In the Xianxia world, any profession requires a certain amount of talent, but what's most important is the accumulation of experience.
Zhao Di had refined over a hundred pieces of magical equipment, spiritual tools and treasures, and even had over a hundred experiences in puppet refining. He had meticulously studied various classics related to equipment refinement, with no less than a hundred volumes, so in this aspect, he could indeed be considered an expert.
Although the puppet refining technique was incredibly complex, for Zhao Di, who had mastered this path, it seemed to be as familiar as an old routine.
Especially since he was willing to spend high-grade spirit stones to assist in refining equipment, providing sufficient spiritual support during the material's refinement process, the treasures refined were often slightly better in quality.
Under Zhao Di's meticulous control, the upper arm, torso, lower limb, and head of a human-shaped puppet were refined one by one, then merged with the five-level demon soul and assembled. After three days and nights of careful work, Zhao Di finally obtained his first foundation-stage puppet, and he applied the technique of dividing his spirit to implant a part of his divine sense into the puppet.
With Zhao Di's current cultivation and divine sense, using the Splitting Soul Technique no longer requires much effort, and the damage to his divine sense is also relatively small, so he doesn't need to rest for a period of time just for this.
This puppet initially looks a bit ugly, with its bright red body and coarse skin. Its limbs are disproportionate, with the upper arms being longer than the lower ones, and both hands only having two saw-like fingers. Although they have great gripping power, they don't seem as agile as human hands. The puppet's facial features are even more simplistic, with its head resembling a smooth, bald sphere.
Although so, Zhao Di was still very satisfied with this puppet. He lightly patted the puppet's chest, revealing a fist-sized hole in that location. Zhao Di embedded a mid-grade spirit stone of the fire attribute into it and covered the hole again.
The puppet assembled with the Ling Stone emitted a powerful spiritual pressure, even slightly surpassing that of an ordinary mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator.
Zhao led the puppet out of the alchemy room and came to a spacious area in the cave, also summoning the Ice Wind Python to this place.
Zhao Di took out the top-grade spiritual artifact, Huo Tian Jian, which had helped him achieve great victories and kill many strong enemies. He threw it to the ugly fire-attribute surname Zhu's mid-term puppet, who caught it with his pincer-like hands, tightly grasping the hilt of the sword. Following Zhao Di's mental command, he swung the sword fiercely at the air.
A dragon's roar echoed out, and a lone horned fire dragon over ten zhang long burst forth, baring its teeth and brandishing its claws, as the surrounding temperature suddenly rose sharply.
Yoularn and Youro, the two women watching from the side, were ghostly bodies, most afraid of this extremely yang and strong high-temperature flame, they frowned and hid behind Zhao Di. Zhao Di also slightly raised his hand, a faint purple gas protected the two women within.
Bingfengmang also received Zhao Di's command at this time, and sprayed a white cold air with a diameter of about a water bucket, mixed with countless large and small ice cones, towards the fire dragon in the sky.
The Ice Wind Python has already reached the level of a fourth-grade demon beast, and the icy cold air it spits out is extremely powerful. Even a late-stage foundation-building cultivator would find it difficult to withstand! Not to mention that this python has also refined the Azure Ice Pearl, making its ice-attributed divine ability even more formidable. Even an ordinary Golden Core initial-stage cultivator would likely be in big trouble.
Ice and fire are mutually restrictive. This white cold air encountered the fire dragon, and in an instant it was evaporated clean by the latter, without showing any power at all!
Although the Fire Dragon's body size has also decreased a lot after encountering the cold air, it is clear that the Fire Dragon's power is still above the cold air.
"Congratulations, Master!" Yu Lan and Yu Ruo's excitement was evident on their faces.
Zhao nodded, smiling silently. The power of this strike from the puppet had absolutely reached the standard of a full-force blow from an ordinary Foundation Establishment cultivator, which made Zhao feel quite pleased! He hadn't thought wrongly after all; a Foundation Establishment puppet could indeed use high-grade spiritual tools!
At this time, let Zhao Di use the Blazing Sky Blade, and the power it unleashes will definitely be even stronger. But the puppet can already exert 70-80% of the power of a high-quality spiritual artifact, which is enough to make it his deadly weapon!
Because the number of puppets can fully make up for the loss of these permit powers!
After his own ideas were confirmed, Zhao Di began to massively refine puppets equivalent to the strength of a mid-to-late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, as well as various high-quality spiritual tools.
"Shooting Sun Bow", a top-grade spiritual artifact of the Fire surname, made from the spiritual bones and tendons of a fifth-level Fire surname demon beast, can shoot out thick fire pillars, with power slightly inferior to that of the Blazing Sky Blade; "Blue Haze Knife", a top-grade spiritual artifact of the Water surname, forged from the over three-foot-long sharp fangs of the Blue Tooth Beast, a Water surname demon beast, once unsheathed, can emit blue light blades, extremely sharp and similar to the Blazing Sky Blade; "Flowing Stone Plate", a top-grade spiritual artifact of the Earth surname, made from the compound eyes of the Crack Earth Turtle, can emit countless giant stone blocks that deal massive damage; "Green Light Shield", a defensive top-grade spiritual artifact made from the hard shell of the Wood surname's Turtle Demon;...... As more and more puppets were born and top-grade spiritual artifacts were forged, the large amount of high-grade spiritual stones in Zhao Di's storage bag was also consumed, and his strength skyrocketed during this process!
