Immortality begins with meditation puppets

Magical artifacts, supernatural powers, and the Great Dao—these three dimensions determine the true combat strength of a seventh-tier Dao Lord.

According to Su Qing's plan, he intended to hand over the Xuan Yuan Water Control Flag, which he had acquired in the past, to the Great Emperor of the North Pole Ziwei. With the Xuan Yuan Water Control Flag's supreme innate spiritual treasure power of obscuring the universe, covering the sky and sun, repelling all evil, and being impervious to all laws, it could make up for the innate weakness of this Great Emperor of the North Pole Ziwei. This would give him a certain advantage, at least in terms of magic treasures, when facing most seventh-order Dao Lords who lacked opportunities and luck and still possessed some acquired spiritual treasures.

As for supernatural powers, even a fallen tiger retains its might, and a lean camel is still bigger than a horse. The Four Emperors of yesteryear could debate and practice martial arts with the Golden Immortals and Great Demons of the Dao, Buddha, and Demonic Paths. They were all unparalleled geniuses in Daoist arts, possessing supernatural powers and immortal techniques at their fingertips, and could comprehend supreme and wondrous methods as soon as they bloomed. In terms of supernatural powers and methods, the Great Emperor of the North Pole Purple Star was at the very top of the pyramid among all the seventh-level Dao Lords in all past and future timelines. This was something Su Qing didn't need to worry about.

The only difficulty lies in the Great Dao. The Great Emperor of the North Pole, who once comprehended the Dao of War, was a ruthless man who once competed with great powers such as the Human Emperor, Chi You, and the Underworld Ancestor for the position of the Ancestor of War. The result is self-evident. It can only be said that he was too ambitious and chose a path that was too crowded. In the end, the Human Emperor obtained five parts of the Dao of War, Chi You obtained three parts, the Underworld Ancestor obtained two parts, and he shared one part with the other warriors of the world. Thus, he failed to make the smooth path of the Dao of War from the acquired to the innate, and instead seized the Black Water Dao. He could only become an acquired Dao Lord and fell to the bottom of the seventh-level Dao Lord contempt chain.

"That's enough. With the power of a Dao Lord who has acquired the Dao, and the advanced puppets on the Lingxiao Palace puppet, if the fleet were to storm into all the heavens and myriad realms, apart from the three sects of the Dao lineage, all the other sects and realms would probably tremble a few times!"

The saying "a man's greed is like a snake trying to swallow an elephant" is a problem that plagues many cultivators. They want to do everything perfectly, thinking things through and considering all the consequences. When they are refining a fifth-order puppet, they draw three to five thousand blueprints. They wish that this fifth-order puppet could perform sixth-order abilities. As a result, the process of refining a brand-new puppet, from having an idea to actually starting to refine it, often takes hundreds or even thousands of years.

Su Qing obviously didn't have this problem. When he crafted puppets, he tried his best in practice. The specific result depended on the current conditions. If it was a perfect product, that would be even better. If it was limited by the conditions and had some shortcomings, that was fine. He could just make do with it and repair or modify it later when he had the opportunity. At worst, he could just recreate it from scratch. Whether a puppet was good or not, you had to at least craft it first.

The Great Emperor of the North Pole is at this level now, and this is already a performance beyond Su Qing's usual level. So what is there to be dissatisfied with? Just make do with it for now. When conditions improve in the future, we can gradually upgrade and replace it, and build a better and more powerful Lingxiao Palace.

His attention was drawn to the other features of the Lingxiao Palace.

Firstly, there are spirit houses for the cultivators on the ship. Although the main combat force on this Lingxiao Palace puppet is composed of puppets, a group of puppeteers are still needed to be stationed here to lead the large and small wood spirits, carry out daily maintenance and repairs on these puppets during wartime, and also need some eloquent cultivators with sufficient intelligence and emotional intelligence to represent the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom in communicating with the forces of other realms. Furthermore, if a major war breaks out and the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom needs to mobilize the entire Immortal Kingdom to participate in the war, this Lingxiao Palace puppet will also play the role of transporting troops.

Therefore, a spirit house is indispensable to protect cultivators from wind and rain and improve the comfort of life on the ship. Considering that the battles involving the Lingxiao Palace puppets must be significant and the strength of the opponents must be extraordinary, the protective capabilities of this spirit house also need to be given priority.

Although one can understand a hundred things, the great Dao is interconnected, and all arts and crafts are inseparable from the Dao runes, with Su Qing's current mastery of runes, he can put in some effort to create a decent spirit house.

However, it is said that everyone has their own expertise, and his energy is always limited. If he wants to know this and learn that, it would be too much of a drain on himself. Right now, in the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom, there is a group of experienced and outstanding spirit house masters who can be used by him. There is no need for him, the ruler of Kaiyuan Kingdom, to personally clean up the mess.

