Chapter 216: The Puppet Master's Mask

The face of the Formation Array Tribulation Practitioner turned green with shock.

A second-rank array master! He, a mere first-rank array master, had actually attempted to trap a second-rank array master with his formation.

Checkmate!

Floating in mid-air, Chen Luo rotated his hand, and the second-rank array instantly transformed. The nine magic swords’ formation patterns shifted like projections. In the next instant, the swords themselves vanished, replaced by a dense field of sword glares within the trapped area.

“The formation eye! Where’s the formation eye?”

The Formation Array Tribulation Practitioner desperately searched for the formation eye, hoping to break the array. But his skill in formations fell far short of Chen Luo’s. Forget finding the eye—even discerning directions became impossible in the blink of an eye.

Sword glares rained down, coalescing into a spherical storm that compressed in from all sides. The fleeing Bug Control Tribulation Practitioner and Formation Array Tribulation Practitioner, faces pale, rushed to join forces, attempting to resist.

“We came here together, we should leave together too.”

Pill Master Chen, ever compassionate and unable to bear the sight of others’ suffering, pressed his hand down, causing the cyclone of sword glares to abruptly dissipate.

“Ah!!”

Moments later, two more screams of agony pierced the air.

Both the Formation Array Master and the Bug Control Master met their demise simultaneously, their mutilated bodies lying motionless in the mud. With a sweep of his sleeve, Chen Luo recalled the nine Magic Swords back into his garment.

The two cultivators’ brains became his latest trophies.

Having acquired four more Foundation Establishment brains in one fell swoop, Chen Luo’s mood couldn’t have been brighter.

He approached and carefully collected the four individuals’ Pouches of Holding. Elder An and Old Brother Han were running low on their spiritual stone reserves, fretting over the lack of funds. Now, with this unexpected influx, they could replenish their supplies. The hard-earned resources of these Four Great Tribulation Cultivators, accumulated over a lifetime, would now benefit Chen Luo, allowing Pill Master Chen to once again live extravagantly.

With a wave of spiritual energy, Chen Luo gathered the four corpses together. He then retrieved a shovel from his bag of holding and began digging a pit.

After discarding the bodies into the hole, Chen Luo didn’t rush to fill it. Instead, he took out the Soul Banner and waved it over the corpses.

“Sip!”

The Soul Banner rippled.

Four faint auras were extracted from the bodies and merged into the banner. Drawing from his experience at the ghost temple, Chen Luo had added a new service to his usual routine of digging and burying—souls collection.

For ordinary martial artists or cultivators in the Qi Refining stage, the corpse burier’s techniques could handle their remains completely. However, Foundation Establishment cultivators were different. During the Foundation Establishment stage, their life force underwent a transcendence. Even after burial, some residual essence would remain, posing a potential threat when encountered by experts like the Ghost Temple, who specialized in refining divine souls. This was why Chen Luo had added an extra step to his process, essentially building upon Third Uncle’s craftsmanship and pushing it further—achieving what they say in ancient texts: “Indigo extracted from blue, yet deeper than its source.”

“After letting them rest for a while, I’ll offer them as primary souls. They can keep Lin Feng’s master company.”

Having safely stored the souls, Chen Luo began filling the grave with earth.

In no time, a small mound emerged amid the desolate mountains and valleys.

With his task complete, Chen Luo put away his bag of holding and followed the old ritual for laying the bodies to rest. He took out a jade-colored bell from his bag, held a handful of yellow paper in his right hand, and as he shook the bell, he scattered the paper.

“Dust to dust, earth to earth.”

After the battlefield cleanup, Chen Luo took flight with his loot, heading straight back to Blackstone City’s outer district. It took him a mere fifteen minutes to return.

Inside his room, Chen Luo brought out all the storage pouches he’d collected during this latest round of scavenging.

First, he opened Shi Jun’s pouch of holding.

This fellow had been chosen as the Demonseed Sect Leader’s demonic seed, giving him a special status within the sect and far more resources than ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivators. Inside his Pouch of Holding, Chen Luo discovered nearly one hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones. This starkly highlighted the wealth gap between rogue cultivators and powerful ones.

In transactions among rogue cultivators, low-grade spirit stones were the common unit of exchange. In the Qi Refining realm, ten thousand low-grade spirit stones were considered highly valuable. Typically, ordinary Qi Refining cultivators’ purchases ranged from dozens to hundreds of spirit stones; anything costing several thousand was seen as quite expensive. When Chen Luo first traded with Zhu Jie, the Loose Cultivators Union’s Headmistress, in the Seven Nations Territory, the amounts involved fell within this range.

Upon reaching Foundation Establishment, ten thousand low-grade spirit stones formed the baseline for value. The power differential between Foundation Establishment and Qi Refining realms was significant.

Resources scarce to Qi Refining cultivators held less value in the eyes of Foundation Establishment cultivators.

For instance, pills considered precious in the Qi Refining realm were cheap to Foundation Establishment cultivators. Even Chen Luo’s self-developed Spirit Foundation Pill held little value to them, as their spiritual absorption and refinement capabilities far surpassed those in the lower realm. Within the Foundation Establishment realm, only high-grade spirit stones were considered truly lavish.

Within Shi Jun’s Pouch of Holding, Chen Luo discovered a staggering hundred thousand low-grade spirit stones. No wonder Shi Jun had spoken with such arrogance earlier. Beyond the spirit stones, Chen Luo also found the previously crafted corpse and several cultivation techniques—items Shi Jun had purchased at the exchange meet, now all becoming Chen Luo’s spoils of war.

