This scene lasted for several days until the blood-colored figure turned yellow again, at which point Zhang Ling breathed a sigh of relief.
Looking at the figure now, it had fully formed facial features and looked exactly like him, with a blood-red bead at the heart position pulsating like a heart.
The yellow figure flashed and sat cross-legged opposite Zhang Ling. Then, Zhang Ling extended his left hand, and a dozen gray-white vines transformed into strands of silk, wrapping around the figure.
Instantly, the figure was dyed gray-white. These vine threads were separated from the roots of the vines parasitic on him.
Extracting these vine threads made Zhang Ling's face even paler. For the spell to succeed, this step was essential.
To condense this kind of substitute puppet, one must use a cultivator's natal item. The simplest natal item is the cultivator's natal magic weapon.
However, this kind of puppet is one-time use only. Once destroyed, the natal magic weapon is also destroyed, which is quite limiting.
Fortunately, the parasitic vines on his body had become one with him and could be considered a natal item, perfect for replacing it.
As the entire figure was enveloped in the vine threads, the magic seals in Zhang Ling's hands changed again, and some strange hand seals were cast upon it.
The figure's size gradually shrank. This scene lasted for quite a while until, at a certain moment, the figure disappeared, transforming into a gray straw doll only an inch in size.
Only then did Zhang Ling stop casting the spell. At this moment, his face was as white as paper. This was due to the exhaustion of the spiritual power in his body. Furthermore, extracting the vine roots to refine this substitute puppet had cost him a lot of essence blood. It could be said that he had already damaged some of his vitality.
Looking at the straw doll woven from vines in front of him, Zhang Ling sensed it. The aura on the straw doll was exactly the same as his, which meant that it had been successfully condensed.
With a thought, the straw doll transformed into a stream of light and merged into his body. Zhang Ling closed his eyes and looked inward. The puppet was now in his dantian, sitting cross-legged like a real person, in a meditative pose.
However, this did not mean that the straw doll could immediately act as a substitute to withstand damage for him.
For this straw doll to truly function as a substitute puppet and withstand damage, it would need to be nurtured within the body for a long time.
Every day, a certain amount of effort must be spent to refine this puppet. According to the introduction of this secret technique, the longer this puppet is nurtured in the body, the better its effect.
To reach the level of withstanding a fatal blow, it must be nurtured in the body for at least sixty to seventy years.
The effort consumed in this process is imaginable, but it would all be worth it once this item can withstand a fatal crisis.
Next, Zhang Ling took out a few pills to restore vitality and essence blood and swallowed them, closing his eyes to meditate and recover from the consumption of the past few days.
As time passed, more than a month later, Zhang Ling finally recovered his depleted vitality. However, he did not leave the quiet room. Instead, he swallowed a few more pills to increase his cultivation and began to seclude himself.
In the following time, he was in a state of seclusion. After all, the growth of cultivation is the most important thing for a cultivator.
Even with the assistance of good pills, it would still take a long time of hard work to reach the mid-stage of the Golden Core.
This is the daily life of high-level cultivators. After Zhang Ling went into seclusion, the entire Fire Cloud Island returned to peace, and day after day passed.
……
One day three years later, Zhang Ling was cultivating diligently in the quiet room when suddenly his mind stirred. He quickly stopped his practice and stood up. Then, he transformed into a stream of light and rushed out, flying straight towards the other side of the mountain where his cave was located.
Soon after, he arrived in front of another cliff face. With a flash of spiritual light on his body, he directly used the Earth Escape Technique to move forward underground.
After going hundreds of feet deep underground, Zhang Ling arrived at a dark stone cave.
This was an underground stone cave, the entire space was fifty to sixty zhang in size. On the surrounding stone walls were embedded fist-sized moonstones, illuminating a certain area.
But at this moment, a layer of gray-black mist was floating in this stone cave, obscuring most of the space.
Zhang Ling's eyes swept across the cave and looked at a black stone jade platform in the center of the stone cave. A tall humanoid creature was sitting on it.
A series of howls came from the humanoid creature's mouth.
The sound was quite terrifying, but Zhang Ling's face showed joy, and with a flash, he stood next to the humanoid creature.
This humanoid creature was none other than his Fiendish Demon clone, that corpse bear.
At this time, the corpse bear was entrenched with a strong Yin Fiendish spiritual power, causing the temperature of the entire space to drop sharply.
Zhang Ling did not dare to neglect it. He quickly took out a formation plate, and as the magic seals were cast on it, a layer of dark blue spiritual light lit up in the entire space.
Under the coverage of this fluorescent light, the Yin Fiendish spiritual power in the entire space became even more condensed.
This space was originally opened up by him specifically for the corpse bear to cultivate after he came back. The jade platform on which it was sitting was refined from a piece of thousand-year-old cold jade into a Yin Fiendish magic treasure.
At the same time, a layer of Yin spirit stones was laid underground in this space. Zhang Ling transformed this cave into a Yin Fiendish place extremely suitable for the corpse bear to cultivate.
The two ghost pills obtained from the white-haired giant rat were swallowed by the corpse bear as soon as he came back. In that Yin Fiendish place, the corpse bear also devoured a lot of the flesh and blood of the black-haired spiders.
Plus, now that three or four years have passed, it looks like it's about to break through today.
While Zhang Ling urged the Yin Gathering Formation in this place to operate at full power, he slapped his storage bag and took out thirty to forty middle-grade Yin spirit stones and placed them at the corpse bear's feet.
These middle-grade Yin spirit stones are very difficult to collect in the market. Of course, he can take out these Yin spirit stones because they were obtained from the Yin spirit vein on Water Light Island.
He collected a lot of Yin spirit stones and Ice spirit stones inside. He should have collected more than 40,000 low-grade ones in total, and 30,000 Ice spirit stones.
And the middle-grade Yin spirit stones were even rarer, only collecting more than 500 pieces from that Yin water pool. The Yin Fiendish spiritual power gathered by the middle-grade Yin spirit stones is extremely strong, very suitable for assisting the corpse bear in breaking through.
After arranging these auxiliary formations, Zhang Ling took out a disc-shaped cyan-blue jade disc. With a flash of spiritual light in his hand, the jade disc transformed into a stream of spiritual light, fixed above the corpse bear's head and constantly rotated, scattering a layer of silver light.
This is a piece of Cyan Moon Jade stone, which gathers a small amount of moonlight spiritual power inside. It is a rare special treasure on the market that can assist monsters such as demons, ghosts, and zombies in advancing.
This piece of Cyan Moon Jade stone is very valuable, costing Zhang Ling a full 200,000 spirit stones to buy occasionally.
With the assistance of this treasure, it can also increase the possibility of the corpse bear's advancement.
Zhang Ling also sat down in a corner of the stone cave, while releasing most of his mind to fully assist the corpse bear's advancement.