Originally, there was no such profession as a spirit house master. The business of crafting spirit houses was only a part of the business of weapon refiners, and it was not even considered a core business.

At that time, the Tianyuan Realm was still in a predicament of scarce cultivation resources. If there were any good materials, everyone would scrimp and save to make a magic weapon or a pill for themselves. They would not be willing to spend money on such a big item as a spirit house.

Those who can truly afford a spirit house are either wandering cultivators with a strong sense of adventure and genuine need for such a place, or wealthy and powerful second-generation individuals like Princess Fire Phoenix and Shi Zhifang.

Later, the Tianyuan Realm was revived, and all the myriad realms were merged into Tianyuan, which greatly improved the material conditions of the originally closed and impoverished Tianyuan Realm. As cultivators became more prosperous, the demand for spirit houses increased significantly, thus greatly promoting the development of the spirit house industry.

As Su Qing has always said, the development of cultivation arts depends on the demand from cultivators. More demand means more orders, and more orders mean more opportunities for practitioners to hone their skills. As the number of technicians in these professions increases, competition among them drives the industry ever higher.

The increased demand for spirit houses in the mortal realm has led some weapon refiners to focus solely on building spirit houses, which is sufficient to meet their cultivation needs and generate higher profits than if they were to focus on weapon refining. As a result, they have naturally transitioned into spirit house craftsmen, allowing spirit houses to become independent from the weapon refining industry and become one of the various arts of cultivation.

Because Su Qing discovered the emerging blue ocean market of the spirit house industry early on, he had already prepared Su's Construction during the period of the great development of Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom. He used the many infrastructure projects provided by Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom as their practice opportunities to constantly hone their skills, enrich their experience, and improve their strength. As a result, Su's Construction now has more than a thousand third and fourth-level spirit house masters, and the professions of civil engineers and builders who are matched with spirit house masters have also emerged.

After the great calamity of the demons, the reconstruction of the immortal kingdoms such as Xingsha Divine Kingdom and Thousand Island Immortal Kingdom, which had been destroyed by the demons, was once again led by the Su family construction team of Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom. This gave many spirit house masters an opportunity to quickly improve themselves.

Today, the spirit house industry in Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom has become a leading industry in the kingdom, alongside puppetry, metallurgy, divine weapon manufacturing, armor, and logistics, earning massive amounts of spirit stone resources from the myriad realms every year.

With such a talent pool, Su Qing will naturally make use of it.

He had already outsourced the construction of the spirit houses for the Lingxiao Palace puppet to Su's Construction Company. Now all the spirit houses have been refined to his specifications. Only the Lingxiao Palace puppet itself is ready for construction.

Since they are all their own businesses, they don't require much resource expenditure. Compared to the other expenses of the Lingxiao Palace puppet, they are negligible.

If there's one project that really pains Su Qing, it's the array formation project. Of all the arts of cultivation, array formations are paramount. Cultivators utilize array formations in every aspect of their lives and work, from the Golden Light Array for exorcising evil spirits and the Four Symbols Hanging Lamp Array for protecting homes, to the Thousand Peaks Thunder Pool Array and the Four Symbols Binding Dragon Array for guarding the gates of major sects, from the Tranquilizing Spirit Gathering Array for focusing on cultivation, to the Beauty Painted Skin Array for making cultivators completely forget about cultivation...

The demand for array masters among cultivators in all realms is infinite, while the number of capable array masters is limited.

When supply falls short of demand, prices will inevitably rise. In recent years, the fees charged by array masters for setting up arrays have been increasing day by day. The days when an array master could come to your door with materials and provide a free warranty for 30 to 50 years for only 10 or 20 spirit stones are long gone. Now, if you want an array master to set up an array, you have to make an appointment first, then come to your door, and then wait in line until some array master is available to handle your small order.

Su Qing has always been interested in the business of array formations. To be precise, he is interested in all industries with potential for profit. However, he laments that array formations are profound and have been developed for many years, from ancient times to the present. The major sects of the heavens have already accumulated enough advantages. As a latecomer, the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom has been greatly supported by Su Qing to develop the array formation industry. Now, whether it is talent reserves or inherited skills, it is far inferior to those major sects of the heavens.

Take the Lingxiao Palace puppet formation project, for example. Even if he wanted to hand it over to the formation masters in the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom, they would be powerless and unable to handle it. The project was thrown at them, but they couldn't take it on.

Su Qing knew their abilities were limited, and dared not entrust them with such a key project of the immortal kingdom as the Lingxiao Palace Puppet. Helpless, he could only seek help from the outside world.

As for the myriad realms, there are many forces that have made significant achievements in the art of array formations.

Su Qing conducted a public tender specifically for this purpose.

