The majestic Immortal Palace was pure white throughout, wreathed in immortal qi, resembling a celestial realm.
Unfortunately, this exquisitely beautiful palace lacked vitality, lying silent and deathly still.
It had been dormant for over a hundred thousand years. At that world-altering moment, it had been torn from the heavens and earth, becoming an independent, unknown location. For over a hundred thousand years, only the charred Corpse Puppets occasionally broke the silence within the palace.
Suddenly, a golden figure flashed through the stillness, streaking like lightning.
"Left."
Following the golden figure was a human-sized puppet. Its facial features and details were carved somewhat crudely, but its joints were exceptionally refined and incredibly agile. Even more peculiar was the powerful aura emanating from this puppet, comparable to that of a Core Formation cultivator.
The golden figure, meanwhile, was a spirit beast covered in golden fur, resembling a civet cat, with a pair of jet-black eyes shrewdly scanning its surroundings.
The puppet obediently headed left. This was a small medicinal garden. Over the long years, most of its restrictions had failed, but some remnants remained. Blocked by the restriction, the puppet raised its hand. The ancient azure lamp it held glowed, and with a "bang," it shattered the remaining restriction.
Then, the puppet and the spirit beast swaggered into the medicinal garden, uprooting all the still-intact, rare spirit herbs in one go—some stored in the spirit beast's own storage space, others into the Qiankun Bag hanging from the puppet.
Afterwards, they retreated from the garden and continued searching the Immortal Palace.
Mo Tiange poured out a pile of miscellaneous items from the Qiankun Bag, glanced over them, picked out a few useful ones to keep, sorted the useless ones separately, then re-hung the empty Qiankun Bag back on the puppet.
Without her command, the puppet stood obediently, unmoving.
She glanced sideways at Feifei. After deciding to stay here temporarily, it had automatically arranged a nest for itself beside the low table, using high-grade demon beast pelts, layered one upon another, making it extremely comfortable. At this moment, Feifei was squatting in its nest, leisurely grooming its golden fur. Sensing her gaze, it glanced back, then continued with its own business.
"I say, as a spirit beast, don't you have any sense of duty?" Mo Tiange lightly tapped the tabletop, eyeing it askance.
Feifei yawned, lazily lying down, replying via divine sense: "If you want me to work, shouldn't there be some compensation for the effort?"
"..." Seeing its utterly matter-of-fact expression, Mo Tiange ultimately shook her head and sighed helplessly. Fine, she had long known what kind of temperament her spirit beast had. Although it called her master, it never considered itself a servant. A divine beast needed its dignity.
Four years had passed since the Immortal Palace passage closed. The four of them were trapped in the Underground Palace. Yang Chengji had been in secluded cultivation the entire time in the cave housing the Origin Demon Stele; Jing Xingzhi had also diligently practiced swordsmanship to improve his cultivation; while she and Qin Xi cultivated day after day, studying mechanism arts and alchemy.
After four years, Qin Xi had preliminarily mastered ancient alchemy techniques. However, the God Transformation Pill remained a distant goal. Not to mention that several of its spirit herbs were extremely rare, but since it was a pill that aided God Transformation, it was considered top-tier even across the entire human realm—how could it be so easily refined?
Therefore, Qin Xi had temporarily set aside ancient alchemy.
After all, God Transformation was still far off for him. Even Perfected One Zhenyang and Perfected One Jinghe, who were already at the Nascent Soul late-stage, would need at least several hundred years to reach late-stage perfection. On the other hand, Mo Tiange's Nascent Soul formation was imminent, requiring many pills—it was time to start refining them.
As for Mo Tiange, she hadn't wasted these four years either. First, she had thoroughly memorized Mo Yaoqing's cultivation insights and Fuyaozi's Nascent Soul formation experience, preparing herself for the process. Once conditions were ripe, she could enter secluded cultivation at any time. Additionally, her greatest progress was in mechanism arts. She could now create Core Formation Stage puppets. After imprinting them with her divine sense, she could send them out of the Underground Palace on errands.
Seeing her actually succeed in making Core Formation Stage puppets, Jing Xingzhi was filled with envy. But upon second thought, he had nothing to regret. Although Mo Tiange had no intention of hiding it from him, he lacked the materials for making puppets and didn't have enough Soul-Crystal Jade to practice with. As for Crystal Jade—joking aside, how could he bear to use such a treasure for puppets?
For Core Formation Stage puppets, Soul-Crystal Jade was no longer sufficient; Crystal Stone was generally used. However, Mo Tiange didn't have much Crystal Stone—only a dozen or so pieces, scavenged from the Qiankun Bags of those ancient Core Formation cultivators during their earlier adventures. Thus, she had only made three Core Formation puppets in total. To make more, she would need to use Crystal Jade.
After creating the Core Formation Stage puppets, Mo Tiange began studying the "Jade Bone Puppet Art" manual while having Feifei lead the puppets out to roam the Immortal Palace, scavenging for treasures left behind.
Feifei was extremely clever. Over the years, it had ventured out of the Underground Palace many times and had long since familiarized itself with the Immortal Palace's layout. It knew exactly where the Corpse Puppets were and where restrictions remained. Having it lead the puppets to scavenge treasures was most suitable.
However, the drawback was that Feifei was too clever. It wasn't an honest little servant like Xiao Fan, who did whatever it was told. Not only did it often act on its own initiative, but it also constantly hoarded things for itself, storing anything it fancied in its own storage space without ever bringing it out.
