Mysterious mirror hanging high

"Open the cave!" Jing Yu said coldly.

"This..." The guarding cultivator wanted to say that the [Genuine Foundation Establishment Pill] was very effective in protecting the Dantian. Even if the foundation establishment failed and some injuries were sustained, it would never be so serious as to cause fainting. However, when he met Jing Yu's cold and hard gaze, he was finally intimidated by the powerful majesty of the foundation establishment cultivator and obediently opened the cave.

Without saying a word, Jing Yu transformed into a beam of light and slipped into the cave. The Qigong practitioners outside the cave stretched their heads to look inside, but they were all shocked.

At this time, inside the [Binghuo] cave, a corpse with a broken head was lying on the cushion. There was still some magical fluctuation in the right hand of the corpse. It was obvious that Zhao Mingfu committed suicide. He used his magical power with one hand to directly smash the head.

"Tsk, this fellow Taoist has a strong character..."

A white-haired old monk shrank his head and whispered, "Even if I fail to establish my foundation at the eighty-day limit, I still have at least twenty years to live. Why bother with this?"

"When my dreams of becoming an immortal are dashed overnight, I can't help but feel disheartened... This isn't the first time. Every year, there are always one or two fellow Taoists who commit suicide after failing to establish their foundation..."

Jing Yu had a blank expression on his face. He scanned Zhao Mingfu's body with his mind, confirming that he had not been bewitched by any magical power or illusion, and ruled out the possibility of homicide. Then he waved his hand and collected the body of his seventh brother.

Then, with a cold face, he left ten spirit stones in the cave as the cost of renting the cave to break through the foundation-building stage, and then turned into a beam of light and left.

Only when he returned to Xuanjingju did a melancholy look appear on his face, and he stared at the sky in a daze.

Why did it come to this...

After Zhao Mingfu's death, he was the only one left among the seven royal heirs of the Zhao Kingdom with the surname Ming.

At this point, the last bit of memory of the secular era of the royal heir competition seemed to have disappeared with the death of Zhao Mingfu.

He took out the storage bag that Zhao Mingfu had left for him and took a look at it. Suddenly, he thought that perhaps when Zhao Mingfu handed over his storage bag, he had already made up his mind to fight to the death.

When he opened the storage bag, there were only seven or eight spirit stones left, seven or eight books on refining essentials for the Qi training level, and two or three books on the main cultivation techniques and magical powers for fire cultivators... The rest were worthless sundries, most of which were rough pieces that had not yet been refined into magical instruments. They did not look like precious materials, and were even mixed with some ordinary gold and iron. Even if a senior refiner tried his hand at it, the magical instrument that could be made would only be of low quality.

Jing Yu stared at the rough pieces of these magical instruments, feeling somewhat sad. "The materials used in these pieces are inherently flawed. No matter how complex and sophisticated the refining process is, they still won't become fine instruments in the end."

"As the saying goes, a good cook cannot cook without rice. How can there be so many miracles in the world that transform decay into something magical... This is true for magical instruments, and so are cultivators?"

Jing Yu immersed himself in his thoughts and observed the scene in the mysterious mirror again, but found that the light spot representing Zhao Mingfu's fate had not completely disappeared, but it was no longer shining and dimmed, like a dead small star, remaining forever in the vast world in the mirror.

"Dead and gone, you still have some traces of your past left in the mysterious mirror. But besides me, who in the world still remembers you, Zhao Mingfu?"

Jing Yu sat cross-legged and suddenly thought: "The great calamity of the era is inevitable. At the end of this era, unless one attains the Dao Lord realm, even a Daluo Jinxian will be destroyed. If I am fortunate enough to attain the Dao Lord realm in this era, survive the great calamity, and live to the next era, I will still remember mortals or Qi cultivators like my eldest brother, third sister, fourth brother, and seventh brother... I may even write books about them in the next era."

"Then, in some sense, will these people survive longer than those immortals who treat them like ants?"

"But no matter what, my earthly ties during my time in the mortal world have come to an end..."

At this moment, the mysterious mirror in the dantian shook again, producing a special feedback. Jing Yu felt that his magic power had essentially been improved in an inexplicable way.

"Is it because my earthly ties have ended that I got the feedback?" Jing Yu murmured.

He shook his head and stopped dwelling on the matter. He took out a jade slip from his storage bag. It was the [Blood Puppet Body] he had obtained from the Black Blood Taoist, and began to comprehend it carefully.

"In addition to daily cultivation, you can use your blood essence to cultivate a few [Blood Puppet Bodies]. Now that the war has begun in the Yunchuan Region, it won't hurt to have a few more clones to avoid disaster..."

----

Spring goes and autumn comes, and three years have passed in the blink of an eye.

On this day, in the retreat room inside Xuan Jing Ju, Jing Yu, who was dressed in a gray robe, held a drop of blood on his fingertips and slowly flew it into the forehead of a naked strong man in front of him. The man looked like Jing Yu, as if they were cast in the same mold, but his eyes were closed and he seemed to have no breath.

But when this drop of essence and blood merged into the man's forehead, this body seemed to be connected with Jing Yu's original body. The next moment, his eyes suddenly opened.

A gray robe exactly the same as the one Jing Yu was wearing was put on the man. Jing Yu stood up, shook his body, and two rays of blood emerged from his body, each turning into a gray-robed Jing Yu.

The four indistinguishable "Jing Yu" in the retreat room looked at each other, laughed in unison, and bowed to each other, saying:

"I have met several fellow Taoists."

Then the three blood puppets turned into blood light and were absorbed back into the body of Jing Yu himself.

"Huh... I've finally reached the upper limit of three Blood Puppet Bodies. One a year isn't too slow."

In the past three years, Jing Yu has been using his essence and blood to shape and nourish the blood puppet body every day. Originally, Jing Yu's essence and blood were far less valuable than those of other cultivators. Logically, it should take less than a year to cultivate a blood puppet body. However, he had not neglected his body cultivation in the past three years. Essence and blood played a vital role in body cultivation. If it was depleted for a long time, it would slow down the speed of body cultivation... On the basis of not delaying the progress of body cultivation, Jing Yu was able to refine a blood puppet body intermittently in a year.

"That's why I can squander my blood essence like it's free. Ordinary cultivators only need to recuperate for several years after using a few dozen drops. Otherwise, their foundation will be shaken and their lifespan will be shortened... Refining a blood puppet body like this will take at least ten years, don't even think about it!"

"It seems that this secret method is not that useful for ordinary cultivators. It has too many drawbacks. It takes so much time and costs so much, but in the end, we only get three clones that barely have the combat power of the early stage of foundation building. Moreover..."

Jing Yu frowned and thought to himself, "My spiritual power is far superior to that of cultivators of the same level. Maintaining three blood puppets consumes a lot of energy. Maintaining two blood puppets consumes energy and the recovery speed is just about equal. Maintaining one blood puppet on a daily basis does not delay other things. If it were someone else, I'm afraid it would be even more unbearable."

"Aside from the fact that our minds are connected, there's no risk of backlash, and it can be controlled from a very long distance, there aren't many other highlights."

Jing Yu thought about it, then patted the storage bag on his waist and took out a puppet from it.

This puppet was dressed in a sky-blue robe, with skin as white as cream and eyebrows and eyes as beautiful as paintings. It was actually a female puppet with a face that looked no different from a living person!

The female puppet smiled, revealing two shallow dimples. Her eyebrows, which were of appropriate thickness, curved slightly as she bowed slightly to Jing Yu, who was sitting cross-legged.

"My name is Jiang Yu, nice to meet you, Daoist Fellow Xuan Jing."