Two years later, Zhao Di had a small army of thirty puppets in the middle and late stages, each equipped with a high-quality spiritual instrument. These puppets were trained according to the key points of "Puppet Thousand Machines Technique". When Zhao Di used them, the power displayed was much higher than the simple sum of individual puppets.
The cost of this puppet army is astonishing, with each puppet costing tens of thousands of spirit stones, and the value of high-quality spiritual instruments reaching hundreds of thousands of spirit stones. Adding the high-grade spirit stones inlaid on the high-quality spiritual instruments, the total value of this puppet army even exceeds the entire wealth of many medium-sized sects!
In terms of strength, according to Zhao Di's estimation, the attacking and defensive capabilities of this puppet army were absolutely not under the joint hands of ten extremely taciturn Foundation Establishment cultivators! This made Zhao Di's strength reach a terrifying degree that ordinary people could hardly imagine.
Of course, this shocking and terrifying puppet army would not dare to easily show up in front of people, unless absolutely necessary, it would not be lightly used. Once used, it must be done to annihilate the enemy completely, without leaving any survivors!
Otherwise, if those big sects' Yuan Ying old monsters were to discover his enormous wealth, they might even put their cultivation aside and stare at him day and night!
This enormous wealth, even the greatest power in Xingchen Hai cannot ignore it!
Zhaodi thought that with the assistance of this puppet army, he could easily defend himself against the cultivators in the Condensation Period. However, if he wanted to sweep across and annihilate his enemies, there was still a fatal flaw!
That's teleportation speed!
For cultivators below the Foundation Building stage, flying speed is relatively slow, and they basically rely on flying magical instruments to fly. The speed of flight depends on the quality of the flying magical instrument, but even the best flying magical instrument cannot make a Foundation Building stage cultivator's flying speed comparable to that of a Core Formation stage cultivator's teleportation!
For cultivators above the Congealing Dan stage, the flying speed of Yun Guang is extremely fast and does not need to rely on flight artifacts. Moreover, with each increase in cultivation level, the speed of flight will increase by half, so it can be said that late-stage Congealing Dan cultivators are much faster than early-stage Congealing Dan cultivators.
If Zhao Di encountered a formidable late-stage cultivator, he would have no choice but to use his puppet troops to defend himself. However, if the opponent knew better and directly transformed into a flash of light to escape at full speed, even with his speed, it would be impossible to catch up and annihilate them! In this case, it was extremely likely that his own puppet troops would be exposed, inviting disaster upon himself!
This problem has been a headache for Zhao for a long time. When facing those high-ranking cultivators who were hard to beat but quick to escape, with his current means, it was really difficult to guarantee a one-hit kill!
It seems that the only way to solve this problem is to refine a powerful flying treasure!
If there is such a speed-enhancing artifact of great power, then it may be possible for his speed to receive an extreme boost, surpassing the Void Flash of a late-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator!
However, to refine a flight treasure of this level, at least the wing bone frame of a sixth or seventh grade avian demon beast and a large amount of high-grade wind spirit stone are needed to possibly refine it.
The high-grade Wind Spirit Stone is nothing to speak of, extremely rare for others, but for Zhao Di, it's just a matter of reaching out and taking it! However, those six or seven kinds of demonic beast materials are fundamentally impossible to buy in the market. The market's sixth- and seventh-grade demonic beast materials are exceptionally precious, let alone the most rare avian demonic beast materials!
This is because the avian demonic beasts fly at extremely high speeds, and are originally very difficult to capture and kill. Moreover, most of the time they fly in extremely high altitudes, their strength in mid-air is especially astonishing. Ordinary cultivators who encounter them can't even dodge in time, let alone talk about hunting and killing!
The Lei Feng that suddenly appeared at the auction, known as the King of Avian Demons, had a flying speed that was extremely terrifying. In just an instant, it disappeared far away into the horizon, leaving the cultivators on Island No. 1 with no intention of pursuing it. Perhaps even if there were many Nascent Soul stage cultivators present, they would still be unable to keep up with this demon's flying speed!
Materials of avian demonic beasts above grade 6, such treasures that can't be sought but only waited for by chance, just like the fire coral, may bring him some when the time is right.
The current plan is to follow Zhao Di's original idea, using the terrifyingly powerful puppet troops, in conjunction with the Law Array and the Heavenly Fragrance Illusory Array's enticement, to carry out a large-scale hunt for sixth and seventh level demonic beasts!
Today, Zhao Di arrived at the 8th Grand Hall on the top of Yun Tai Mountain Peak in Penglai Fairy Island, preparing to go to the 8th island in Star Sea through the transmission array here.
He had inquired about it, and although there were signs that the number and density of demons on the islands of Xingchen had increased somewhat, the so-called beast tide was unlikely to erupt in a short period of time. On the contrary, because demons were easier to find, more cultivators were attracted to go on adventures to kill them.
Zhao Di chose Island No. 8, which was mainly inhabited by sixth-grade demonic beasts, with a small number of seventh-grade demonic beasts, but very few demonic beasts below the fifth grade.
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