After the gigantic corpse Buddha adapted for more than half a day, it then continued advancing toward the north.
However, something was different: the soles of its feet were covered by a thin layer of flame, preventing the long worms within the corrupted blood from injuring its flesh.
From this it could be seen that although the gigantic corpse Buddha had no intelligence, instinct could still employ spells, even if the methods were relatively crude.
Before preparing for strange transformation fusion, Ren Qing still had many matters to arrange in advance.
First was Tang Sheng in the Stomach-Within World. After the pouring of cultivation resources, his Great Compassion Maitreya Vajra Sutra had already reached the Half-Corpse realm.
Next, there were not many tricks to break through to the Ghost Envoy realm; Tang Sheng had to cultivate step by step by himself. Fortunately, it was absolutely sufficient for transmitting the teachings to the Cishi people.
Ren Qing informed Tang Sheng of the subsequent Vajra Body, then released him from Wine Lake Island.
He also warned Tang Sheng that the road toward Heaven Above Heaven would certainly not be peaceful, because the wilderness was filled everywhere with strange mutated wild beasts.
Tang Sheng respectfully saluted in acknowledgment, then walked toward the east.
The reason Ren Qing did not find jailers to protect Tang Sheng was mainly to give the latter a sense of crisis; after returning to Heaven Above Heaven he would also do his utmost to transmit the teachings.
Of course, with Tang Sheng's Half-Corpse realm strength, he would not die to mutated wild beasts.
Ren Qing then no longer concerned himself with the Stomach-Within World and instead examined the spine of the gigantic corpse Buddha. Among it more than ten vertebrae had already turned metallic in luster.
If nothing unexpected occurred, at most within a month artifactization would be completely finished, at which time the Martial Practitioner realm aberrant fetus could be fused.
Thinking of this, Ren Qing split a large number of Ghost Shadows with his consciousness, carrying materials toward the liver region to complete the Moon Patterns engraved on the surface.
Xiao San's artifact-refining level was already quite high; however, limited by his realm, he could not possibly achieve Ren Qing's level of free control.
As the Moon Patterns were perfected, the artifact aura emitted by the liver gradually restrained itself, and the blood vessels covering the surface all showed signs of artifactization.
At this moment Ren Qing noticed that at the bottom of the liver, yellow liquid was dripping like stalactites. He immediately had the Ghost Shadows collect it.
[Maitreya Oil]
[Condensed by the Great Compassion Maitreya Bodhisattva. Applying it to the skin preserves youthful appearance; ingesting it allows the liver to detoxify; when ignited, the mind more easily reaches a state of sudden enlightenment.]
As expected of a resource produced within the gigantic corpse Buddha, just the aspect of sudden enlightenment alone made it no less useful than the previous Maitreya Blood and Maitreya Soil.
It was even possible that if the effect of eternal youth from Maitreya Oil were widely publicized, the female cultivators of the entire Restraint Officers' Hall would go mad for it.
Ren Qing had begun to notice that most materials in Restraint Officers' Hall more or less had some drawbacks, or their effects were rather ordinary.
Yet the resources within the gigantic corpse Buddha were the exact opposite, truly worthy of being an Earth Immortal corpse.
Ren Qing signaled Li Tiangang to send people to collect the resource, then performed Dragon Roar Within the Casket.
After the Fatty-Liver Disease Seed completely pseudo-dragonized, it indirectly increased his control over the artifact, and only afterward came the step of fusing the aberrant fetus.
The Martial Practitioner realm aberrant fetus of the Heart-Burning Method looked like a large chunk of butter.
Ren Qing spent some effort before finally integrating the aberrant fetus into the liver. The originally lifeless organ actually began to wriggle slightly.
One could say that during the artifactization process, the corpse of the gigantic corpse Buddha would gradually revive like a strange object, moving from death toward life.
Unfortunately Buddha Qi would absolutely not allow the gigantic corpse Buddha to give birth to an artifact spirit.
