Ren Qing refined the artifact used to store Nether Yuan, and while waiting for his spine to recover, he peeled off the Insect Root each time, the interval roughly ten days.
Unfortunately, the aberration Living Skin required long-term absorption of excess nutrients before it could take effect, otherwise his recovery speed could have been even faster.
He soon discovered that the Insect Root could subtly absorb true essence; the more there were, the higher the cultivation efficiency of the Heavenly Dao Worm.
Ren Qing couldn't help but sigh.
To him, Jingzhou was truly a treasure land. Even if he couldn't gather enough lifespan to break through to the Yang God Realm, the Nether Sea Breathing Art would break through the Spirit Division stage sooner or later.
Of course, the Shadow Ghost Technique had to advance first; otherwise the Nether Sea Breathing Art would remain stuck at its bottleneck.
A few more days passed, and the sub-soul was finally fully nurtured.
Ren Qing had also stabilized his own cultivation. After this closed-door session, all the subordinate techniques of the Shadow Ghost Technique had completed their aberrations.
The ghost shadow looked almost unchanged outwardly, yet had clearly become more restrained.
If Ren Qing didn't actively use the technique, the ghost shadow looked like an ordinary shadow, no one would imagine the terror hidden within it.
He then released the sub-soul from the Niwan Palace, preparing to cultivate the Ze Immortal Method.
Ren Qing intended to reach the "Severing Three Corpses" stage of the Ze Immortal Method to test how many illnesses the sub-soul could accommodate.
In the Longevity Forbidden Zone, illnesses were essentially cultivation aptitude; the immortal method simply intensified the sickness.
As Ren Qing concentrated on cultivating, traces of the Three Flowers Gathering at the Crown appeared on the sub-soul. The fast-track nature of the Ze Immortal Method was displayed vividly.
Within a short time he neared the threshold of severing the three corpses; the sub-soul became almost corporeal, radiating distorted halos.
The sub-soul naturally absorbed Nightmare Demonic Qi; a bulge rose at its neck, and the Nightmare Fiend Head fully formed within a few breaths.
Ren Qing hesitated slightly. Now he only needed to absorb demonic qi to complete the Ze Immortal Method, but he did not summon the Monster-Dream Dream Seed.
He suspected the sub-soul might influence the future physique of the main body, so could he use others to cultivate the Ze Immortal Method?
Ren Qing stored the sub-soul inside the Eternal Prison Manacle and threw it beside the Ghost Wolf; its artifact spirit contained ghost-shadow aura.
At his signal, the ghostly aura surged into the sub-soul.
The Ze Immortal Method moved toward completion, yet the sub-soul showed no sign of growing a third head, causing him to feel puzzled.
He continued regardless, until the Ze Immortal Method reached the point where it could not progress further.
At that moment, the mouths of the immortal and demonic heads exhaled black smoke, which drilled into the neck; a pitch-black ghost-shadow head was born.
Ren Qing examined the sub-soul. The central Ze Immortal Head emitted an ethereal aura, while the Nightmare Fiend Head and the ghost-shadow head looked terrifying.
The contrast only emphasized the sinister strangeness of the Ze Immortal Head.
"In a sense, each of the seven Jailers commands a different abnormal aura."
Ren Qing touched his chin in thought. When idle, he could continue perfecting the Ze Immortal Method; if he could increase the number of heads, it would essentially raise the sub-soul's cultivation.
There was no need to rush, exploring the Longevity Forbidden Zone would continue consuming sub-souls anyway. There would always be time to adjust.
Ren Qing summoned a black worm from the ghost shadow and fused it into the sub-soul's shadow.
The black worm was formed from the ghost shadow and the Heavenly Dao Worm, containing traits of both yet not a living creature, barely a type of Supernatural Remnant.
Ren Qing felt uneasy; the forbidden zone existed to devour Supernatural Remnants, and he feared a backfire.
The sub-soul silently left the house.
He noticed the city wall had grown even higher, yet it still could not conceal the greenery outside. Birds occasionally flying overhead were at least two or three meters long, while the beasts were even larger.
Within Wu Wei City, crowds surged, especially near the gate.
Groups of cultivators rode giant wolves toward the forest outside, Restraint Officers and Daoist disciples alike, showing little division between them.
Most rode clean, polished bone-armored beasts, clearly unwilling to use them recklessly in battle.
Returning cultivators piled their harvests in the town center; the corpses of demon beasts several dozen meters tall made one's hair stand on end.
Rabbit-Toad cultivators had not even descended yet, and Jingzhou's demon beasts were already at such a level; one could imagine what would happen after the upheaval.
Ren Qing's expression grew heavy. If necessary, he could only retreat from Jingzhou.
He glanced sideways at the Molted Husk; the material was clearly of Earth Immortal grade. If forced to abandon the Jingzhou camp, he would seize the chance to store the spirit vein inside the Eternal Prison Manacle.
Of course, he believed that with Jingzhou's complex situation, there would still be room for the Restraint Officers' Hall to survive, so long as the Supreme Heavenly Demon did not intervene.
