Qing'an Town, Qing Xuan Sect Base
Zhou Guangzhi saw Xu Lijin controlling his sword to land in the courtyard and immediately went to greet him.
"Senior Brother Xu, how did it go? Is that person at the Qi Refining Seventh Layer?" Zhou Guangzhi asked with concern.
"Qi Refining Seventh Layer, and his Divine Sense is not weak." Xu Lijin nodded, speaking in a deep voice: "Think of a way to kill him!"
"Senior Brother, if we act directly, and the sect finds out,..." Zhou Guangzhi hesitated, thinking that Qi Refining Seventh Layer meant he could easily fly with sword control. If they couldn't kill him and silence him, he might flee, and if he reported to the sect, they'd be in serious trouble.
"I meant think of a way! I didn't say attack directly." Xu Lijin gave Zhou Guangzhi a glance and said irritably.
"Huh!" Zhou Guangzhi started pondering, looking at Xu Lijin: "Lure him out? That kid is a Spirit Plant Cultivator and timid, probably won't fall for it. Little Liang Mountain is so remote, maybe if we could lure a Demon Beast there, there might be a chance!"
"This strategy is feasible, let's do it that way. You find a Demon Beast, I'll prepare the beast-luring materials." Xu Lijin nodded and arranged.
"Yes!" Zhou Guangzhi accepted the order eagerly and quickly left the courtyard to search for Demon Beasts.
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Little Liang Mountain.
After sending Xu Lijin away, Li Mu felt vaguely uneasy and sped up the puppet carving.
Wood shavings flew, and the sharp engraving knife in Li Mu's hand was like a paintbrush, tracing the natural pattern of the Spiritual Peach Wood to 'paint', integrating the Puppet Array Pattern into it,...
After roughly a quarter of an hour, two palm-sized spider wood carvings vividly appeared in Li Mu's hand.
Li Mu put away the engraving knife and flipped the Puppet Spider over, taking out a Lower Spirit Stone which he placed in the spider's abdomen groove. In the next moment, the Puppet Array Pattern on the Wooden Spider activated, flickered with spirit light, and then disappeared again.
Li Mu smiled with satisfaction and placed the Spider Puppet on the ground, controlling it with his Divine Sense.
The Puppet Spider moved its eight wooden legs and crawled rapidly, sometimes left, sometimes right, incredibly agile.
Seeing this, the 'Red Wolf' lying on the ground accompanying its master immediately got excited and started chasing the Spider Puppet.
Seeing this, Li Mu got interested, controlling the Spider Puppet with his Divine Sense to crawl swiftly, dodge left and right, either hiding in piles of clutter or slipping into narrow cracks in doors, extremely nimble.
The Red Wolf barked urgently but couldn't catch the agile prey.
"Red Wolf, come here." Li Mu called to the Red Shepherd Puppies with a smile.
After a few days of feeding, the Red Wolf recognized Li Mu as its master, abandoned the prey, and obediently ran over to Li Mu.
Li Mu smiled as he picked up the Red Wolf, simultaneously controlling the Spider Puppet with his Divine Sense to crawl back into his hand.
Examining the Spider Puppet, Li Mu smiled happily and focused his gaze on the virtual light screen.
[Ding, you have successfully refined a Mortal Tier Puppet - Sentry Spider, Puppet Refining Technique proficiency +0.]
Refining a low-end Sentry Spider, with the fourth-level Puppetry Technique, did not yield any proficiency reward. Li Mu wasn't bothered at all; he simply needed to diligently farm to push this Puppetry Technique to its peak.
The fourth-level Puppetry Technique provided Li Mu with much foundational knowledge for Refining Puppet, involving puppet patterns, puppet arrays, array hub puppet cores,... various critical puppet components, and the attribute knowledge of puppet spirit patterns, such as: Spirit Taming, Binding Spirit, Awakening, Control, Link,... and so forth, all-encompassing and extremely complex.
In his original world, Li Mu was a programmer with excellent logical thinking and hands-on abilities. After digesting the knowledge of Refining Puppet, he became particularly interested in the craft.
