Ren Qing first experimented by forging an ordinary demonic fetus artifact in the shape of a shield.
Compared to aberrant fetus artifacts, demonic fetus artifacts were even more sinister. Its exterior resembled a lifelike human skullcap, constantly writhing and twitching.
Using his dream arts, Ren Qing easily brought the demonic fetus artifact under control. Yet even after refining it and recognizing it as its master, the artifact remained aggressive and overbearing.
He had a feeling that the moment he became weakened, the demonic fetus artifact might turn on him.
After all, an anomalous object whose consciousness had not been worn away would constantly seek revival.
Ren Qing tossed the demonic fetus artifact into the Land of White Bones within the Stomach World.
The yin qi there could likewise erode an anomalous object's consciousness. The moment the demonic fetus artifact was sealed inside, it began struggling frantically.
After observing for a while, Ren Qing confirmed that its consciousness could indeed be worn down. However, unlike an aberrant fetus artifact, it possessed no potential for advancement.
Even so, the demonic fetus refining method was already valuable enough to be promoted. It would likely elevate Xiao San'er to the highest level of prestige among the artificers.
Ren Qing then headed into the depths of the intestines and simply used the flesh wall itself as forging material.
The demonic fetus refining method required no compatibility between material and anomalous object. After all, the anomalous object took the initiative to fuse into the material.
He controlled a large number of disease strains, gradually shaping a doorway upon the flesh wall.
As soon as the doorway began emitting the unique aura of the Mirror Immortal, the anomalous object became restless, eager to burrow inside.
Ren Qing did not immediately remove its restraints. Instead, he first attached a bacterial soul to it.
He had no spare Ghost Envoy Realm anomalous objects on hand. If this one were wasted, any thoughts of entering the mirror world would have to be postponed for quite some time.
The anomalous object resembled a lump of clay mixed with fragments of bronze mirror. It slowly crawled onto the flesh wall, spreading itself over the doorway.
Ren Qing immediately began forging the artifact while simultaneously sensing agitation from the Forbidden Corpse.
To prevent it from causing trouble, he simply severed the spines connecting both heads. The Forbidden Corpse instantly quieted down.
The forging process went smoothly, and the doorway artifact was soon complete.
As the fluctuations of the spell stabilized, the doorway's material underwent a transformation. Though still flesh and blood, it sprouted countless tentacles.
Looking at the doorway artifact, Ren Qing could not help feeling somewhat uneasy.
Yet the aura of the Mirror Immortal was unquestionably genuine. The only issue was that demonic fetus artifacts were too chaotic, causing their living characteristics to become exceptionally pronounced.
Naturally, Ren Qing had no intention of entering the mirror world in person.
He had no idea whether he was even still inside it.
He therefore took out a flesh artifact and used a bacterial soul to open the doorway.
Beyond it lay utter darkness. Looking closer, it seemed as though a vortex lurked within, capable of devouring souls.
Ren Qing narrowed his eyes and watched as the avatar stepped through the doorway. Moments later, an identical flesh artifact emerged from the other side.
The flesh artifact had indeed become a substitute body, proving that his line of thinking was correct.
It seemed that the war between immortals and Buddhas had destroyed all the exits of the Corpse Mirror. Otherwise, the substitute body should have appeared somewhere within the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Now the priority was determining the mirror world's condition.
After waiting a long while, Ren Qing directly destroyed the substitute body, allowing the corpse-transformed avatar within the mirror world to return.
Closing his eyes, he digested the memories carried by the bacterial soul. His expression became a mixture of surprise and delight.
The delight came from discovering that at least several hundred bodies still remained inside the mirror world.
The surprise came from the fact that many of those bodies were showing signs of breaking free.
If they escaped the mirror world, their only exit would be through the Corpse Mirror.
At present, the Corpse Mirror was probably buried deep underground beneath layers of soil. Most of those cultivators likely possessed no means of self-preservation.