The sub-soul silently walked out of the city wall into the sand-filled Shuize Desert, heading for the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
He kept a steady pace, occasionally passing groups of reserves.
Ren Qing was stunned when he saw their mounts, he froze for several moments before continuing with a bitter smile.
He had thought giant lizards seven or eight meters long were already excessive,
Yet Restraint Officers had somehow grown them to over twenty meters, with forty pairs of limbs.
It looked like a stitched-together abomination, unlikely to advance further, but enormous nonetheless.
Bird-type beasts were also being sold.
He had no idea what these messenger beasts would look like in a few months.
Ren Qing smiled bitterly. Only Restraint Officers would act so recklessly; Daoist disciples would never dare tamper with such beasts.
Given a few hundred or thousand years without outside pressure, one couldn't imagine how brilliant their cultivation civilization might become.
Ren Qing was a guide, a follower, and a witness.
He simply let Yuan Si handle the beast-to-fiend transformations. Whether the beasts were useful or not would be up to the Restraint Officers.
Once matters were arranged, he arrived at the remote exterior of the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
The camp was lively; Restraint Officers made their beasts fight, forming an impromptu tournament.
Some even traveled from afar solely to join these crude matches.
The giant wolf guarding the well whined when it sensed Ren Qing's aura, clamping its tail between its legs.
Ren Qing easily leapt past it and plunged into the well.
Darkness consumed his vision; tension rose in his chest, the black worm was too unusual.
Fortunately, the Longevity Forbidden Zone did not react; the sub-soul slowly regrew flesh and bone.
Without the Dream Seed this time, he could not see the surrounding illnesses. He could only wrap the main sub-soul with the ghost shadow.
He collected illnesses upon contact and examined them through information flow.
[Illness: Night Sweats]
[Illness: Brittle Bone]
[Illness: Night Blindness]
[Illness: Allergy]
...
Ren Qing browsed the dizzying variety. Because there were so many, encountering a malformed illness required luck.
Allergies were off the table, if he became allergic to food or water, he would collapse and restart instantly.
He first integrated night blindness; with the Dream Seed and ghost shadow, even total blindness at night would pose no problem.
But he soon realized the sub-soul's eyes were turning pale, its vision was being impaired.
He cursed quietly and integrated a second illness: insomnia.
Insomnia made it hard to sleep; prolonged wakefulness could collapse the mind.
But he could meditate instead of sleeping, or let the ghost shadow knock him unconscious if needed, not a major issue.
The sub-soul's flesh had formed; next was skin.
He quickly used the ghost shadow to interfere, letting its aura touch the skin to infuse it with some traits of the Scapegoat Skin.
Whether it would help was unclear, but the skin did darken.
Ren Qing did not hesitate and chose night sweats, gambling that the skin could absorb and store moisture. Otherwise he would have to drink water constantly.
He felt two more illnesses would be his limit, so he merged wind-cold.
For the final illness, he hesitated. Minor diseases might limit development.
As the body neared completion, Ren Qing gritted his teeth and merged cancer.
He was then squeezed out by a strange force and returned to the ruined temple in the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
He had not acquired a malformed illness; his appearance was not too bizarre, just a dark-skinned, nearly blind farmer-like figure.
[Ren Qing]
[Lifespan: 2 years, 130 days]
[Illnesses: Cancer, Night Blindness, Night Sweats, Wind-Cold, Insomnia]
Ren Qing willed, and the shadow behind the three immortal statues flowed like a ghost; the remaining ghost shadow merged into the shadow under his feet.
Double Pupils formed at his forehead, transformed from the Dream Seed.
He tested his body. His vision was like severe myopia, three to four hundred degrees. Aside from sweating more than usual, nothing felt amiss...
A mountain breeze swept through.
Ren Qing shivered. His throat felt inflamed; his temperature rose; familiar weakness flooded in.
He held his face helplessly, the wind-cold illness was utterly invasive.
Since beginning cultivation, this was the first time he had contracted an ordinary sickness.
He dared not underestimate wind-cold; a high fever alone could kill him, let alone potential complications.
The black worm crawled out of the ghost shadow and entered Ren Qing's spine through nose and mouth.
Ren Qing sat cross-legged, eyes closed, taking out a seemingly ordinary jade pendant. As the Insect Root merged with the spine, he cultivated the Netherworld Heavenly Insect Method.
A trace of Nether Yuan flowed from the pendant, circulating through his meridians.
He trembled. Though the wind-cold did not heal, its symptoms were suppressed; the fever dropped from high to low.
Most importantly, the Nether Yuan activated the traits of the Scapegoat Skin, perhaps also influenced by the ghost-shadow head.
Though far weaker than the main body, it was enough to lock in the moisture lost from night sweats; all illnesses remained mild.
As for cancer, he could not yet find the site of mutation, it would likely appear only after he used lifespan to advance.
He continued circulating Nether Yuan, planning to reach Qi-Refining before heading to Undying Town.
Foundation Establishment would have to wait until the Insect Root fully transformed his physique into an insect-body; the Nether Yuan in the pendant was nowhere near enough for Core Formation.