High-rank spirit beasts mostly possessed their own unique storage spaces, generally located in their abdominal area, inaccessible to others. To retrieve items from within, one would have to kill it and skin the abdominal area to make a Qiankun Bag.
Mo Tiange certainly wouldn't do such a thing. She wasn't a stingy person either—with so many spirit herbs in the Void Heaven Realm for them to eat freely, why fuss over these few things?
During this period, the combination of Core Formation Stage puppets and Feifei had scavenged quite a few good items from the Immortal Palace. Spirit herbs went without saying—aside from special varieties she transplanted into the Void Heaven Realm, the rest ended up in Feifei's pocket.
What they did most often was search the remains of ancient cultivators in abandoned cave abodes. This task was most suitable for puppets—they weren't afraid of injury or restrictions. Equipped with restriction-breaking magic treasures Qin Xi had refined by imitating the Dingyue Lamp, they were almost always successful.
However, even so, the treasures they could obtain were limited.
The remains of ancient cultivators were the most common and easily obtainable wealth within the Immortal Palace. This palace had seen two groups of people: one was the Five Saints from a hundred thousand years ago, the other being the Nascent Soul cultivators who entered with them. The Five Saints were one thing—they spent much time seeking opportunities and didn't take many of these secondary ancient remains. But four years ago, during that Immortal Palace exploration, quite a few people had entered.
These people, unlike them, lacked the inheritance objects of the Five Saints and didn't know where the true opportunities lay. Upon entering the palace, they could only search everywhere. What they searched for most were, of course, these ancient cultivators' cave abodes. Most of the remains were taken by them.
As for the cave abodes of God Transformation Stage ancient cultivators, their targets were too obvious. Almost all had been cracked open by those late-Nascent Soul cultivators, leaving few treasures behind.
But regardless, this was still the Immortal Palace. Even if the big fish had been scooped up, the remaining small fry, when gathered together, were not to be underestimated.
After all, times were different now. In the ancient cultivation world, resources were abundant. Many things that cultivators back then didn't give a second thought to were rare heavenly materials and earthly treasures in the present day.
Over half a year like this, the combination of Core Formation puppets and Feifei had almost scoured the entire Immortal Palace, accumulating an astonishing fortune for Mo Tiange.
After putting everything away, Mo Tiange turned her head and noticed Qin Xi wasn't cultivating or refining pills but was instead gazing thoughtfully at the puppet.
"What's wrong?" she asked.
Qin Xi snapped out of his reverie and replied, "I was thinking about that God Transformation Stage Corpse Puppet."
"Is there a problem?" That Corpse Puppet roamed the Immortal Palace, preventing them from easily leaving the Underground Palace. But the cultivation gap was too vast; there was nothing they could do.
"If that Corpse Puppet weren't there, we could leave the Underground Palace. Then, we could find a cave abode, and you could enter secluded cultivation for Nascent Soul formation."
Mo Tiange had, of course, considered this. The trouble with her entering secluded cultivation was that the Underground Palace wasn't convenient for hiding traces, making it easy to reveal flaws. Plus, preparations for Nascent Soul formation weren't complete, so she hadn't been in a hurry. Now, the pills for Nascent Soul formation were almost refined, and she had committed all those insights to memory. It was indeed time to consider entering secluded cultivation.
But that Corpse Puppet's cultivation was too high. They truly couldn't think of a way to deal with it; otherwise, they wouldn't have resorted to that clever method of using puppets to leave the palace and search for treasures.
"That's true, but what can we do? That Corpse Puppet is at the God Transformation Stage. If we encounter it, running is our only option."
"I originally thought the same," Qin Xi said slowly. "But just now, I thought of something that might be feasible."
"What?" Mo Tiange perked up. If they could resolve this Corpse Puppet issue, they could leave the Underground Palace without worry, and many problems would be solved.
"I remember you know a Life-Force Isolating Formation, right?"
Mo Tiange pondered briefly. The Profound Mechanism Formation Manual indeed contained such a record. However, a Life-Force Isolating Formation wasn't very useful ordinarily and was quite troublesome to set up. Moreover, the Corpse Puppet's cultivation was too high; using this formation to trap it wasn't practical.
She was about to say something when Qin Xi raised his hand to stop her and continued: "First, we can try to find the pattern of this Corpse Puppet's roaming. For example, if we lure it into a sealed valley, will it then roam only within that valley?"
When chasing people, the Corpse Puppet could fly. But during its roaming, they hadn't seen it fly. Thinking of this, Mo Tiange's eyes lit up, and she continued watching Qin Xi.
"If that's truly the case, we can lure it into an enclosed space, then set up a Life-Force Isolating Formation around it. Although this formation might not be very effective against a God Transformation Stage entity, it should at least reduce the range at which it can sense life-force, right? As long as we don't approach that range, we'll be safe."
Mo Tiange's eyes grew brighter. That's right. The Life-Force Isolating Formation might not be 100% effective against the Corpse Puppet, but it should have some effect. As long as the range wasn't too wide, they could live safely outside it. But—
"Luring it to a specific location is too dangerous, isn't it?"
"Exactly. That's the problem I couldn't solve, which is why I haven't mentioned it before. But now it's different." Qin Xi's gaze fell on the puppet. "You can now create Core Formation Stage puppets. We'll use them as bait."
Mo Tiange hesitated. "But these puppets don't have human aura!"
"Use transformation talismans," Qin Xi said. "These talismans aren't difficult. Give me some time, and I can draw them."