Mortal: Fairy Song Yu has issued you a task.

Chapter 96 Puppet, Spirit Insect

After collecting the spirits of the Jade Fleece Rabbit, Lin Jingchu immediately returned to the Bamboo Valley Cave.

Upon entering the cave, he did not linger but went straight to the storage room.

Earlier, the four-armed puppet obtained from Du Dong of the Thousand Illusions Sect was disassembled and stored here by Lin Jingchu because he could not understand it and its main material, "Hundred-Year Yin Wood," was quite precious.

At this moment, the huge puppet remains in the chamber have disappeared, replaced by five standing puppets with tiger heads and human bodies.

This is the Qi Refining stage puppet that Lin Jingchu created using century-old Yin wood as the main material, based on the "Puppet Manual" attached to the "Great Evolution Manual".

They are entirely dark purple, characteristic of Yin Wood, about the height of an average person, with ferocious tiger heads. They can spew out a burst of Yin Fire spiritual light from their mouths, equivalent to a full-force attack from a late-stage Qi Refining cultivator, and their ten fingers can extend sharp metal claws comparable to mid-grade magic weapons.

Making puppets wasn't particularly difficult for Lin Jingchu, who was skilled in crafting artifacts. He mastered the technique after only one failure.

Lin Jingchu walked up to a tiger-headed puppet and took out a jade bottle that sealed the puppet's spirit. He gestured with his finger, and the pale green light was drawn out and then injected into the core rune between the puppet's eyebrows.

Then, Lin Jingchu's expression turned solemn, his hands quickly formed hand seals, and he began to chant complex incantations.

He intends to use the "Soul Refining Technique" recorded in the "Great Evolution Manual" to refine this spirit, so that it will completely merge with the core of the puppet and become an existence similar to a weapon spirit.

Although it is just a simple control center, with it, the puppet can make basic reactions and actions on its own according to preset or received divine commands.

As the final incantation's spiritual light entered, two points of eerie green light suddenly shone from the tiger-headed puppet's empty eye sockets, and its previously stiff body trembled slightly.

Lin Jingchu separated a wisp of divine thought and sent it into the core of the puppet. At the same time, he opened the chest cover and embedded a spirit stone into the groove.

"Shine my shoes," he thought to himself.

The tiger-headed puppet immediately squatted down, stretched out its wooden hand, and pretended to wipe Lin Jingchu's shoes.

Lin Jingchu took a step back. The puppet didn't stop, maintaining its wiping posture and following in sync.

Stop.

The tiger-headed puppet instantly stopped all movement, frozen in place.

"Get up and dance."

The tiger-headed puppet immediately sprang to its feet, its limbs flailing wildly.

A look of satisfaction appeared on Lin Jingchu's face. With just a simple command issued through divine thought, the puppet could understand and act on its own, without the master needing to be distracted by controlling it. It was quite practical whether fighting enemies or handling miscellaneous tasks.

Moreover, through that connection, what the puppet sees and hears can also be fed back to him, like a simple "clone".

Of course, it also has its drawbacks.

Firstly, there is a slight delay between the issuance of commands and the puppet's response.

Secondly, once the puppet leaves his vicinity of about three miles, the wisp of divine sense attached to it will return on its own due to the weakening connection. This is basically consistent with the maximum range that Lin Jingchu's divine sense can currently accurately detect.

Lin Jingchu followed the same method, refining the remaining four strands of Jade Fleece Rabbit spirit into the puppet's core one by one.

Inside the chamber, four pairs of eerie green lights lit up in succession. Five tiger-headed puppets stood silently like soldiers, their sharp claws gleaming coldly.

He put away the five puppets, turned and left the storage room, and went to the insect chamber of the Heavenly Crystal Ant Queen.

As soon as he stepped into the stone chamber, a beam of purple light shot towards him and hovered in front of him. It was the queen ant, whose entire body looked as if it were carved from amethyst.

Lin Jingchu extended his index finger, and the queen ant obediently landed on his fingertip.

