Chapter 102 Puppet Troop

  This technique is extremely troublesome to perform, requiring not only the best state of mind but also abundant spiritual and physical strength.

  Even if all these are done, it will take almost half a day to cast the spell, and there can't be any mistakes throughout the whole process, otherwise everything will be in vain.

  Zhao Di was sitting cross-legged on a cushion made of demon beast skin, his hands clenched into fists, with an extremely painful expression. Large beads of sweat dripped from the tips of his hair, and his face turned deathly pale.

  This was just when Zhao Di was about to complete a distraction technique, he suddenly stretched out his right hand index finger and placed it on his own brow, slowly performing the spell, and slowly condensed a white light spot the size of a soybean at the tip of his finger. This was the first strand of divine sense that Zhao Di had split off.

  He gritted his teeth and endured the intense pain in his mind, sending this hard-won distraction into a human-shaped puppet. With difficulty, he muttered incantations from his mouth, casting spell after spell into the puppet. Half an incense stick later, Zhao Di finally completed these spellcasting processes, let out a long sigh, and sat quietly to rest.

  After two days and two nights, Zhao Di finally recovered his lost divine consciousness.

  He didn't start a second cast of Split Soul Technique but instead manipulated the already soul-infused "Number One" puppet.

  This feeling is quite strange, and it's not like manipulating a magic tool at will, but rather a command-like manipulation method. Usually, Zhao Di transmits a command through his divine consciousness, and the puppet starts to complete the task according to the command, absolutely without resistance, but with a certain delay.

  To make an imperfect analogy, manipulating a magical tool is like manipulating one's own limbs - flexible and effortless, doing as one pleases. On the other hand, manipulating a puppet is like commanding one's subordinates - an order is given, but how it is carried out is up to them; except that puppets will strictly follow the practitioner's instructions, making them absolutely loyal subordinates.

  Because the manipulation method is different, the spiritual consciousness consumed by manipulating puppets is much less than that of artifacts. For a foundation-building cultivator in the early stage, being able to manipulate five or six artifacts at the same time is already the limit, but they can often manipulate twenty or thirty puppets, or even more!

  Zhao Di ordered this puppet to pick up the Han Gou bow and shoot an arrow at the stone wall.

  As soon as this idea was transmitted to Puppet No. 1 through divine consciousness, it immediately took out the Frost Python Bow from the beast skin bag on its back, drew the bowstring against a wall, shot out seven or eight ice cones, and then stood still in place.

  As expected! Zhao thought to himself, overjoyed. This Refining Qi period puppet can also use mid-grade spiritual tools! Just like how he could use that flawed mid-grade spiritual tool, the Frost Shield, back when he was in the Refining Qi period.

  This way, if he manipulated twenty or thirty puppets at the same time, and each puppet was equipped with a medium-grade spiritual tool, it would be almost equivalent to having the attacking power of more than twenty foundation-building cultivators at the same time! This terrifying strength made Zhao Di have no opponents among the foundation-building cultivators.

  He took a brief rest and then began to cast his second Diversion Technique.

  Still a sharp pain in the brain, beads of sweat the size of soybeans kept emerging from the top of my head. After half a day's torture, I finally managed to separate another wisp of spirit and sent it into the second puppet...

  This busy life made time pass especially quickly, and before he knew it, Zhao Di had already been in the cave for over two years. During this period, Zhang Mo, the mortal town head of Lianjian Island, came to the cave entrance to ask for the spirit stones for the next five years. Zhao Di simply gave him four middle-grade spirit stones at once, so that he wouldn't have to bother himself again for twenty years.

  Apart from this, Zhao Di has been busy non-stop for his puppet army plan.

  On this day, he finally infused each puppet with a strand of divine spirit and equipped each puppet with a beast skin bag on its back, containing a mid-grade spiritual tool and several mid-grade spiritual stones. In this way, the puppet army in his plan was initially formed!

  Zhao Di tried it out and found that he could manipulate at most thirty or forty puppets at the same time, which was enough to fulfill his demon-hunting purposes!

  After careful consideration, he had eight puppets use defensive mid-grade spiritual artifacts, while the other twenty-two used bow-type mid-grade spiritual artifacts. This formed a small squad of thirty Qi Condensation stage puppets using thirty mid-grade spiritual artifacts.

  He ordered eight defensive puppets to be stationed outside, while twenty-two attacking puppets were kept inside for protection. After a rehearsal, the effect was very satisfactory. Zhao Di's efforts over the past two years have not been in vain!

