Chương 74: Corpse Controlling Techniques

Ren Qingquan flew for a few hours before finally arriving at Ink Lake, by which time the sky had already darkened. As noted on the map, there are no cultivators around Ink Lake. Even if any are present, they only stay briefly before leaving. As the name suggests, the Ink Lake's water is as dark as ink, making it impossible even for cultivators to see the bottom. Furthermore, the lake is quite massive. It's probably more than 2. 000 square kilometers in area.

As Ren Qingquan slowly descended, I activated my [Scan] to check the situation inside the lake. Although the lake's ink-colored water blocked even a cultivator's vision, it didn't affect my [Scan]. Through [Scan], I saw many fish swimming in the lake. The lake is also quite deep. The deepest I sensed was almost 400 meters below the water's surface. Once Ren Qingquan arrived at the lake's edge, he checked the number of fish in the water and nodded in satisfaction, "Let's just choose this area."

Ren Qingquan looked for a suitable place to hide his pearl-shaped portable storage before entering the portable space to sleep. When morning came, Ren Qingquan woke up. The moment he woke up, I sent him a message. [Ding! The Nine Element Escape Technique's Qi Refining Section has been successfully created.] Ren Qingquan nodded, learned the technique, and nodded in approval.

'The technique is pretty good. It's only at the Qi Refining realm, but it's already pretty incredible.'

'System, continue preparing the Foundation Building section.' [Ding! You've consumed 300 points. Please wait patiently. This process might take several hours.] After breakfast, Ren Qingquan left his portable storage and began his experiment.

'My plan is to kill some mobs by controlling corpses. But first, let's test how many corpses I can control.' Ren Qingquan pulled some of the corpses he had collected from his portable storage. But looking at the corpses that's mostly land based with a few birds here and there, Ren Qingquan fell silent.

'Damn it, I forgot my corpses are mostly land animals. Should I just go to the Thorn Forest instead?'

'But just flying here took me half a day. Going to the Thorn Forest on the other side will probably take me a whole day and night.' Ren Qingquan mused before deciding to try his luck in the lake first. He selected a few animals that might be able to swim and controlled them with his divine sense, with help from [Scan].

'Thankfully, I've bought some ducks, frogs, a turtle, and even two crocodile corpses, so I have corpses that can move easily in the water.' In total, Ren Qinguan deployed two Qi Refining-level corpses and eighteen Body Tempering-level corpses. At first, Ren Qinguan didn't seem used to controlling so many corpses at once, but he gradually got used to it. With the help of [Scan], Ren Qingquan easily monitored the situation in the lake and controlled his corpses to kill more fish in the pond.

Once they're dead, I'll activate [Devour] and slowly absorb their souls. Meanwhile, Ren Qingquan will control his corpses to bring the dead fish to the lakeside so he can repair and refine them. As the number of strong fish around him decreased, Ren Qingquan found the pace too slow and decided to fly while controlling the corpses swimming in the lake. While Ren Qingquan is flying, whenever he finds a strong target at the Qi Refining realm or above, he'll control the corpses to surround and beat that fish.

Once it dies, Ren Qingquan descends and performs a basic treatment to preserve the corpse before storing it in his portable storage. Occasionally, some strong fish will also jump into the sky to try to attack Ren Qingquan, but he already sees them coming on the system map, which has always been open, and immediately activates the Super Duper Something Something Turtle Shell Technique. A few hours in, he even found a Golden Core realm fish that jumped and attacked him.

Seeing the extremely fast-moving fish on the system map, Ren Qingquan quickly evaded while activating the Super Duper Something Something Turtle Shell Technique. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. The flying Golden Core realm fish looks like a piranha-mouthed fish with a long, scaly eel body. It has wing-like fins along both sides of its body, allowing it to glide and change direction in midair.

To take down the Golden Core, Ren Qingquan lost 80% of his fish corpses. In the end, he defeated it by enveloping his body in the Super Duper Something Something Turtle Shell Technique and continuously juggling the fish by flying and knocking it upward. The concussion from smashing it with the shield, along with its dried gills, finally killed the fish. Holding the Golden Core-level fish corpse and looking at his loss, Ren Qingquan returned to the side of the pond and began fixing and refining fish corpses.

It lasted from the afternoon until the evening. By the time he's done, Ren Qingquan's army has grown to one Golden Core realm fish, three Foundation Building realm fishes, ten Qi Refining realm fishes, and fifteen Body Tempering realm fishes. Ren Qingquan wanted to add more, but he found he couldn't control any more corpses.