The demon soul of the Heavenly Crystal Ant is quite peculiar. According to the "Soul Separation and Soul Transfer Technique", the separated wisp of divine soul, after being nourished and strengthened, should form a symbiotic relationship with the demon soul, thereby achieving the goal of permanently controlling the spirit pet.

However, the wisp of his soul that he planted began to slowly merge with the demonic soul of the Heavenly Crystal Ant during its growth. Fortunately, this change caused the Heavenly Crystal Ant to develop a faint sense of closeness to him.

Just in case, Lin Jingchu still dared not let the queen ant start to reproduce.

Besides the restrictions, the amount of royal jelly fed to the ants was kept to a minimum each time. Even so, over a long period of time, nearly half of the royal jelly had been consumed.

After feeding, Lin Jingchu returned to his quiet room to continue his practice of the Great Evolution Technique.

These days, his daily schedule is packed. During the day, he cultivates the "Great Evolution Technique" to strengthen his divine sense, and at night he practices his main cultivation technique, the "Moon Gazing Technique," to condense his magical power and draw in the moonlight.

As for the Wanmiao Temple's "Introduction to Talismans" that he specially purchased in Yuanwu Kingdom, he originally planned to study the art of talismans, but now he can only postpone it indefinitely.

Time flies when you're on a spiritual journey. In the blink of an eye, a month has quietly passed.

On this day, Lin Jingchu had just finished his studies of the "Great Evolution Technique" when a transmission talisman flew into his cave. It was a message from his senior brother, the manager of Linglong Pavilion: all the various cold-natured spiritual items that had been commissioned to be acquired had arrived.

Lin Jingchu tidied himself up briefly and then headed to the market. About half an hour later, he returned from the market, his storage bag now containing several jade boxes and bottles filled with spiritual items.

Without delay, he went straight to the stone chamber where the "Mysterious Frost Gathering Cold Array" was set up.

As the stone door opened, a chilling aura rushed out, and the walls and floor of the room were covered with a thick layer of white frost.

Lin Jingchu stepped inside, then closed the stone door behind him, isolating himself from the outside world.

He first checked the operation of the Frost Gathering Array, then replaced it with a new spirit stone to ensure a stable and normal supply of cold air.

Next, Lin Jingchu walked to the central jade platform.

The Xuanhan Jade Platform absorbed the biting cold energy generated by the array, emitting a warm, pale blue glow that nourished everything on it.

The six-winged centipede eggs still lay quietly on the jade platform, their surface luster seemingly a little more vibrant than before.

Lin Jingchu carefully moved the insect eggs aside. Then he drew his Embroidered Spring Blade, and with a precise flash, he carved a shallow basin-shaped groove into the precious Xuanhan Jade Platform.

He then took out all the spiritual items he had purchased, such as Ice Heart Jade Marrow, Frost Snow Root Powder, and Mystic Ice Water, as well as the thousand-year-old cold spiritual herbs he had obtained earlier, and put them into the groove one by one, mixing them with the cold jade fragments he had dug out.

Lin Jingchu gathered magical power at his fingertips, inscribed guiding runes in mid-air, and used the water refining technique to slowly fuse various spiritual objects together.

About an incense stick's time later, a pool of deep blue, viscous chalcedony, radiating an astonishing chill, slowly took shape in the groove, with fine ice crystals even beginning to condense on its surface.

Only then did Lin Jingchu place the six-winged frost centipede eggs into the carefully prepared "cold marrow jade liquid." Upon touching the jade liquid, the surface of the eggs seemed to flicker slightly for a moment before returning to stillness.

Having done all this, Lin Jingchu left the insect chamber and resealed the stone door. The restoration of life wouldn't happen overnight, so he wasn't impatient. From now on, he only needed to check on it every few days and make minor adjustments to the Cold Marrow Jade Liquid as needed.

And so, another half month passed.

A sound transmission talisman flew into the cave and stopped in front of Lin Jingchu.

Master has emerged from seclusion!