Lu Xiaotian reached out and cupped his hand. A palm-sized puppet doll refined from Azure Cloud Wood, bearing a face identical to his own, floated in his palm, and he could not help but smile knowingly. The refinement of this Puppet Doll also improved along with his own proficiency, and the ones refined now possessed a slightly higher capacity for absorbing damage than before. It could be called a supreme protective treasure that could substitute for his own death at a critical moment, which was tantamount to getting an extra life for free. Its preciousness went without saying, and once leaked to the outside world, it would be enough to cause a frenzy among Golden Core Cultivators.
Only, he wondered whether it would work on a Nascent Soul Cultivator. A look of yearning flashed through Lu Xiaotian's eyes, but they returned to clarity almost immediately. He did not know how far off the Nascent Soul Realm was, but it would probably take several centuries at the fastest. The gap between their cultivation realms was as vast as heaven and earth; what was useful to a Golden Core Cultivator might not necessarily play much of a role for a Nascent Soul Cultivator.
He was still thinking a bit too far ahead.
Lu Xiaotian stayed within the Marquis of Zhenwei's estate without making any unusual moves, usually just busy with his own cultivation, occasionally tending to the lotus flowers and leaves in the lotus pond. As for the spirit beasts in the marquis's estate that Cao Kun had spoken of, they rarely ever came over. This patch of crimson-leafed lotus pond spanned over ten miles in radius, and as the wind blew, the mat-sized lotus leaves stirred slightly, exuding a refreshing, crystalline fragrance. Those crimson lotus leaves resembled clusters of blazing flames