Gateway of Immortality

Bai’s figure flashed and appeared behind the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet.

He stared fixedly at the puppet without saying a word. Strange light flickered in his eyes, his gaze seeming to pierce straight through its body, unfathomably deep.

Seeing this, Qin Sang held back his questions, suppressed his curiosity, and quietly watched Bai’s movements.

A moment later, Bai suddenly raised his hand and pressed it against the puppet’s back. A strange fluctuation spread from his palm and flowed into the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet’s body.

Roar! The Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet let out a sharp howl. No one knew what Bai had done, but the seal on the puppet had been undone.

Runes flickered across its body, and its expression instantly twisted into savage ferocity. It jerked its head around, its eyes brimming with madness and bloodlust as it lunged at Bai.

Qin Sang frowned slightly, but restrained himself from acting. With Bai’s strength, he should have no trouble handling the puppet.

Qingjun parted her lips, about to warn Bai to be careful of the puppet’s backlash, when Bai suddenly gave a cold snort and thrust two fingers heavily against the puppet’s forehead.

Whoosh! A streak of blood-red light shot into the puppet’s body.

The Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet abruptly stiffened. The savage expression remained frozen on its face, but the madness in its eyes receded like a falling tide and vanished in the blink of an eye.

A trace of astonishment flashed through Qingjun’s eyes.

She could sense that the restless soul essence sealed within the puppet had suddenly fallen silent. Whether it had been soothed or forcibly subjugated, she could not tell, nor could she discern what secret art Bai had used.

She and Qin Sang needed the aid of a puppet seal to accomplish such a thing, and even then, they were nowhere near as effortless as Bai.

Qingjun glanced at Qin Sang. Qin Sang gave a slight shake of his head. He likewise could not guess Bai’s intentions. The two quietly watched what would happen next.

After suppressing the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet, Bai pressed his palm downward through the air. The puppet obediently sat cross-legged on the ground. Then Bai sat before it, pressed a finger tightly against its forehead, and closed his eyes.

In the blink of an eye, two hours passed. Bai and the puppet remained completely motionless.

Qin Sang drank several pots of peach blossom brew in succession. It was sweet, crisp, and immensely satisfying. He drank so happily that he failed to notice his senior sister glaring at him.

In the end, Qingjun directly activated the barrier on the cabin storing the brew and cut him off completely.

Neither of them dared disturb Bai. They could only sense the fluctuations in the puppet’s aura. For all this time, Bai had apparently been searching through the puppet’s interior for something.

Two more hours passed.

Bai withdrew his finger, opened his eyes, and glared viciously at the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet, cursing furiously again and again. "Incompetent fools! What a reckless waste! A reckless waste!"

For the sake of a single Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet, Bai lost his composure.

He snorted angrily, rose to his feet, tossed the puppet back to Qin Sang, then dropped heavily into a wooden chair and said in a muffled voice, "I made a fool of myself. Please forgive the spectacle."

Once sealed, the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet was only palm-sized. Qin Sang turned it over in his hand, immediately realizing Bai had been cursing the one who had refined it.

The ancestors of Shangyuan Tranquility Palace had created a talisman puppet with strength comparable to a middle-stage Spiritual Infant cultivator, yet in Bai’s eyes, they had earned nothing but a scathing verdict of utter incompetence.

"Brother Bai, you value it so highly. Its material must be extraordinarily special," Qin Sang said. He had suspected as much before.

Bai nodded. "It was only after seeing this puppet that buried memories stirred within me. I never expected to encounter such a thing here. If it truly is that legendary supreme treasure, I could easily cast off this refined corpse body and become human once more!"

Qin Sang’s face filled with shock.

He knew Bai had always wanted to escape the Corpse Dao. In Bai’s eyes, the Corpse Dao was nothing but a crooked and heretical path. But he had first been trapped by the Heavenly Corpse Talisman, then cultivated the bone curse in order to advance to a corpse king. He had gone too far down that road to turn back.

