The only small town on the island was located at its eastern end, close to the harbor. The western part of the island featured a small mountain range spanning over twenty li, with two modest peaks—one about two to three hundred zhang tall, and the other just over a hundred zhang.
Han Li spotted the peaks from a distance in the air but suppressed his excitement, landing first in the center of the town.
The arrival of Han Li and Qu Hun caused quite a stir, and soon an elderly man claiming to be the town mayor hurried over to meet Han Li.
When Han Li handed over the jade slip with the golden symbol for the mayor to inspect, the latter immediately declared that the entire town was willing to follow all orders from the immortal master.
Han Li, of course, had no need for mortals to assist him with anything. He simply inquired about the general situation of the island and how much of the spirit stone consumption for the protective formation the townspeople could bear—this was his primary concern.
Upon hearing an almost negligible amount, Han Li felt somewhat frustrated.
Did this mean he would have to cover all the spirit stone expenses himself? That middle-aged cultivator had mentioned collecting some spirit stones from the residents to offset part of the losses, but it seemed those were just empty words—it made no real difference.
Han Li silently cursed the middle-aged cultivator before offering a few words of reassurance to the elderly mayor. He then roughly estimated the spirit stone consumption required for the formation and, comparing it with what the mayor had told him, handed over a year’s worth of spirit stones for the formation.
He informed the mayor that each year, they could come to his newly established cave abode to collect the spirit stones needed for the following year. Without waiting for the mayor’s repeated thanks, Han Li flew off with Qu Hun toward the western end of the island.
As soon as he entered the mountain range the islanders called “Little Ring Mountain,” Han Li felt a faint spiritual energy brushing against him, which brought a slight sense of joy.
A short while later, Han Li stood on his Divine Wind Boat, circling the two peaks—one tall, one short—several times.
Clearly, the slightly taller peak had a denser concentration of spiritual energy, but the shorter peak was sturdier and seemed more suitable for a cave abode. Moreover, it already had the intact remains of a previous cultivator’s cave, almost ready for immediate use.
After pondering for a moment on the Divine Wind Boat, a glint of determination flashed in Han Li’s eyes, and he made his decision.
He first flew into the remains of the cave on the shorter, sturdier peak. Deep within the cavern, he found a well-hidden spot and began fiercely striking the ground with his magic tools.
Half a day later, an underground passage began to take shape—a tunnel about two to three zhang in diameter, leading straight to the base of the mountain.
But when the tunnel reached about ten zhang below the base of the mountain, Han Li suddenly changed direction, digging toward the other peak, which was only two to three li away.
Despite the sharpness of Han Li’s magic tools and Qu Hun’s assistance, this massive project still took two full days to successfully connect the two peaks.
Afterward, Han Li fashioned a new cave abode inside the taller peak, modeled after his old cave in the Sky South. Everything about it was identical to the one on Mount Taiyue, except this time, he did not create an exit. Aside from the tunnel, it was completely semi-enclosed.
This would be the place where Han Li truly cultivated and grew his spiritual herbs. With one real and one decoy cave abode, he would be much safer.
Once the cave was ready, Han Li took out the earliest set of the “Inverted Five Elements Formation” he had acquired and set it up near the entrance of the shorter peak.
However, after flying between the two peaks and circling in the air for a while, Han Li still felt uneasy.
He decided to take out two more powerful formations from the set of formation tools given to him by Xin Ruxi—the “Heavenly Wind Rampant Formation” and the “Illusory Sky Net Formation,” complete with formation flags and disks.
These two formations covered a larger area and, once set up, completely enveloped the two peaks. Although not as miraculous as the “Inverted Five Elements Formation,” they would cause even Foundation Establishment cultivators significant trouble. Thus, unless a Core Formation cultivator launched a direct attack, Han Li’s cave abode was essentially impregnable.
Flying above the large formation, Han Li glanced at the peaks shrouded in milky white mist, let out a light laugh, and slowly descended into the fog, disappearing from sight.
Inside the real cave abode, Han Li did not relax or rest but remained busy.
First, he planted the seeds of some spiritual herbs in the hidden herb garden he had prepared. After all, even if he wanted to accelerate their growth, he had to wait for the seeds to sprout into seedlings.