  Apart from these puppets, there is a piece of good news.

  That was the Ice Wind Snake, which had just been born not long ago. With the help of a large amount of top-grade Yu Ling San, the small snake grew from about 1 foot to over 5 feet in length, and its thickness also reached about 2 inches. Its cultivation also made great progress, becoming a mid-level demon beast, roughly equivalent to a human cultivator's Qi Refining stage 6 or 7.

  However, this Ice Wind Snake is just a spell that can only spray out a thread of cold mist, condensing a small piece of water into an ice block.

  Although he still can't be put to use, he has advanced in just two short years, which makes Zhao Di extremely delighted.

  As for himself, because he has been refining equipment, refining puppets, and casting the technique of dividing spirits, etc., he has not refined any elixirs, so his cultivation is still at the initial stage of foundation building, without any progress.

  Whether to continue staying in the cave to learn the way of alchemy, refine a dozen or so third-grade demon pills into medicinal pills and take them after sitting for a period of time, or immediately set out to capture and kill demons on other stars alone. After thinking for a while, Zhao chose the latter.

  With his alchemy standards, he's afraid that even if he refines a dozen or so demon pellets, he won't be able to produce much medicinal dan. And his spiritual root talent is actually ordinary, these medicinal dan also cannot let his cultivation quickly rise to the mid-term foundation building level, the space for progress is not big.

  Moreover, he heard that the beast tide's information was unknown when it would suddenly erupt, so to avoid a long and dreamy night, it's better to go to the outer star to hunt and kill the demon beasts early!

  He also believed that with his current strength, although he was only in the early stages of foundation building, as long as he didn't encounter a high-ranking cultivator at the Core Formation stage, there would be no threat to him!

  Then Zhao Di collected everything and even took away the several sets of spell arrays that protected the cave, leaving only the six-wheel absolute spirit array.

  Then he rode on the wind and cloud, flying towards the Western Star Island.

  Seven or eight days later, Zhao Di arrived at Xingxing Island. As usual, he made a small purchase in the island's market, but this time, what he bought were all materials for refining elixirs, and they were all raw materials for refining Qi-gathering pills. High-grade demon elixirs are hard to come by, so it's better to start with low-grade elixirs and refine them first. Once his alchemy skills have reached a certain level, it won't be too late to use demon elixirs as raw materials to refine foundation-establishing pills.

  Zhao Di went again to the three-story teahouse of Lundao Xuan, but after inquiring all around, he still couldn't find any news about Xi Feng and Di Er.

  A mid-term disciple of the Tea Room asked Zhao Di, "These people have not appeared on Xingxing Island for five years. What happened?" Five years ago, it was Zhao Di and these people who went to capture monsters on a foreign star together. Now only Zhao Di has returned, and he is still inquiring about these people everywhere, which is indeed a bit strange.

  Zhao Di casually made up a 30% true and 70% false excuse, saying that his strength was too low, so he only cooperated with these few people to kill some third-level and fourth-level demon beasts before leaving the team. Xi Feng and others went on to capture fifth-level demon beasts! Afterwards, they lost contact with each other. Now, looking for Xi Feng and others again is just to go hunting together once more.

  Such an explanation was even more believable than the actual situation, and the mid-term builder of the tea house didn't ask any more questions.

  Zhao Di unexpectedly heard another piece of news in the Ludao Xuan, two years ago, after the mysterious closure of the Xuanyi Pavilion, the largest and most famous array shop on Xingxing Island, it never reopened again. Moreover, no one has seen any of the core members of the Yun family since then. The whereabouts of the Yun surname Jiedan cultivator, who was known as the number one array master on Xingxing Island, were also unknown. It was as if the people of the Yun family had disappeared from this starry sea overnight.

  "It seems that Yun Mengli being hunted down by the Mo Gate disciples is not a coincidence! Even his father, a high-ranking cultivator in the Condensing Dan stage, has gone missing. It looks like Yun Mengli's situation is also precarious! And as for Xi Feng and Di Er, they're probably in the same boat!" Zhao couldn't help but let out a long sigh as he thought about these things.

  He no longer stayed and came to Penglai Fairy Island through the teleportation array of Xingxing Island.

  (Third update! Please collect! With 5,000 collections, there is a chance to get cover recommendation... The updates are too fast and too many, already exceeded 200,000 words, no longer on the new book list, except for cover push, there is no opportunity to let more readers know about this book!)