However, when Shen Fan flipped to the tenth level of the "Nine Nether Corpse Refinement Art" and read the method for refining his own corpse puppet, he forcefully suppressed the eager impulse in his heart.
It was not that he did not want to try; the refining method was simply too demanding.
To refine oneself into a corpse puppet, the first step required eighty-one hundred thousand streams of corpse puppet qi to slowly permeate the flesh.
What exactly did that mean?
It meant he had to find eight hundred and ten thousand corpse puppets to assist in his cultivation.
But where was he supposed to find that many people to turn into corpse puppets?
Second, he needed objects of refined metal to absorb Metal Geng qi, temper his body, scorch his bloodline, and forge his tendons and bones.
The final step was even more brutal. He had to take the blood of three thousand virgin boys and girls and completely fuse it with his flesh before he could achieve the great path of the corpse puppet.
What Shen Fan did not know was that he was far from the only one who wanted to ascend to the heavens in a single step and directly become the king of corpse puppets.
Within the Nine Nether Corpse Puppet Sect, every disciple who had access to the complete contents of the "Nine Nether Corpse Refinement Art" wished to reach this step.
It was precisely because of this that, three hundred years ago, disciples of the Nine Nether Corpse Puppet Sect wreaked havoc throughout the mortal world, slaughtering ordinary people without restraint.
During those years, the Great Li Kingdom was like a living hell, and its people suffered beyond endurance.
Villages, towns, county seats—wherever crowds gathered, no one knew how many people were massacred and refined into corpse puppets.
Such a merciless, inhuman age of chaos eventually provoked the grand feat of the four great immortal sects joining forces to attack them.
The contents of the "Nine Nether Corpse Refinement Art" were far too shocking. Shen Fan remained unable to recover from his astonishment for a long while.
By noon, Shen Fan had finished lunch and began clearing out the trash in the Waste Elixir Chamber.
According to the rules, it had to be cleaned once every three days. Today happened to be the day for it.
"Hm? What is this?"
At that moment, Shen Fan's eyes suddenly lit up.
He focused his gaze and saw that amid the scraps and refuse, a grimy piece of white cloth had been burned down to half its size and hidden in the dirt.
Shen Fan took it out and gently shook off the dust. Looking closer, several blood-written characters leaped into view.
Shen Fan's pupils abruptly constricted as he saw the horrifying words written upon it:
Warning!
The Elixir Forging Peak uses people to refine... elixirs.
Do not enter, do not enter, do not enter!
The Heavenly Xuan Sect is the... gate of the righteous path!
The contents were incomplete, making it impossible to discern everything. Yet the bloody words still sent a chill down one's spine.
This was clearly a Blood Letter written by someone with their own blood.
"What exactly does this say?"
Filled with doubt, Shen Fan put away the scrap of cloth.
It had to be said that the Waste Elixir Chamber occasionally did yield some strange and bizarre things.
One day, Shen Fan had even picked up a fish bladder!
It was just that the fish bladder had been far too small.
After tidying up, Shen Fan gathered several more waste elixirs and stored them away. Then he left the room and opened the gate of the incinerator.
All the accumulated scraps and refuse poured down, utterly reduced to ash by the Core Earth Fire.
Afterward, Shen Fan unfolded the bloodstained scrap again and studied it carefully.
Driven by curiosity, he could not help wondering about its contents.
"What exactly is written on this?"
Especially since this thing had come from Elixir Forging Peak.
The summit of Elixir Forging Peak was used by Inner Sect Disciples;
The mountainside was used by Outer Sect Disciples.
All waste was tossed down from the ravine and handled together in the Waste Elixir Chamber.
Whoever had written this Blood Letter likely hid some earth-shattering grievance behind it!
But with the contents so incomplete, how could he possibly see all of it?
"I've got it!"
Shen Fan's eyes suddenly lit up, and he immediately placed it into the Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl.
The Treasure Gathering Universe Bowl could even restore incomplete cultivation techniques. Repairing a mere tattered Blood Letter would naturally be no trouble at all!
This thing needed one day to repair.
Shen Fan then took out another body cultivation technique he had obtained from Baishitong and began studying it.
"Dragon Grasp?"
No matter how he looked at it, it resembled a mundane martial art.
Yet it was clearly marked as a first-rank mid-grade spell.
Now that Shen Fan had the "Blood Spirit Unification Art" and the "Polar Ice-Fire Body Forging Art" to temper his body, both his strength and defense had greatly improved.
He truly needed an offensive technique for body cultivators.
This Dragon Grasp was just right.
After Shen Fan refined Baishitong into a corpse puppet, he had seen it clearly: that single Dragon Grasp had directly ripped Zhao Erhu open from front to back.
Its power could not be underestimated.
Yet after examining it, Shen Fan was shocked to discover that Baishitong had only learned the barest surface of this technique.
He had merely become quite proficient in the close-combat offensive methods of the first half, but had never learned the latter half's art of retrieving objects from afar.
The first half of Dragon Grasp excelled in close-combat offense. Once the latter half was cultivated to great mastery, one could seize objects through the air. Combined with the power of the first half, it could even take a person's head from a hundred meters away.
It was truly a body cultivation technique that excelled at both close and long range.
"Good, good, good!"
Shen Fan looked at the Dragon Grasp manual in satisfaction and could not wait to begin cultivating it.
This Dragon Grasp seemed to have evolved from mundane martial arts.
Its initial cultivation methods were quite ordinary, seemingly including methods such as Iron Sand Palm for training the hands.
"The early stages of Dragon Grasp require the hands to be trained until they are indestructible, with five claws leaving marks like an eagle's talons and possessing the sharpness of blades and swords, thereby breaking one's enemies!"
But at present, he had no items to aid his cultivation, such as iron sand.
Thinking of this, Shen Fan immediately found himself in a difficult position.
"Right!"
After pondering briefly, Shen Fan immediately came up with a solution.
"The 'Polar Ice-Fire Body Forging Art' can temper the entire body and provide absolute defense. If I use it to temper my hands, wouldn't it have the same effect?"
Thinking this, Shen Fan immediately activated the "Profound Water Freezing Art," temporarily transforming his water spiritual root into an ice spiritual root.
Then he circulated the "Polar Ice-Fire Body Forging Art," gathering the power of ice and fire in his hands to achieve the effect of cultivation.
As fire spiritual qi flowed into his hands, the searing pain even made Shen Fan feel as though he could smell roasted chicken wings.
Once the temperature reached the required level, ice spiritual qi swept in.
Shen Fan felt as though he had returned to childhood, when he had lacked cotton clothes and his hands had frozen into chilblains.
After ice and fire alternated, the meridians in his hands opened fully, and his blood surged.
Their strength and defense improved greatly.
After repeatedly tempering them like this, Shen Fan could clearly feel the strength and defense flowing from his hands, as though he could tear a fierce tiger apart alive.
"So strong!"
Shen Fan secretly marveled.
"I never expected the 'Polar Ice-Fire Body Forging Art' to have such astonishing results when used to temper only one part of the body!"
Previously, his cultivation had targeted his whole body. Now, focusing on a single limb produced such remarkable results.
Thinking of this, Shen Fan involuntarily lowered his head to look. Then he shuddered and shook his head.
This thing did have an ice-and-fire double-heaven method, but this was not how it was supposed to be used. It would break!
Before you continue