Among the bidding forces are long-established sects like the Yuanshi Sect and the Dongwang Sect, which possess numerous powerful arrays and have a group of fifth and sixth-tier array masters at their disposal. They can professionally and efficiently design array effect diagrams for the Lingxiao Palace puppet and have the ability to implement them.

These two sects currently have a strained, even hostile, relationship with the Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom. They claim that business is business and has nothing to do with politics, but array masters also have national boundaries and sect distinctions. When necessary, the personal interests of array masters must yield to the overall interests of their own immortal kingdom and sect. He dared not gamble on the integrity of the array masters from these two sects, so he only used the renderings from these two sects as bargaining chips to negotiate with other bidding forces, and sent them home to wait for news.

Other sects besides these two, such as Peach Blossom Sect, Pill Origin Sect, Guanghan Sect, and Rahu Sect, have accumulated more technology and have stronger array masters than the current Kaiyuan Immortal Kingdom. However, with the Yuanshi Sect and Dongwang Sect as their predecessors, the renderings they presented were not worthy of Su Qing's attention.

To his surprise, the Three-Legged Crow Clan of the Heavens also participated in the bidding and even brought out their extremely powerful array formation capabilities.

He could tell at a glance that their array formation strength was inherited from the ancient Demon Emperor. In the past, this Demon Emperor was the number one array formation master in all the heavens. The Hunyuan Heluo and Zhou Tian Xingdou arrays are still the strongest masterpieces of array formation in all the heavens. It is a pity that after the collapse and disintegration of the ancient Heavenly Court, the array formation inheritance accumulated by the demon race was lost in all the heavens and has not appeared in the world to this day.

Unexpectedly, the Three-Legged Crow Clan had inherited a portion of it, and had kept it hidden for so many years. They were probably afraid that prestigious sects like the Yuanshi Sect would do the kind of plundering and extortion that righteous sects love to do. Now that they've brought it out, they must know that Su Qing is currently fighting against the Yuanshi Sect, so they dare to take out the real thing.

The renderings presented by the Three-Legged Crow Clan were a direct copy of the ancient Heavenly Court's Lingxiao Palace, using the puppet's concept of imitating the Lingxiao Palace.

Among them is the Nine Heavenly Thunder Extermination Formation, the same formation used to strike the Great Sage Wukong. Although it didn't harm Wukong, it was because Wukong was indestructible and had an unparalleled physical body. None of the other great evils and demons that encountered this formation gained any advantage. There is also the Immortal-Slaying Star Constellation Formation, in which each of the twenty-eight constellations condenses into a phantom guillotine blade, with the true name of the sinful immortal engraved on the blade. When the blade falls, the star falls and the life ends. There is also the Four Spirits Heavenly Prison Formation, in which the four divine beasts—Azure Dragon coiled around a pillar to seal the east, White Tiger carrying a corpse to suppress the west, Vermilion Bird burning sins to guard the south, and Black Tortoise carrying a stele to suppress the north—are all present. The four spirits are in slumber, but manifest as divided souls to enforce the law. The gravity within the formation is ten thousand times stronger, and one's internal organs rupture with every breath...

These formations are incredibly powerful; they are all seventh-order formations. Even a seventh-order Dao Lord who falls into them would be severely injured, if not killed.

But this was not what Su Qing wanted. In the ancient Lingxiao Palace, the Heavenly Emperor and the gods only regarded it as a council hall and a trial hall. If there were sinful immortals or evil demons, the gods would first capture them and bring them to the Lingxiao Palace for trial. Therefore, these formations were mostly used to bind and judge sinful immortals and evil demons.

Where did his Lingxiao Palace puppet come from—the Heavenly God of Justice, the Four Emperors, and the 100,000 Heavenly Soldiers? He only wanted to use the formation to keep the enemy out and prevent them from getting close and damaging the Lingxiao Palace puppet, not to capture them and bring them to the Lingxiao Palace puppet for judgment.

Besides not meeting the requirements of the Lingxiao Palace puppet, his reason for rejecting the Three-Legged Crow Clan was that although their renderings were good, their construction capabilities were highly questionable.

The three-legged crow clan chief confidently stated that their clan's peak sixth-tier array master only needed one opportunity to break through to the seventh-tier array master, and given some more time, he could set up all these arrays.

Su Qing knew perfectly well that they were using their Lingxiao Palace Puppet project as a practice project for their clan's sixth-order peak array master to break through to the seventh order. If it succeeded, all would be well; if it failed, the project would become an unfinished project, wasting resources and greatly delaying the refining progress of the Lingxiao Palace Puppet.

Therefore, in the end, he declined the offer from the Three-Legged Crow Clan and chose the Lingbao Sect as the contractor for the Lingxiao Palace Puppet Array project.

This is a perfectly normal choice. As the sect with the strongest array formation capabilities in all the realms, the Lingbao Sect is naturally the first choice for a major project like the Lingxiao Palace Puppet. (End of Chapter)