Furthermore, when Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva departed, several hundred cultivator bodies had died, leaving corpses scattered everywhere.
Fortunately, although some of the dead had cultivated Restriction Officer techniques, they were only at the Ghost Envoy Realm. Their anomalous objects remained sealed within the mirror world.
Ren Qing instructed his avatars to transport all those corpses out.
Even if they were merely dismantled for resources, they would still yield considerable gains. Some had even reached the Yang Spirit Realm in life.
Among them, Ren Qing also found the Hermit Molting, who had somehow survived.
The fellow had likely escaped into the mirror world before the destruction of the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
As for his avatar, there was no trace of it. It had most likely already left the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Ren Qing possessed no reliable means of permanently sealing them, so he decided to harvest lifespan while he still could.
He began mass-producing flesh artifacts and dispatched avatars carrying Dreamflowers into the mirror world, sending over a hundred in total.
Then he closed his eyes and rested, waiting for events within the mirror world to ferment.
Several days later, he began destroying the avatars one after another, causing floods of memories from the mirror world to pour into his mind.
The avatars had already determined the number of cultivator bodies within.
There were 537 cultivators below the Yang Spirit Realm, 39 Yang Spirit Realm cultivators, and only 4 Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivators.
All had accumulated over centuries within the mirror world, each displaying varying degrees of corpse transformation.
Unfortunately, many had perished at the hands of Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva.
Still, for Ren Qing, five to six hundred cultivators were more than enough to support his cultivation throughout the Yang Spirit Realm.
He also discovered that many cultivators had mastered the Corpse Refinement Method without any conscious awareness, indicating that someone possessed the ability to influence others.
Soon, he found the clue.
Those cultivators who had learned the Corpse Refinement Method all bore obvious scars on the skin of their abdomens, as though they had been cut open.
The sight reminded Ren Qing of a branch ability from the Storyteller path.
[Birth]
[BAfter parasitizing a female host, the caster is eventually born after a thousand-day gestation period.]
However, many of the affected cultivators were male.
Ren Qing therefore suspected a divine ability that allowed one to parasitize another's body in the form of a fetus.
Such a fetus could subtly control the host's body while using it to cultivate the Dead Man's Sutra.
As for how much time it had taken to accomplish this, Ren Qing could only guess.
Against a being like Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva, such a scheme likely required centuries of preparation.
A complicated expression appeared on his face.
He had nearly ruined a century-long plan.
Fortunately, no enmity had been forged. Otherwise, the consequences would have been troublesome indeed.
He then focused on the remaining Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivators whose information the bacterial souls had uncovered.
The most eye-catching was the Broodmother of the Insect Nest.
Her body stretched over two hundred meters long. Her upper half was an extraordinarily beautiful woman, while her lower half resembled a gigantic maggot.
Within her body, the bacterial souls even sensed thousands of Heavenly Dao Insect eggs.
A Heavenly Aberration Realm cultivator like the Broodmother might rank near the bottom in direct combat strength, but in terms of reproductive capability, few races could compare.
Unfortunately, the Insect Nest had long since abandoned any attempt to ascend to Earth Immortalhood.
If the Broodmother devoured the immortal position of the Fortune Virtue Earth Immortal, her fate would likely resemble that of the Corpse Immortal.
The Laughing Lion Arhat, by comparison, was inconspicuous.
He looked no different from an ordinary old farmer.
If the avatars had not used Dreamflowers to absorb the Buddhist qi within his body—discovering an apparently inexhaustible supply—they would never have realized he was a Heavenly Aberration Realm existence.
As for the remaining two Heavenly Aberration cultivators, one was an elderly woman cultivating the Molting Method, with vines hanging from her head that bore discarded old bodies.
The other was a half-human, half-wolf cultivator who practiced a peculiar Ascension Method.
[Wolf-Devouring Daoist]
[Age: 4,524]
[Lifespan: 3,786 years]
[Stellar Wolf Art]
Created by the Yellow-Robed Old Demon.