The legacy of a second-rank talismancer was in his grasp as well. After a quick skim, memories of the talismancer’s ‘experience drawing talismans’ resurfaced in Chen Luo’s mind. Given time to practice, he could fully inherit this second-rank talismancer’s expertise.

“A truly remarkable individual,” Chen Luo couldn’t help but marvel.

Shi Jun bore the mark of the Demonseed Sect leader’s calculation; such wealth was unthinkable for a normal disciple. Chen Luo surmised these resources were meant for the cultivation of ‘demon seeds’—essentially, materials for the sect leader’s own practice. Shi Jun himself was but one of these ‘cultivation materials’—no wonder the Demonseed Sect leader had intervened when Chen Luo moved to kill him.

After inventorying the items, Chen Luo stored them in his own Pouch of Holding and proceeded to examine the contents of the other cultivators’ pouches.

The pockets of the Four Great Tribulation Cultivators yielded a wealth of cultivation techniques: insect cultivation, array formations, gu arts, and more. Chen Luo even stumbled upon Foundation Establishment sword cultivation manuals, several stained with blood—likely gleaned from the loot of those they had slain.

“Huh?”

Chen Luo extended his hand, pulling out a black-golden token from his bag of holding. The moment his fingers touched the token, a stream of information flowed into his mind:

Blackstone City Elder: Li Chunxiao; Mid Foundation Establishment cultivation; 280 years of cultivation; Earth and Wood dual elemental roots.

Is this an identity token? And for an elder of Blackstone City at that!

As Chen Luo gazed upon the token, an idea took shape in his mind. Perhaps this elder’s identity token could be used to purchase corpse refinement services. Moreover, there was a significant gap in resources needed for his breakthrough to Full Foundation Establishment. The shortage was especially pronounced in spirit materials required for pill refinement, with several key ingredients unavailable in external markets due to sect monopolies.

While Sacred Lake Immortal Sect maintained such monopolies, Blackstone Mountain’s control was even more extreme. Initially, Chen Luo planned to slowly accumulate resources over time to reach Full Foundation Establishment. Now, it seemed there might be an alternative path worth exploring.

“Here it is.”

Chen Luo rummaged through his bag of holding and swiftly found a transformation magical item. This artifact had belonged to the leader of the calamity cultivators. Having already harvested the man’s brain, he now had a relatively complete ‘obsession’ to work with—more than enough to convincingly impersonate this elder.

The remaining details were troublesome, but he likely wouldn’t encounter them in the short term.

After half a day of sorting, Chen Luo carefully read through the Head Tribulation Cultivator’s obsession once more, extracting additional useful information. Then, by donning the shifting magical item belonging to the tribulation leader, he instantly transformed into a middle-aged man with graying hair and a cold, menacing face.

“Perfect!”

Chen Luo checked himself briefly, confirming there were no flaws in his disguise, before directly flying towards Blackstone City. As ‘Elder of Blackstone Mountain,’ the restrictions around the city would automatically allow him passage—an privilege exclusive to the elders.

Upon returning to Blackstone City, Chen Luo, guided by memories extracted from the obsession, confidently entered the Pill Loyalty Hall with full assurance.

“Elder.”

“Elder Li.”

As Chen Luo walked, every Blackstone Mountain disciple who saw his face respectfully stepped aside and bowed in deference. This further solidified Chen Luo’s satisfaction with this carefully prepared identity.

“I’ll start by acquiring spiritual materials you can’t buy anywhere else.”

Chen Luo had already planned his strategy: if he could substitute the ingredients, he would; if not, he’d steal them. After this job was done, Elder Li’s alias could finally be laid to rest.

Guided by the intel he’d gathered earlier, Chen Luo made his way deep into the Pill Loyalty Hall. He stopped in front of a medicine storage room and pushed open the wooden door.

Creak.

The identity token on his chest, inscribed with ‘Li Chunxiao’, flickered briefly. After a moment’s hesitation, the wooden door swung open. But just as he stepped inside, before he could close the door behind him, he saw a hand reach out from behind to hold it open. A second person followed him into the storage room.

Intentionally stealing such valuable items would draw severe consequences!

“What are you waiting for to make your move?” The newcomer spoke up before Chen Luo could say anything.

“Don’t forget, I’m the one who helped you assume this elder’s identity! If things go south this time, I’ll report what happened last time. Then at least three late-Foundational Establishment elders will come seeking retribution against you.”

The speaker revealed her true appearance - a voluptuous female cultivator. Her skin was fair, and her black hair was coiled atop her head, secured with a scarlet hairpin. Her red-lipped mouth looked like a petal, beautiful in its own right. However, the loathing in her eyes marred this otherwise pleasant sight.

Who is this person?

Chen Luo froze.

The obsession he had read earlier contained no mention of this woman.

Seeing Chen Luo’s silence, the woman’s expression also cooled.

“You wouldn’t be trying to back out now, would you? Some things, once done, can’t be undone. Even if you tried to back out now, it would be too late. This matter involves the Spirit Fusion Elder—an immensely powerful cultivator at the peak of Foundation Establishment. He won’t be as easy to deal with as I am.” Her words sounded like a reminder, but they were actually a threat. This was the same method Li Chunxiao had used when communicating with him before.

“I understand,” Chen Luo nodded, his face serious. He hadn’t expected this alias to come with such complications, involving a peak Foundation Establishment cultivator. He couldn’t risk such thunder; he needed to find a way out as soon as possible.

“I’ve planned for this already. That’s why I came here today.”

Although he knew nothing about the situation, it didn’t stop him from agreeing. It was Li Chunxiao who made the promises, not him. Once he finished this job today, Li Chunxiao would disappear. Any future troubles would have nothing to do with him.