique.

He was collecting the souls of small animals about a hundred miles away from the spirit stone mine.

The reason he was doing something that seemed like the work of a demonic cultivator was all because of the technique he was practicing.

As he examined the book, he discovered that refining puppets was different from refining other magical artifacts. Surprisingly, he had to fuse a living soul with the materials to create a proper puppet; otherwise, it would be impossible for the puppet to make its own judgments or react quickly.

The higher the grade of the puppet, the stronger the soul needed to be. Only then could the puppet unleash its full power.

Therefore, the latter part of the book contained three techniques used by demonic cultivators: the Soul Extraction Technique, the Soul Condensation Technique, and the Soul Refinement Technique.

The Soul Extraction Technique, like what Han Li had just done, was a technique to extract a soul from a corpse. This technique was not only weak and had a low success rate, but it was also useless if the corpse was not freshly dead.

The Soul Condensation Technique was a technique to condense souls. In fact, it was not easy to obtain a strong soul, so to create high-grade puppets, one had to gather a few to dozens of souls to artificially create a strong soul.

First of all, the puppets’ range of activity was too small. If they went beyond a certain distance, the puppets would not only stop moving, but their separated consciousness would also return. He guessed that this was due to the distance limit that the consciousness could exist away from the master’s body, but if he could raise his cultivation to the Nascent Soul stage [a higher stage in cultivation], there might be room for improvement.

However, the next flaw was inherent in the puppet technique itself, so there was no way to solve it. There was a delay between the command and the puppet’s action, and during that time, the motionless puppet would clearly expose a weakness to the opponent. Even considering these two flaws, the puppet technique was actually quite impressive.

If he could produce more puppets and master the first level of the Great Evolution Technique, he would not fear fighting against Qi Condensation stage cultivators. Even if he was only at the Refinement stage [an early stage in cultivation], if about ten people were with him, the probability of preserving his life would increase.

Even if he were imprisoned by the young master of the Ghost Spirit Sect again, he would no longer need to fear the endless waves of blood ghosts. Low-level mechanical beasts could be easily dealt with using a few low-grade spirit stones.

After creating dozens of low-grade puppets, he decided to try making second-grade puppets. These were the puppets he had seen the people of the Heavenly Bamboo Sect use in battle, so even if he only succeeded up to this point, he wouldn’t have to worry about a shortage of puppets in the future.

Second-grade puppets could not be made with junk like before; they required raw materials almost at the level of making high-grade magical artifacts. In particular, a large amount of ironwood was needed as the main material.

He had no choice but to have someone procure these from a nearby market. Now that he had the materials, all that was left was to gather suitable souls.

No matter how many field mice he condensed, it was a distant prospect. So, Han Li changed his target to the lizards of the wilderness, the natural enemies of field mice.

By this time, he had already cultivated for three or four months and could divide his consciousness into several parts. The low-grade puppets containing his consciousness were now traversing the wilderness, searching for dens where lizards might live.

After carefully storing the bottle containing the lizard souls, he closed his eyes again and focused on practicing the Great Evolution Technique.

The Great Evolution Technique was the method that would gradually strengthen his Nascent Soul and allow him to control numerous high-grade puppets, so he could not neglect it even for a moment.

According to the book on the Great Evolution Technique, if he reached the first level, he could divide his Nascent Soul into about ten clones; if he reached the second level, he could divide it into more than a hundred; and if he reached the third level, he could divide it into hundreds, like Senior Brother Im. Just imagining controlling hundreds of puppets at once at the third level made him happy.

In any case, the strength of a sect was determined by the number of cultivators above the Core Formation stage [a mid-level stage in cultivation]. However, if the Core Formation stage cultivators of the Heavenly Bamboo Sect were weak, it would be difficult to defeat other sects, no matter how many strong Qi Condensation stage cultivators they had. But since it was true that it greatly enhanced Han Li’s power right now, he had no time to worry about the future.

The capital regions of several countries were already embroiled in a massive war. Not long after Han Li came to guard the spirit stone mine, ambushes and attacks between the Demonic Six Sects and the Seven Great Immortal Sects began to break out in a remote mountain range.

Gradually, news of how the war was progressing was also being reported. It turned out that the Spirit Beast Mountain among the Seven Great Immortal Sects was a branch of the Demonic Spirit Control Sect. They were a strategic force that had been planted in the Yue Kingdom thousands of years ago.

Naturally, the Demonic Six Sects tried to use the Spirit Beast Mountain to take over the United States and the Chariot Kingdom, just as they had done in the past when war broke out.

However, unexpectedly, the high-ranking members of the Spirit Beast Mountain had already denied their identity as a branch of the Spirit Control Sect through thousands of years of succession. They did not want anyone to rise above them.

