After a flash of spiritual light in the distant sky, a green rainbow some two zhang long hurtled through the air like lightning, arriving above a sea of fog stretching for a hundred li.
As the radiance faded, a young cultivator appeared, dressed in a scholar's robe — none other than Han Li.
With a bamboo tube strapped to his back, he peered down at the sea of fog below without cease.
But all he could see was a vast expanse of white haze, making it impossible to discern anything at all.
Han Li raised an eyebrow, a blue light flickering in his pupils. A moment later, his expression turned dark.
"This Kuzhu Island really does have some tricks. Even with the Clear Bright Spirit Eyes, I can't fully see through the restrictions below. The Grand Myriad Wooden Formation truly lives up to its reputation," Han Li murmured to himself.
"That goes without saying. But the Black Wind Tail Feathers from Kuzhu Island can elevate the power of the Seven Flame Fan you're refining to the next level — this trip is an absolute must. Besides, Old Man Kuzhu seems like the perfect opponent for testing the puppet's might. A win-win, really." The faint voice of the Grand Arcane Master drifted from the bamboo tube, sounding even weaker than when he had first split off his spiritual soul.
"I know. That's why I came here the moment the puppet was finished. But… how much longer can you hold on?" Han Li asked, a note of concern in his voice.
"Don't worry. With the help of your Soul-Suppressing Talisman, I won't easily pass on to the next life until I've seen the puppet's true power." The Grand Arcane Master let out a low chuckle.
Han Li nodded, glanced down at the sea of fog beneath his feet, then suddenly narrowed his eyes and patted a storage pouch at his waist with one hand.
Instantly, a swirl of green light unfurled outward. A figure flickered, and a middle-aged cultivator of similar build to Han Li, with a pale complexion, materialized before him.
This cultivator wore a yellow robe, his skin like jade. Looking closely, his features were clearly identical to those of the small person-puppet the Grand Arcane Master had previously inhabited. But his eyes glinted with cold light, his expression icy, without a trace of a smile.
Though Han Li had seen it many times before, he still couldn't help stealing a glance the moment the puppet appeared.
The Spirit-Commanding Soft Jade really was wondrous beyond measure. Originally a dull gray, once it was refined using the method taught by the Grand Arcane Master, its color shifted to match the tone of human skin. After fusing all of the soft jade onto the puppet's outer shell — forged primarily from tempered silver — a lifelike human being materialized before his eyes.
And thanks to the Spirit-Commanding Soft Jade's malleable nature, combined with a sliver of his own spiritual sense infused into the puppet, Han Li could make it speak and shift its expressions just as a real person would.
The only drawback to using this puppet was likely the spirit stones. A high-tier puppet like this was hardly suited to ordinary mid-grade spirit stones — under full power, they could barely sustain a few attacks. Only high-grade spirit stones could fuel the puppet at full strength.
But the rarity of high-grade spirit stones went without saying. Ever since arriving in Great Jin, even though Han Li had deliberately sought them out at every market, he had managed to collect only a handful. If the puppet were to attack at full power, each high-grade stone would likely last no more than a quarter of an hour.
"Go ahead," Han Li said calmly.
Regardless, now that the puppet had been forged, it definitely needed to be tested.
Without a word, the puppet raised both hands, its five fingers slightly spread.
Instantly, faint green spiritual light gathered rapidly in its palms. In the blink of an eye, two massive orbs of light the size of human heads condensed into being, dazzlingly bright and awe-inspiring in their presence.
With two muffled pops, the puppet flicked its wrists, and the orbs of light transformed into two beams that shot downward, vanishing into the sea of fog in the blink of an eye, as if swallowed whole.
Han Li watched the sea of fog impassively, saying nothing.
Moments later, earth-shattering explosions rumbled forth. The once-calm sea of fog surged and roiled violently, and then two pillars of wind, each roughly a zhang thick, erupted skyward from the fog, spinning wildly and wreaking havoc. A hundred zhang of surrounding fog was instantly cleared away, like foul sea dragons bursting from the ocean.
Almost the instant the wind pillars appeared, several sharp shrieks of varying length erupted from below, filled with a mixture of shock and fury.
Han Li's gaze swept down across the fog beneath him. A massive island flickered in and out of view through the much-thinned fog, and above it, a layer of faint green light shimmered, seeming to envelop the greater part of the island.
At that moment, more than ten beams of multicolored light shot out from the barrier, hurtling aggressively toward Han Li's position.
Clearly, that strike had alarmed the cultivators on the island.
Han Li could tell at a glance that this group of cultivators varied widely in strength — some at Foundation Establishment, others at Core Formation — but the elderly man leading them was a late-stage Core Formation cultivator.
"Who are you two, and why—? Oh, so it's two seniors. May I ask what brings you to our island?"
These people had flown up to Han Li ready to confront them with angry accusations. But after the leading cultivator swept them with his spiritual sense, he discovered that Han Li was a mid-stage Nascent Soul cultivator — the same level as Old Man Kuzhu — and he couldn't gauge the puppet's realm at all. His heart lurched, and his tone immediately turned deferential.