No wonder Bai had become so emotional. This Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet actually possessed such miraculous power!

"This puppet was refined from an exceedingly rare natural treasure, and not merely a fragment, but an entire divine tree," Bai’s expression grew complicated as he explained. "This divine tree is called the Dao Manifestation Tree. Though it is not counted among the Ten Divine Woods, in Daoist legends, it surpasses even the Ten Divine Woods!"

"The Dao Manifestation Tree?" Qin Sang examined the little figure in his hand. It seemed neither wood nor not-wood. A glazed sheen covered its surface, and it felt warm and smooth to the touch.

No matter how he looked at it, it did not resemble a tree at all. Yet its name alone sounded extraordinary.

As Qin Sang studied it, a thought surfaced in his mind. Can it be fused into the ebony sword?

Bai immediately saw through his thoughts and snorted. "Even among the Ten Divine Woods, not all are meant for artifact refinement. Legends regarding the Dao Manifestation Tree are vague because almost no one has ever seen one. According to rumor, a fully matured Dao Manifestation Tree is the finest medium and vessel for certain supreme Daoist supernatural abilities, allowing one to achieve twice the result with half the effort. You can imagine how priceless that makes it!

"And it has another use, one I have long dreamed of. The Dao Manifestation Tree is a rare heaven-and-earth spiritual embryo. A wandering soul can borrow it to be reborn, without losing cultivation, and gain a Dao Wood Spiritual Body, along with countless unpredictable benefits! The reason this puppet can preserve souls within it is precisely because of that."

Qin Sang and Qingjun were both stunned speechless, staring blankly at the tiny puppet. They had never imagined that such an unremarkable little figure possessed such a shocking origin.

The supreme Daoist supernatural abilities Bai spoke of were certainly not mere Spiritual Infant Realm arts. They were things far beyond Qin Sang’s imagination.

As for a heaven-and-earth spiritual embryo, they had never even heard of such a thing.

Qin Sang had only wanted to foil Dongyang Bo’s scheme, yet by sheer chance, he had obtained such a supreme treasure.

Where had Shangyuan Tranquility Palace obtained the Dao Manifestation Tree?

Qin Sang guessed it had either come from Ziwei Palace or been excavated from ruins in Ancient Immortal Battlefield. There was no way it had grown naturally in the present world.

To use it to refine a Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet truly had wronged such a treasure.

Still, Qin Sang’s mind was not clouded by greed. He caught the implication in Bai’s words and asked in return, "This is an immature Dao Manifestation Tree?"

Bai gave a grunt of acknowledgement. "A fully matured Dao Manifestation Tree, naturally nurtured by heaven and earth, stands three chi tall. Yours is still far from that."

"Can it continue to grow?" Qin Sang could not help imagining the possibility. Unfortunately, his Jade Liquid of Three Radiances had already been exhausted, otherwise he might have tried.

"Stop dreaming." Bai’s tone still carried resentment. "Do you know another characteristic of the Dao Manifestation Tree? It is called the Stainless Body. Its true form is among the purest things in existence. Once touched by any secret technique or outside force, even by the faintest trace, it completely solidifies forever and can never be reversed. Heaven envies supreme treasures! Since ancient times, there may have been no shortage of Dao Manifestation Trees birthed by heaven and earth, but whether even one has ever matured is unknown."

"Uhh..." Qin Sang froze. At last, he understood why Bai had become so furious.

The Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet had first been branded with a talismanic seal, then infused with countless souls, and later transformed by him and Qingjun into a puppet seal. It had long since been altered beyond recognition.

A supreme heaven-and-earth spiritual embryo had been reduced to existing forever as a puppet. That truly was a reckless waste.

Qin Sang looked at the Spiritual Infant Talisman Puppet with a complicated expression. Yet he could not honestly say how disappointed he felt.

After all, with his current vision and cultivation, he had no way of measuring how valuable a fully matured Dao Manifestation Tree truly was, nor how great the benefits it could have brought him would have been.

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