As a result, they colluded with the other six immortal sects and, after deceiving the demonic cultivators using some method, attacked a certain stronghold in the Yue Kingdom.

The demonic cultivators who were ambushing were severely defeated by the Seven Great Immortal Sects who were lying in wait, and even two Core Formation stage cultivators were lost.

Having struck the Demonic Six Sects in the back like this, the morale of the Seven Great Immortal Sects rose, and the Demonic Six Sects began a full-scale war in humiliation.

The Seven Great Immortal Sects naturally did not back down and responded. Over a dozen battles took place one after another along the two borders between the Yue Kingdom and the United States, and between the Yue Kingdom and the Chariot Kingdom. The casualties already numbered in the tens of thousands, and even seven or eight Core Formation stage cultivators had died, making it a truly tragic situation.

Everyone who heard this news from the cultivators in charge of transporting spirit stones was shocked and frightened. They were grateful that they had been assigned here and not drafted into such battles.

If Core Formation stage cultivators were dying like that, the situation was clearly serious. However, the Demonic Six Sects were one of the two major powers in the Tiannan region, so they overwhelmed the Yue Kingdom’s capital region in terms of military strength.

After about seven battles, the Seven Great Immortal Sects clearly lost the initiative to the enemy’s fierce attacks. If they had not set up several restrictions in advance and prepared, they would have already been captured. However, there was a limit to how long they could hold out with formations, so it was clear that they would not last long if things continued like this.

As the fate of the Yue Kingdom’s capital region was at stake, the surrounding countries, the Yuanwu Kingdom and the Zijin Kingdom, finally sent reinforcements at the request of the Seven Great Immortal Sects.

Before starting the war with the Demonic Six Sects, the Seven Great Immortal Sects had sent people from their sects who were good at talking to ask for help from each country.

With the capital regions of these three countries forming an alliance, they finally formed a force that could rival the Demonic Six Sects. The Seven Great Immortal Sects were doing their best to defend, using the power of a massive formation, and had so far managed to fend off the demonic attacks. As the large-scale battles became stagnant, they began to carry out small-scale surprise attacks, targeting each other’s rear. In particular, mines were major targets for both the Seven Great Immortal Sects and the demonic cultivators.

However, the spirit stone mine where Han Li was located was too far from the battlefields, so it had never been attacked by the enemy.

Considering that other mines of similar size had already been attacked three or four times, it was nothing short of a miracle. Perhaps because of this, the Seven Great Immortal Sects were uneasy, and they sent more than twenty additional support personnel again half a month ago. They were led by a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator from the Spirit Beast Mountain.

Although the mine’s defenses had greatly increased, Han Li had a premonition that the current peace was the calm before the storm. He further accelerated his practice of the Great Evolution Technique.

However, among the second group of reinforcements, Han Li unexpectedly encountered a familiar Refinement stage cultivator. It was the ugly man, Jong Oh, whom he had met during the Blood Gold Trial.

Naturally, Jong Oh also recognized Han Li. In the end, Jong Oh gave a wry smile and bowed to Han Li.

* * *

The days continued to pass, and Han Li spent all his time practicing the Great Evolution Technique and making puppets, except for the time he spent on guard duty. After a month, he was able to master the first level of the Great Evolution Technique smoothly. It was a joyful and surprising achievement.

Whether it was the Five Elements Technique or the Azure Essence Sword Technique, Han Li had always struggled with his cultivation due to a lack of talent. However, the practice of the Great Evolution Technique was like a stream flowing into a river, with no obstacles at all. So, Han Li was very happy but also couldn’t shake off a strange feeling.

And after failing more than ten times, he finally succeeded in making one second-grade puppet for the first time just two days ago.

Although it was more crude and less powerful than the ones the people of the Heavenly Bamboo Sect carried around, it made him smile.

However, while Han Li was circulating his energy, he heard sharp sounds of air being torn outside the room, followed by a cultivator shouting madly.

“The demonic cultivators have attacked! Everyone, come out and prepare to fight!”

At that sound, Han Li’s heart sank, but he left the room with a serious expression.

The cultivators of the Seven Great Immortal Sects who were practicing in other rooms also walked out with solemn expressions and met each other’s eyes.

Lye Cheonmong, a late-stage Qi Condensation cultivator from the Eomwol Sect and the Spirit Beast Mountain, had already flown near the Four Fiends Formation and was looking up at the canyon.

Behind them, the dozen or so people on duty showed signs of anxiety, but their expressions improved when Han Li and the others came out. Han Li also followed Lye Cheonmong’s gaze and looked towards the great canyon. He could see about twenty or thirty enemies.

Although there were not many of them, if they were infiltrating the enemy’s territory, they were likely all Qi Condensation stage cultivators. With such a large difference in strength, it seemed that this battle would be difficult.

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