Chapter 220: Chapter 220: Nascent Soul Level Puppet

The Land of the Far North has the overall shape of an irregular trapezoid.

The base of the trapezoid is formed by regions such as the Western Wilderness, the Vast Sea, and Great Zhou. The other three sides—the left, right, and top—are bordered by a vast body of water known as the Ice Sea.

It is so named because this ocean remains frozen year-round.

Just as Li Ping was teasing Xiao Yunzhi.

Far away, hundreds of thousands of li from them, near the center of the Ice Sea, a strange dragon’s cry suddenly rang out. It was followed by a deafening BOOM as the frozen ice, for dozens of li in every direction, violently shattered.

An Ice Flood Dragon, its body like white jade covered in hard scales and nearly ten thousand feet long, thrashed its way out of the shattered ice cavern.

Clearly, the commotion from the shattering ice had been caused by it emerging from the sea.

Looking closely, one could see that clutched in the Ice Flood Dragon’s right claw was a massive Sea Demon with three hideous heads. The Sea Demon’s aura had shockingly reached Tier Three.

If this Sea Demon were out in the world, it would be considered a Demon King in its own right.

But now, squeezed in the Ice Flood Dragon’s claw, it trembled all over, not even daring to struggle.

Because before it was the overlord of the Ice Sea, the Tier Four Ice Flood Dragon!

"ROAR~"

The Ice Flood Dragon leaped into the sky, letting out a low roar to declare its dominion over the Ice Sea.

Then, carrying its captured meal, it landed on a massive iceberg and began to eat.

Its movements were incredibly elegant and noble, completely devoid of any sense of bloodiness. Its Ice Jade-like claws pierced deep into the Sea Demon’s body.

But soon, a trace of confusion appeared in its eyes.

Because the texture felt wrong.

’What’s going on?’

Puzzled, the Ice Flood Dragon looked at the Sea Demon before it. Applying a little more force with its claws, it tore the Sea Demon apart.

Then it saw that the Sea Demon’s torn-open body did not contain the flesh and bone it expected, but rather a large quantity of refined Spiritual Materials and spiritual circuit structures.

’A puppet.’

Seeing this, the Ice Flood Dragon immediately recalled the human Sect it had annihilated over a thousand years ago. That Sect had seemed to specialize in crafting puppets.

Moreover, those humans had hunted many creatures that were originally its food in order to craft their puppets.

It was because of this very incident that it had been severely wounded by a human Great Cultivator and had taken nearly a thousand years to recover!

It was very confused as to why its captured meal had turned into a puppet.

Its draconic claws tightened, easily tearing through the outer layer of refined Spiritual Materials, and then—

BOOM!

Endless thunder and fire erupted from within the Sea Demon puppet. With a world-shaking explosion, an iceberg tens of thousands of feet high instantly collapsed. The surging thunder and fire covered a range of several thousand feet, directly engulfing the Ice Flood Dragon.

"ROAR~"

An enraged dragon’s cry shook the heavens as the nearly ten-thousand-foot-long Ice Flood Dragon shot out from the thunder and fire. A bloody gash dozens of feet long had been blasted into its underbelly, and light blue blood gushed from it like a fountain.

However, this injury was not enough to endanger the Ice Flood Dragon’s life, not even qualifying as a serious wound.

"ROAR~" "ROAR~"...

The Ice Flood Dragon roared incessantly, transforming into an afterimage as it patrolled back and forth within a radius of nearly a thousand li. Its cold Demon Sense repeatedly swept over the area below, trying to find the human who dared to attack it.

It knew very well that to control a puppet, the human couldn’t be too far away.

’The human is nearby!’

’I must find this human and make him understand the price of offending the Lord of the Ice Sea!’

Unfortunately, after the better part of a day, it had failed to find any trace of a human.

Cultivators who came to hunt Demon Beasts usually stayed in the outer regions of the Ice Sea; they would never dare venture into its core territory.

"ROAR... Detestable humans!"

The Ice Flood Dragon roared in fury after its fruitless search, wishing it could charge into the Land of the Far North and slaughter all humans!

But the wound it had received over a thousand years ago made it hesitate.

It would never forget the pain of losing its tail!

It would never set foot in the Land of the Far North again.

"Go! All of you, go! Leave the Ice Sea and tear every living thing you see to shreds!" the Ice Flood Dragon roared in fury, driving the massive number of Demon Beasts in the Ice Sea to swarm into the Land of the Far North.

It didn’t dare go to the Land of the Far North itself, but driving those Low-Tier Demon Beasts to make landfall was no problem.

After driving out the Low-Tier Demon Beasts, the Ice Flood Dragon departed in a rage, and the area soon returned to tranquility.

Several months later, on the surface of a nearby glacier, the Ice Flood Dragon’s form twisted and reappeared.

"ROAR~"

After revealing itself, it slammed against the ice in a fit of rage, creating monstrous waves.

It turned out that it hadn’t left before but had hidden nearby, waiting for the suspected lurking human to appear!

After its rampage, the Ice Flood Dragon plunged into the deep sea, this time appearing to have truly left.

One year, two years, three years... The Ice Flood Dragon did not reappear, and the surroundings remained silent.

After lying in wait for three years with no success, the Ice Flood Dragon, lurking in the shadows below the water, finally concluded that the human was not in the area, having used some unknown method to control the demon beast puppet from afar.

"Detestable, cunning humans! This king will slaughter every last one of you!"

The Ice Flood Dragon let out a furious roar and, this time, truly left.

But after it left, a gray rock on the seabed was suddenly pushed aside, revealing a figure within.