'System, do you know what happened here? Why can't I control any more corpses?' I checked some books and found the reason. [There's a limit to how many corpses you can control. According to the record, it seems to be affected by your divine sense, your cultivation realm, your corpse-controlling technique, and the realm of your refined corpses. The more divine sense you have, the higher your cultivation realm, the more corpses you can control. Using a special corpse controlling technique can also let you control more corpses. But, the higher the realm of the corpses you control, the fewer you can control at once.] Ren Qingquan saw my message and tried to stop controlling a few Body Tempering level corpses. After he stopped controlling around 6 Body Tempering level corpses, he found out he could control a Qi Refining level corpse in exchange.

Until late at night, Ren Qingquan conducted a few experiments, and together we finally determined the limit of Ren Qingquan's corpse refining. Using Qi Refining level corpses as 1 unit, the maximum number of corpses Ren Qingquan can currently control is 25 units.

Controlling Golden Core realm corpses took 5 units, Foundation Building realm corpses took 2 units, Qi Refining 1 unit, Late and peak Body Tempering realm or the Martial Grandmaster realm took 0, 5 units, Mid Body Tempering realm or Martial Master took 0, 2 units, while Early Body Tempering or Martial Apprentice took 0, 1 units. As for creatures with no cultivation, it seems the unit it consumes is pretty random. It can be 0. 1 units or much less than 0, 1 units.

By the time our experiment ended, it was already late at night, and Ren Qingquan went to cultivate and rest. While he rested, I checked the corpse-controlling techniques for a bit and had a eureka moment. Corpse-controlling techniques are cultivation technique that help the user manage their divine sense more effectively, thereby increasing the number of corpses they can control per divine sense. By ignoring the fancy wording, I soon concluded the core essence of the corpse controlling technique.

The corpse-controlling techniques are actually split into three types. The first involves adding an extra refining step to the corpse and controlling it through external stimuli like smells and noises. The extra step will take a long time and is a pain in the ass because it combines some formation and alchemy techniques. Even so, this is the best way for corpse refiners to start an undead tide, but there's a chance for the corpse to get out of control, have the control taken, and many other dangers.

It must also be equipped with fuel, such as a large number of spirit stones or other materials capable of storing a lot of spirit qi, or they must be further processed into a special corpse type that can use the sun, moon, or other energy as fuel. They're practically undead-shaped spirit tools. Among the books I scanned, there are a few of this type, and each book has its own special additional refining step, which must be kept as a core secret.

The second kind of corpse-controlling technique lets the user imbue their divine sense with the ability to 'program' the corpse's behavior. This method also requires spirit stones or other spirit qi storage items as batteries, unless the user takes a 'program' slot to make the corpse consume ambient spirit qi on its own or once again process the corpse to let them automatically absorb alternative energy. The last method is the one Ren Qingquan used.

It's to directly control the corpse within the user's divine sense range. The disadvantages of this technique are its limited divine sense range and the limited number of corpses it can control. Meanwhile, the advantage is also glaring. The corpse controlled this way is much more flexible. They can defeat 10 corpses of equal level that are controlled by the first type of corpse-controlling technique.

Furthermore, breathing in ambient qi is already a passive function, so there's no need to consume spirit stones and whatnot. Compared to previous corpse-controlling techniques, the corpse-controlling technique for this method is essentially a multitasking technique + quick, instinct-like calculation that specifically targets corpse control. Here comes the neat part. For the first type, I don't think I can help much beyond experimenting with new corpse-controlling items.

For the second type of corpse control, my [Calculate] can definitely help optimize the corpse's 'program,' adding more behavior while consuming less divine sense. As for the third type of corpse control, I believe my [Calculate] can do the job of those corpse-controlling techniques and might even do better than they do. I patiently waited until Ren Qingquan stopped cultivating and prepared to leave his portable space, and asked him to try it.

[Host, System has just thought of an idea to increase the number of corpses you can control.] Ren Qingquan saw my message, 'How?' [System thinks the [Calculate] function can help you with this. Please wait a moment. I will prepare the [Calculate] function to specifically help with divine sense management and control before lending it to the host.] I lent my [Calculate] to Ren Qingquan. Once I lent all of my [Calculate]'s extra calculation power, Ren Qingquan tried to control more corpses and succeeded!

Both of us experimented for a moment and concluded that the 110 points of [Calculate] can actually let Ren Qingquan control two extra Qi Refining realm corpses. If 1 Qi Refining corpse is equal to 1 unit, that means Ren Qingquan's controllable corpses rose from the initial 25 units to a bit more than 27 units. That, too, when the [Calculate] function has only 110 points. I feel the more points added to [Calculate], the bigger the increases will be.

What a pity, activating this function means slowing down my own calculation speed. This means it'll take more time for me to complete the Foundation Building section of the Five Elements Escape Technique. After concluding our experiment, I told Ren Qingquan about my hypothesis. [Host, System thinks the more [Calculate] points invested, the more corpses you can directly control at once.]