Otherwise the speed of fusing aberrant fetuses could have been much faster.
With the foundation of an Earth Immortal like the gigantic corpse Buddha, as long as enough aberrant fetuses were available, it would easily be possible for organs and limbs to advance to the Yang Spirit realm.
Seeing that the transformation of the liver would still require some time and was unsuitable for refining other organs for now, Ren Qing issued tasks to Restraint Officers' Hall.
He had Xiao San first complete the artifactization of all the intestines.
Because the gigantic corpse Buddha was not a naturally formed corpse, it simply did not have a po-gate outlet, so the difficulty would undoubtedly be much smaller.
As for after intestinal artifactization was finished, Ren Qing next planned to act on the skin layer.
Only after the skin of the gigantic corpse Buddha was transformed into the Skin Refiner of the Human-Skin Book could it possess sufficient environmental adaptability; at that time even the blazing heat of a live volcano likely would not break its defenses.
Ren Qing believed that since Dead Man's Forbidden Zone involved so much, it had to be approached cautiously.
His goal was to arm the gigantic corpse Buddha with all kinds of Restraint Officer Methods down to the teeth; he did not believe that afterward it still could not safely enter and exit the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
Ren Qing then closed his eyes tightly and actively controlled the strange transformation branches to begin fusion.
With the experience of the previous few times, he was already highly skilled at breaking through realms; even in a noisy environment he could still concentrate.
As the strange transformation branches fused, the connections between the dream techniques became increasingly close.
Ren Qing even had the illusion that he could transform the real world into a dream.
The reason such a situation appeared was likely a sign that after completing the seventh strange transformation fusion, an embryonic divine ability was gradually being conceived.
After all, dream techniques were closely related to the soul.
At first Ren Qing did not pay attention, but as the omen grew stronger, it seemed as if a familiar voice was murmuring within his mind.
As more strange transformation fusions accumulated, the voice became increasingly intense.
"What situation is this?"
"Wait..."
Ren Qing reacted and immediately pushed the dream techniques to their limit.
When he parted from Song Zongwu and Dream Master earlier, Ren Qing had left each of them a wisp of Soul Butterfly projection, in order to contact them when an opportunity arose.
Unexpectedly, by taking advantage of the opportunity of the embryonic divine ability being conceived, he actually sensed Dream Master.
Ren Qing attempted to communicate using dream techniques, and endless darkness rushed toward him.
In a trance he arrived within an illusion composed of dreams. Twisted lights and shadows filled the surroundings, and a figure was crouching in a corner.
"Dream Master?"
"Dream Master?!"
But before he could approach, the illusory world shattered into fragments.
Ren Qing's consciousness returned to his body. His brows could not help tightening, apparently the situation on Dream Master's side was not optimistic.
He knew Dream Master's divine ability "Year After Year Like a Dream", which allowed entry into multiple layers of dreams.
The time flow of lower-layer dreams was somewhat different. It was very possible that while only one breath passed outside, dozens of years had already passed in the lower dream.
Dream Master's consciousness was probably currently within a dream below the tenth layer.
Perhaps he had encountered some trouble and had to think of a solution through multiple dream layers.
Ren Qing could not help from afar; perhaps in the moment he had been stunned, Dream Master's situation had already been resolved.
He could only wait until Darkest Demon Lord advanced to the Yang Spirit realm before contacting Dream Master again.
Ren Qing shook his head and meditated on the Eyeless Method to stabilize his body and soul. Only after clearing all distractions did he reenter strange transformation fusion.
Unknowingly, more than two months passed.
When only the final six strange transformations of the dream techniques remained, Ren Qing ended seclusion, planning to directly raise them using the information flow.
Because part of the strange transformations fused autonomously, he only needed to consume five to six hundred years of lifespan. With his current lifespan, that was not much.
Ren Qing could even feel that even if all fourteen strange transformation fusions were completed by himself, at most it would only waste some time.