The figure was expressionless and its body was stiff—it was a humanoid puppet. The puppet gazed into the depths of the sea and suddenly muttered to itself in a stiff, mechanical voice, "It seems trying to kill this Ice Flood Dragon with a sufficient quantity of Tier Three Thunder Fire Pearls is simply impossible. If I want my revenge, my only hope is to refine this puppet body to Tier Four!"

"I must craft a Tier Four Puppet!"

SWOOSH!

The humanoid puppet moved slowly along the seabed without making a single sound, and its trail soon vanished.

A puppet is an inanimate object, and its surface had been refined with materials that blocked Divine Sense. Not even the Tier Four Ice Flood Dragon had been able to detect it.

...

「Three years earlier, in Flying Snow City.」

Li Ping met with the visiting Xu Guikai and Lin Yue in his cave residence.

Xu Guikai had returned from hunting Demon Beasts in the Ice Sea and learned from Ji Shu Xuan that Li Ping had also come to the Land of the Far North.

Overjoyed, he rested for a short while before paying a personal visit with Lin Yue.

After not seeing him for several decades, Xu Guikai had already cultivated to the Mid-stage of Foundation Establishment.

Compared to the dashing young man he was back in the Immortal City, the nearly fifty-year-old Xu Guikai not only looked much more mature but also had a hint of world-weariness in his eyes.

Upon seeing Li Ping, Xu Guikai burst out laughing. "Haha... Fellow Daoist Li, I never expected we’d meet again in the Land of the Far North. I must thank you for the Spirit Talismans you gave me back then; they are the reason I was able to escape that perilous situation."

"I didn’t expect such a coincidence either," Li Ping said with a smile, leading the two into the courtyard.

The three of them sat down in the pavilion. Li Ping’s gaze fell on Lin Yue, who was beside Xu Guikai. Her cultivation had also reached the Mid-stage of Foundation Establishment, about the same as his.

Lin Yue spoke in a low, somewhat timid voice, "Fellow Daoist Li."

"Mm, Fellow Daoist Lin," Li Ping acknowledged with a smile. He had heard of Lin Yue back when he was in Fenglan Immortal City.

「In the pavilion.」

Lin Yue sat to the side, occasionally smiling but not speaking.

Only Xu Guikai and Li Ping chatted idly. Having been away from the Western Wilderness for decades, Xu Guikai was quite concerned about the current situation there.

He was especially meticulous in his inquiries about Fenglan Immortal City.

However, Li Ping had been a shut-in, hiding in a secret realm, so everything he knew about the aftermath of the Righteous-Demon conflict in the Western Wilderness came from Xiao Yunzhi. He could only give Xu Guikai a rough summary.

As for Xiao Yunzhi, she was in her room, focused on her difficult training, and Li Ping didn’t want to disturb her over such a small matter.

Hearing that the Tuluo People had been repelled and that the Righteous and Demon factions had reconciled, Lin Yue let out a visible sigh of relief. Her reaction made Li Ping a bit curious, but he didn’t press the matter.

"Is that so..." After learning about the direction the war in the Western Wilderness Cultivation Realm had taken, Xu Guikai nodded, a contemplative look in his eyes.

Li Ping smiled and asked, "By the way, Fellow Daoist Xu, your trip to the Ice Sea to hunt Demon Beasts—did it go smoothly?"

Hearing this, Xu Guikai shook his head. "To be honest with you, Fellow Daoist Li, things were going quite smoothly at first, and the two of us had a decent harvest. But not long ago, the Demon Beasts in the Ice Sea suddenly and inexplicably went into an uproar. A large number of them swarmed towards the edge of the Ice Sea. Worried we might run into danger, we didn’t dare stay any longer and had to turn back."

"Oh? A sudden uproar?" As a follower of the Way of Prudence, Li Ping was naturally sensitive to anything out of the ordinary.

Especially since there was a Tier Four Ice Flood Dragon in the Ice Sea, a matter of constant concern for him.

Therefore, upon hearing Xu Guikai’s description, his attention was instantly piqued.

After a moment of thought, he asked curiously, "Fellow Daoist Xu, do you happen to know the reason for the Ice Sea Demon Beast uproar?"

Xu Guikai shook his head. "I don’t know. On the way back, I met some other cultivators I know, and they were also in the dark about it."

"Could it be a beast tide?" Li Ping asked.

Xu Guikai had once held an important position in Fenglan Immortal City, so he was naturally aware that beast tides occasionally broke out near the Immortal City. He understood what Li Ping was implying.

He shook his head slightly. "I don’t think so. The Ice Sea is vast, but the living conditions are harsh. The Demon Beast population is sparse—hardly enough for all the Cultivators hunting them. There’s no history of a beast tide ever breaking out."

"I see." Li Ping nodded thoughtfully, deciding he would ask Shi Yutong about the situation later, and let the topic drop for now.

"By the way, I heard from Shu Xuan that you’ve been collecting all sorts of materials, Fellow Daoist Li," Xu Guikai said with a smile. "My senior sister and I collected quite a few materials on our trip to the Ice Sea to hunt Demon Beasts. Take a look and see if there’s anything you need."

With that, he took out a materials list, placed it on the table, and pushed it toward Li Ping.

"Oh? I am indeed in great need of High-tier materials. You’ve come to my rescue, Fellow Daoist Xu." As he spoke, Li Ping smiled and picked up the materials list, examining it carefully.

After a short while, he found that Xu Guikai’s list indeed contained many materials he needed.

With these Spiritual Materials, plus what he had already collected, he could now craft his fourth Tier Two Upper Grade puppet.

This time, he still planned to make an Attack Puppet.

Controlling three Attack Puppets at once, his ’firing squad’ tactic of three-stage volley fire was beginning to take shape.

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