"How is your cultivation going? Don't be lazy," Li Lin asked Little dragon.
"I should be about to break through," Little dragon replied, his small eyes turning as a hint of a smile appeared in his eyes.
After putting the spiritual jade bed into his storage ring, Li Lin then took out the Fire Dragon Cauldron and once again set his gaze on Zhao Qingtian, slowly saying, "What, are you surprised, or are you shocked?"
As his words fell, Li Lin sent a true qi into Zhao Qingtian's throat, causing Zhao Qingtian to cough violently. Then, with a horrified gaze, Zhao Qingtian looked at Li Lin and said, "You are also a spiritual practitioner, are you the legendary cultivator of both spirit and martial arts?"
"Didn’t you see it yourself?" Li Lin replied with a faint smile.
"Don’t kill me, please let me go, I can give you anything you want," Zhao Qingtian begged in fear, his only option now was to plead for mercy.
"Don't worry, I won't kill you," Li Lin replied with a slight smile.
"Really? As long as you don’t kill me, I have martial techniques, gold coins, and pills in my storage ring. I can give them all to you, and if that's not enough, I can get more for you," Zhao Qingtian hurriedly said, his eyes beginning to show a desperate desire to live.
"Ha ha," Li Lin laughed and said, "I promise I won’t kill you."
After saying this, Li Lin no longer paid any attention to Zhao Qingtian. His hand seals changed, and he sat cross-legged in front of the Fire Dragon Cauldron, then took out a lot of materials from his body. These were the materials needed to refine a puppet, and at this moment, Li Lin planned to refine Zhao Qingtian into a living puppet.
Having recently broken through to the peak of the Third Level Martial General, Li Lin decided it was not suitable to assimilate so soon, so he planned to refine him into a puppet.
Thinking about using Zhao Qingtian to deal with the Zhao family, a cold smile appeared on Li Lin's lips again. The scene would probably make the Zhao family's faces look very interesting.
Spiritual power was injected into the Fire Dragon Cauldron, and a scorching flame began to howl. Soon, Li Lin put a lot of materials into the Fire Dragon Cauldron.
Under the envelopment of the flames, the materials began to slowly refine. This refinement process did not require much technique, and Li Lin was now adept at it, easily beginning the refinement process.
Now at the Second Level Spirit General's strength, Li Lin only needed one day to completely refine all the auxiliary materials. Inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron, there were now balls of pure solution rolling like magma.
Feeling the solution inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron, Li Lin smiled slightly, withdrew his hand seals, and turned his gaze back to Zhao Qingtian, saying, "Now it's your turn."
"What are you going to do? You said you wouldn't kill me," Zhao Qingtian, sensing something, began to tremble all over as the scorching temperature inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron made him shiver in fear. If he hadn't been restrained, he probably would have collapsed on the ground already.
"I indeed won’t kill you; I will just make you stronger," Li Lin said with a light smile, his amusement making Zhao Qingtian feel terrified.
At this moment, Li Lin indeed did not plan to kill Zhao Qingtian. Using a living person to refine a puppet, the puppet's strength would increase, similar to a puppet with the strength level of an Eighth Level Martial Soul being refined into a peak Fourth Level After-Phase puppet, equivalent to the peak of a Ninth Level Martial Soul, almost reaching the strength of a First Level Martial General.
Originally, the puppet Kui, who was unconscious and considered a living dead when refined, was less effective compared to a true living person puppet.
Now, Li Lin decided to refine a true living person puppet. Zhao Qingtian's strength as a Second Level Martial General was probably at the peak of that level. Li Lin estimated that after refining him into a puppet, the strength might reach the edge of the Fifth Level Middle Phase, which is the strength of a Fourth Level Martial General. With the puppet's robustness, it would be equivalent to contending against a Fifth Level Martial General.
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A puppet equivalent to the cultivation level of a Fifth Level Martial General would be incredibly strong.
At this moment, Li Lin felt even more the terrifying might of his cheap master, the Holy Hand Spirit Sovereign. No wonder even Uncle Jiang admired the Holy Hand Spirit Sovereign as a super-strong figure famous long ago. Everything recorded in the Heavenly Spirit Record was insane and terrifying.
"What are you going to do, please let me go," Zhao Qingtian's eyes trembled with fear, seemingly sensing Li Lin's cruelty from his teasing gaze.
"You'll know soon," Li Lin said with a calm smile, and then with a change of hand seals, a light enveloped Zhao Qingtian, who was unable to move due to the restraints, and directly threw him into the Fire Dragon Cauldron.
"Sizzle!"