Ren Qing could not help opening his eyes. The spine before him had already been completely artifactized, the overall material seeming as if forged from metal.
The Moon Patterns had also been completed by Ghost Shadow engraving.
It could be seen that the Hard-Bone Disease Seed and Bone Armor Technique were gradually taking effect.
However both transformed bones into metal imperceptibly, causing the bone armor attachment ability to only be possible once disease seeds covered the entire skeleton.
Ren Qing gently stroked the flesh wall with his palm. Countless filament-like nerves drilled into his palm.
Ren Qing's perspective immediately switched to the Insect Eye of the gigantic corpse Buddha.
He saw that the corrupted blood nearby had already become sparse. However the danger had not decreased, instead it had become even more terrifying.
In the far distance, the terrain had changed from plains into hills, and was shrouded by a dense幽green smoke.
At the speed of the gigantic corpse Buddha, at most after ten-plus days it would leave the Corrupted Blood Plain.
"Not much time left..."
Ren Qing tightly furrowed his brows. As they approached the Longevity Forbidden Zone more and more, the severity of the environment was increasing drastically.
This environmental change strongly resembled the process of a corpse's death.
After all he had once been a Corpse Burner and had seen many corpses.
The Corrupted Blood Plain resembled the coagulated state of flesh and blood when a corpse was fresh; normally corpses would appear purplish-red due to severe congestion.
After a corpse had been dead for a certain period, large numbers of microorganisms formed within the body, and once the flesh decomposed it began to emit corpse odor.
Ren Qing guessed that the Corpse-Odor Hills region should be more troublesome than the Corrupted Blood Plain, making artifactization of the gigantic corpse Buddha's skin especially important.
However Restraint Officers' Hall could not detach from the gigantic corpse Buddha; artifact refiners had to control artifacts remotely, so only the abdominal region had just been completed.
He planned that after breaking through, he would immediately devote himself to refining the skin.
Even if he could not completely transform the entire body's skin into Skin Refiners, at least the lower half of the gigantic corpse Buddha had to be covered; otherwise it would inevitably affect movement.
The area occupied by Restraint Officers' Hall had already grown quite large, and a large amount of manpower needed to be supplemented.
Ren Qing glanced at the Stomach-Within World.
After he released Tang Sheng from Wuwei City, according to the time flow difference between inside and outside, the latter had probably already reached Heaven Above Heaven.
Ren Qing swept his gaze across Heaven Above Heaven in the east. As expected, the transmission of teachings had already begun.
However the scene was somewhat strange, and the corners of his mouth could not help twitching.
Because Ren Qing had warned Tang Sheng beforehand, the latter did not choose to go alone to Heaven Above Heaven, but instead reached an agreement with the jailers.
Heaven Above Heaven would provide manpower to assist cultivation of the farmland, while the jailers would send cultivators to protect Tang Sheng.
The jailers had no cultivators to dispatch, so they instead had the Cocoon Person Sen Sheng and the Heavenly Dao Insect accompany Tang Sheng.
It somewhat resembled an alternative Journey to the West.
Ren Qing saw that seventy to eighty thousand Cishi people were cultivating the Great Compassion Maitreya Vajra Sutra. Tang Sheng clearly also understood the importance of cultivation.
Now there were already more than a thousand Martial Practitioner realm cultivators. At least Restraint Officers' Hall would no longer lack manpower.
However the Cishi people first had to integrate into the system of Restraint Officers' Hall; it would probably require considerable time, just like the Jingzhou demon-kind in the past.
Ren Qing relaxed and then summoned his own information flow.
[Lifespan: two thousand six hundred seventy-five years]
He could not harvest the monks of Buddha Within Buddha too recklessly, thus the efficiency of extending lifespan was far lower than before.
Ren Qing was nevertheless satisfied, at least he had seen the hope of the No-Birth Immortal.
No matter what, first advance the dream techniques to the Yang Spirit realm. At that time the lifespan obtained through the Dream Market would certainly be even greater.