Next, he buried the small vial, which he treated as his life, in a corner of the herb garden, covering it with the remnant of a magic treasure as before, allowing it to gather green liquid through fine holes secretly opened in the cave wall.
He then carved out several dozen chambers of varying sizes and, following the insect-raising insights of the Beast Taming Sect cultivators, modified each chamber’s environment accordingly. He released the pair of white spiders and the other surviving exotic insects into them, setting up restrictions nearby to prevent their escape.
Of course, he also scattered enough insect food to sustain them.
After completing these most critical tasks, Han Li did not take pills to meditate and refine his qi. Instead, he carefully took out the grayish-white jade slip obtained from the Yue Emperor, which contained many extremely bizarre secret techniques. Among them was the “External Incarnation” technique he had long coveted.
Han Li immersed his spiritual sense into the jade slip, carefully reading the cultivation method for the technique several times before withdrawing and falling into deep thought.
Although he had already made up his mind earlier, upon closer examination, he realized the dangers of cultivating this technique were quite significant.
The jade slip clearly stated that if the refinement of the avatar failed, the spiritual sense implanted into the avatar would be destroyed and irrecoverable. If the cultivator’s spiritual sense was not strong enough, they could suffer severe damage—ranging from prolonged madness to death by inner demon backlash. Even if the refinement succeeded, the so-called “external incarnation” would merely be an advanced puppet capable of autonomous cultivation and manipulation, far from the legendary immortal ability to split into multiple entities.
However, with the “Blood Condensation Five Elements Pill” in hand, Han Li had a great chance of enabling the avatar to form a “Murder Core.” This was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to possess a Core Formation-stage puppet guard. Even if it were only at the early Core Formation stage, it would grant him self-preservation capabilities against Core Formation cultivators.
Moreover, the most critical and difficult prerequisite for cultivating an avatar—a suitable body with spiritual roots but completely undamaged—was already in his possession.
That was Qu Hun, the refined corpse devoid of a soul.
Normally, extracting a cultivator’s primordial spirit, especially that of a low-level cultivator, would damage the body’s meridians due to the overbearing nature of the extraction spell, making it nearly impossible to cultivate spells afterward. This was why so many cultivators were surprised to find spiritual energy fluctuations in Qu Hun despite it being a refined corpse. Although it was possible for the body to remain unharmed after extracting the primordial spirit, it was purely coincidental and occurred in less than one out of a hundred cases.
Unfortunately, the secret technique for refining an “external incarnation” required not only an unharmed body after primordial spirit extraction but also that the body belonged to a low-level cultivator below the sixth layer. This made finding a suitable body even more difficult.
Although Han Li didn’t know why such a peculiar requirement existed, he guessed it might be related to easier control of the body after implanting a split consciousness.
He didn’t know how Qu Hun had been coincidentally created by Yu Zitong and Doctor Mo, but Qu Hun met all the conditions and was an excellent vessel for refining an avatar.
As for the Yue Emperor, he had probably extracted the primordial spirits of countless low-level cultivators before stumbling upon a suitable body. Otherwise, he would have refined more than one avatar.
After sitting cross-legged on the ground and pondering for a long time, Han Li decided to first cultivate the Great Development Art to the second layer before attempting to refine the avatar. Only then would failure in the refinement process not pose significant harm. He had deeply experienced the miraculous effects of the Great Development Art in strengthening spiritual sense.
Of course, before cultivating the Great Development Art, he needed to restore his Foundation Establishment cultivation first, as the “external incarnation” technique could only be cultivated after reaching Foundation Establishment.
Once the avatar refinement was complete, regardless of success or failure, Han Li planned to explore the cultivation of the “Triple Revolving Profound Art.” After all, only this technique and the “Green Origin Sword Art” were key to whether he could form a core and step into the Great Dao.
After mapping out his future cultivation plan, Han Li entered the cave’s secret chamber and began taking pills to refine his qi.
For now, he only took two low-level pills: “Yellow Dragon Pill” and “Golden Marrow Pill.” The Foundation Establishment Pill was still too potent for his current state; it would be more appropriate to take it after reaching the seventh layer of cultivation.
By his estimation, without the bottleneck of Foundation Establishment, he should quickly advance into the Foundation Establishment stage.
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