The first Trial Puppet attempt succeeded, and Li Mu was full of accomplishment. He flipped the Sentry Spider puppet over to check the consumption of the Lower Spirit Stone, estimating that by reducing the Sentry Spider's activity range, one Lower Spirit Stone could last about 40 days.
Enough!
These Sentry Spider Puppets have an internal spirit fluctuation sensing array pattern; if they are stationed around Little Liang Mountain, upon detecting significant spiritual qi fluctuations, they will immediately provide feedback through the spirit pattern, allowing Li Mu to link with his Divine Sense to observe the scene, serving as a good early warning system.
Importantly, the Sentry Spider Puppets are cost-effective in making, small in size, extremely concealed, and not easily discovered.
Li Mu could carve one Sentry Spider in a quarter of an hour, and using up all the Spiritual Peach Wood scraps, he consecutively refined ten Sentry Spiders.
Li Mu planned to use the remaining large pieces of Spiritual Peach Wood to refine a humanoid 'Slave' Puppet, to help him with simple farm work, such as: plowing, loosening soil, turning over weed, carrying,... and other heavy and time-consuming tasks.
Two hours passed as Li Mu focused on the carving work, successfully crafting the main body of the 'Slave' Puppet. The Wooden Puppet was about five feet in height, with limbs and a physique similar to humans, five Spirit Stone inlay slots in the chest, the body covered with puppet patterns extending to the limbs, deeply embedded in the wood pattern of the puppet, dense and complex, like a piece of art.
This Slave Puppet is an autonomous puppet, requiring a Puppet Source Core configured with specific spiritual objects.
Li Mu remembered something and took out the high-tier Spirit Seed previously picked up at the Spirit Plant Store from his storage compartment.
[Soul Wood Spirit Seed]
[Grade: Tier Four Spirit Wood]
[Attributes: Contains Wood Attribute Soul Power, Spirit Wood Vitality, can cultivate Soul Wood Seedlings.]
[Status: Lacking Soul Power, Spiritual Invisibility]
[Soul Wood Spirit Seed: Requires Yin Soul Power infusion, the Spirit Seed can then cultivate and grow with the need to be planted in Gathering Yin Land, maturing to Tier Four Soul Wood in a hundred years - blooming in ten years, bearing Soul Infant Fruits in ten years. Soul Infant Fruits can be refined into Life Soul Pills, and the Soul Wood material is one of the primary materials for refining Soul Split Puppets. Tier Four Soul Wood Heart worn closely can strengthen the spirit and nourish the soul.]
With the Innate Divine Power - Recognition of Ten Thousand Spirits active, Li Mu looked at the Spirit Seed's information, hesitating whether to refine it into the Slave Puppet's driving core.
This was a very suitable puppet core-carrying spiritual object, even capable of being refined into the puppet core driving higher-level Soul Split Puppets, but refining Soul Split Puppets was too advanced, and other materials fell short.
Keeping the Soul Wood Spirit Seed to cultivate Tier Four Soul Wood would take a hundred years to mature, and the planting environment was challenging to achieve.
Li Mu weighed options for a moment and ultimately decided to refine it into the Slave Puppet's puppet core.
Refining a puppet source core requires engraving puppet patterns inside and outside it and using Divine Sense to intricately sculpt the interior of the Soul Wood Spirit Seed, transforming the Divine Sense into an engraving knife, carving the driving puppet's array-eye spirit pattern on the surface of the Divine Sense carrier object.
Using Divine Sense to engrave spirit patterns requires Divine Sense Power to reach Foundation Establishment Realm strength, but Li Mu's Divine Sense has been tempered by the Fourth-level Divine Tempering Technique, just barely able to reach the gather-into-a-blade degree, and is capable of engraving fine puppet spirit patterns on the surface of the Soul Wood Spirit Seed.
The Soul Wood Spirit Seed is singular, with only one chance for Divine Sense engraving. If the engraving fails, there would be no suitable puppet core-carrying object left, so Li Mu needed prior practice to ensure a hundred percent success.
Li Mu thought briefly, then took a small piece of Spiritual Peach Wood shavings, concentrating and attempting to engrave.