Cultivation required one to be born with a wolf's body and a human heart. After reaching mental maturity, the cultivator had to feed upon the flesh of their closest relatives before successfully cultivating the technique.
The Stellar Wolf Art could reach Earth Immortal level but was incompatible with cultivating other techniques.
[Immortal Position: Kui Wood Star Lodge]
Ren Qing froze for a moment.
He had not expected the Wolf-Devouring Daoist to possess an Ascension Method capable of reaching Earth Immortalhood.
Thinking it over, however, the Stellar Wolf Art was likely similar to Heavenly Dao techniques. Its immortal position had long since been occupied.
To avoid being killed by a True Immortal, the Wolf-Devouring Daoist had hidden his true body within the mirror world.
Regardless of who they were, Ren Qing intended to drain their cultivation first.
Dreamflowers were originally defensive dream artifacts. By devouring spell aura, they could evolve and strengthen their protection against souls.
The cultivators imprisoned within the mirror world were essentially generators.
Their spell aura made perfect nourishment for Dreamflower artifacts.
Ren Qing selected several relatively weak hyena cultivators and used Dreamflowers to pull them into dreams.
The process was unexpectedly smooth.
Perhaps due to the mirror world's influence, their consciousnesses possessed virtually no intelligence, resembling remnants of souls driven purely by instinct.
Ren Qing placed their consciousnesses within the Southern Mountain Minor World.
The hyena cultivators appeared not as humans but as wild dogs constantly tearing into one another, displaying an indescribable obsession with flesh.
Using illusions, Ren Qing created heaps of meat throughout the Southern Mountain Minor World.
The hyenas immediately lunged at the food, devouring it with frenzied abandon.
He carefully harvested some lifespan from them.
The hyenas paid no attention whatsoever.
Ren Qing's eyes brightened.
He continued dispatching avatars into the mirror world, pulling more and more cultivator consciousnesses into the Southern Mountain Minor World.
His lifespan reserves once again began climbing at astonishing speed.
For the time being, however, he refrained from targeting Yang Spirit Realm cultivators and above.
Consciousnesses of higher-level cultivators were unlikely to be completely devoid of intelligence.
The Southern Mountain Minor World alone would not be enough to fool them...
Ren Qing withdrew Dreamflowers saturated with spell aura into his Mud Pellet Palace.
Once their evolution was complete, the Dreamflowers would become insect-like living entities.
"The mirror world really is a treasure trove."
By his estimate, the first batch of cultivators would provide enough lifespan to accumulate five thousand years, allowing him to comprehend a second Ascension Method.
As for cultivators whose lifespans were nearly exhausted, he had no intention of wasting them.
Once their substitute bodies died, they could simply be brought out of the mirror world.
Within the Stomach World, they could gradually recover lifespan through the wine rain.
Whether they joined the Restriction Officers Hall or not did not matter.
What mattered was increasing the number of cultivators.
As long as they remained in Dream City, every action they took would consume lifespan.
An endless cycle.
Watching his lifespan continue to rise, Ren Qing once again felt the urge to enter seclusion.
But Song Zongwu's fate remained uncertain.
Not long afterward, he received a message from Li Tiangang.
A fine-wool sheep had accidentally fallen into the canyon.
Its corpse had been brought back to the Forbidden Corpse by Li Tiangang using his paper techniques.
Ren Qing hurried to the stomach region and found Li Tiangang and Miss Bai, who had recently advanced to the Spirit Release Realm, examining a mangled corpse.
He looked carefully.
The organs and brain inside the sheep's body clearly did not belong to a sheep.
They resembled those of a woman wearing a sheep's skin.
The internal organs appeared to have been born incomplete.
The womb, in particular, was no larger than a peanut.
Miss Bai spoke coldly.
"There are no spell fluctuations. The organs gradually transformed several hours after death."
If the fine-wool sheep were actually humans...
Then what exactly were those shepherds, who appeared completely normal inside and out?