As soon as Zhao Qingtian's body entered the Fire Dragon Cauldron, his clothes instantly turned to ashes, and then the surface of his skin began to emit sizzling sounds in the scorching flames, with blood plasma continuously flowing out and evaporating into white vapor in the high temperature of the Fire Dragon Cauldron.
"Ah..."
A scream erupted from Zhao Qingtian's mouth, sounding eerily like ghosts wailing, but this scream was short-lived. As soon as he opened his mouth, the flames engulfed him, silencing him immediately.
Unable to make a sound, but the pain was still present, it was a fate worse than death. Zhao Qingtian finally understood what Li Lin intended to do; he wanted to refine him into a puppet while still alive.
At this moment, Zhao Qingtian was filled with deep regret for provoking such an opponent and for not killing him at all costs when Li Lin was still weak.
In the midst of this excruciating pain, Zhao Qingtian was filled with hatred. Now completely restrained, he lacked even the ability to commit suicide and could only endure the unbearable pain, feeling his flesh and bones separating, his hair, skin, and mouth melting, and his blood sizzling as it evaporated in the flames.
Li Lin, however, was fully focused on controlling the spiritual fire. At this moment, any carelessness could either burn Zhao Qingtian's body to ashes if the spiritual fire was too strong, or fail to remove the impurities in the body if it was too weak, not meeting the requirements for refining a puppet.
As the spiritual fire continued to refine, Zhao Qingtian's body became bloodied and blurred, with blood seeping out from his flesh in the flames, suffering excruciatingly. It was a cruel and bloody sight.
Li Lin had no compassion for such cruelty; it did not mean he lacked kindness. The one inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron was his enemy, someone who repeatedly sought to kill him. If not for Li Lin's ability to turn danger into safety multiple times, he would have been dead by now.
Showing mercy to an enemy is like digging one's own grave. Li Lin would not be foolish to that extent. Kindness is not to be shown at such times.
As the refinement continued, Li Lin could feel Zhao Qingtian's body, after the impurities were removed, slowly becoming stronger. The muscles and bones were subtly contracting as if strength was being condensed.
This process lasted for two whole days and nights. At this point, Li Lin's face was somewhat pale, as the consumption was significant. With his current Second Level Spirit General strength, the likely outcome of the refinement was a puppet at the Fifth Level Middle Phase, which would imply considerable expenditure.
By now, Zhao Qingtian's body had turned into a charred color, and a thin layer of flesh membrane had wrapped around this body, significantly increasing its strength multiple times over. The muscles and bones had been thoroughly refined.
Looking through the thin flesh membrane wrapping the body, Li Lin could see that Zhao Qingtian's internal organs were still faintly pulsating, appearing extremely mysterious. However, the color of these organs had also turned to a charred black, no longer the original vibrant red.
"Control Soul." When Li Lin changed his hand seals again, an invisible energy burst forth from his brow, entering the brow of Zhao Qingtian's dried-up body inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron.
What Li Lin intended to do was to control Zhao Qingtian's soul. The most crucial aspect of a puppet refined from a living person is its soul power, allowing the puppet to retain its original soul, filled with wisdom and its own responsive consciousness, while also keeping its cultivated martial techniques from its lifetime, combined with its powerful body, to truly become terrifying and considered a genuinely good puppet.
As Li Lin's soul power instantly entered Zhao Qingtian's mind space, he was immediately met with a furious attack from Zhao Qingtian's soul power within. This soul power seemed to have lost control, attacking the foreign power purely on instinct.
Zhao Qingtian was not a spiritual practitioner, and although he was a Martial General, his soul power was not particularly strong. During the refinement, his soul power had already been damaged, and by now, it had almost lost all consciousness.
At this moment, Zhao Qingtian's soul power naturally could not compare with Li Lin's, and it was quickly enveloped and restrained by Li Lin's soul power. Then, within the Fire Dragon Cauldron, a spiritual fire instantly refined these soul energies.
These refined souls turned into smoke, and Li Lin's soul power instantly merged with them before finally entering deep into the brain of the body.
"Puppet Secret Technique, condense for me."
Instantly, Li Lin's eyes burst open, a sharp light shooting out. As his hand seals changed, the solution inside the Fire Dragon Cauldron boiled over and was directly poured onto Zhao Qingtian's body.
"Sizzle..."
The scorching hot solution drenched Zhao Qingtian's body, emitting a sizzling sound. The intense heat surged again, wrapping the body from head to toe in the scorching solution. Every muscle and bone in the body twitched non-stop under the high temperature.
（Read more chapters: ficcloud. Çōm）