According to Dream Great One, Song Zongwu's consciousness was on the verge of going berserk, and merely using soul butterflies was fundamentally unable to awaken him.
Ren Qing could not help but feel worried. Song Zongwu had very likely encountered a heart-demon tribulation while breaking through to the Yang Spirit Realm, resulting in his soul being on the verge of sinking.
Although Ren Qing believed that Song Zongwu would sooner or later break free from the heart-demon tribulation, if he remained immersed in it for a long time, once the Rabbit-Toad cultivators descended, they would follow the clues and locate his physical body.
Dream Great One did not elaborate, only informing Ren Qing of the general situation, leaving it to the latter to decide how to resolve the trouble.
Ren Qing could not help but fall into contemplation.
He understood Dream Great One's meaning: it would be best to help Song Zongwu reach the Yang Spirit Realm; even if that failed, they should at least preserve his life.
If the Restraint Officers' Hall could gain one more Yang Spirit Realm cultivator, it would definitely add several degrees of assurance.
Dream Great One had considered going personally, but unfortunately, with the degree of soul-body aberration he possessed, he would be as conspicuous as a firefly in the dark night.
It might backfire and trigger large-scale riots of aberrant entities.
Ren Qing's consciousness turned toward the Ghost Market and found that a notice regarding Song Zongwu's mission had been posted long ago, but unfortunately there had been no results.
After hesitating for a moment, he decided to set out to check on Song Zongwu himself.
With his travel speed, a round trip would take at most a month or so, and he also had Wu Deceit to conceal his aura; even Yang Spirit Realm cultivators would be unable to detect him.
Given the current density of demonic qi in Jingzhou, there were still at least five years of a vacuum period.
That was more than sufficient.
Ren Qing could also choose to gather Restraint Officers to accompany him, but the assistance would not be significant for him.
When acting alone, the Disaster Dispelling Method could be fully utilized; the more Restraint Officers there were, the more unnecessary trouble it would instead cause.
Moreover, there were still quite a few Foundation Establishment stage demon cultivators within the Eternal Interminable Prison.
Ren Qing immediately began making preparations.
At the same time, he devoted his surplus energy to the two techniques, Winter Insect and Summer Grass.
[Summer Grass Art]
[Created by the Tai Sui Dao Lord. Cultivating this art requires swallowing seventy-five types of colorless and formless pathogens; only after stubborn illnesses are cured can it be refined successfully.]
[Winter Insect Art]
[Created by the Tai Sui Dao Lord. Cultivating this art requires propagating seventy-five types of colorless and formless pathogens within one's own body before it can be completed.]
Among the two techniques, Winter Insect Art seemed to have fewer drawbacks, but in reality, it was precisely the opposite.
The cultivation requirement of Summer Grass Art was to ingest seventy-five types of disease seeds, but its aberrant path focused mainly on curing diseases; Winter Insect Art required propagating pathogens, and its aberrant path was instead extremely radical.
The aberrant paths of Summer Grass Art were as follows.
[Disease-Free One: no illness, no pathogens]
[Disease-Expeller: expels calamities and disperses disease]
[Herb Gatherer: gathers disease as ganoderma]
Among them, Disease-Free One was the path chosen by the majority of cultivators of the Sending-Child Goddess Temple, with over a hundred such individuals within the Restraint Officers' Hall.
The main reason was that the cultivation threshold of Summer Grass Art was simply too high.
Even though the Sending-Child Goddess Temple had methods to avoid part of the risks, usually after reaching the Half-Corpse Realm, the body would become neither human nor ghost.
Only Disease-Free One could reconstruct the foundation; otherwise, advancing to the Ghost Envoy Realm would be hopeless.
Disease-Expeller and Herb Gatherer differed in their specifics, but both were auxiliary aberrant paths, causing the Sending-Child Goddess Temple to rarely appear in public.
Most of them were active in Nether Feather of Avici Hell; it was said that the boundless fungus tree there could suppress the aberration of Summer Grass Art.
As for Winter Insect Art, the recorded content of its aberrant paths was relatively sparse.
[Disease Tester: uses the body to derive disease]
[Disease Seeder: derives disease in other bodies]
[Disease Sniffer: senses disease in all directions]
Since the establishment of the Restraint Officers' Hall, the Sending-Child Goddess Temple had rarely had anyone cultivate Winter Insect Art; now it had been completely sealed away.
Winter Insect Art was simply too heretical.
Disease Tester used the self as a vessel to refine all kinds of diseases.
Disease Seeder could be described as utterly insane; as long as something was a living being, it could become a vessel for disease, using this to nurture large numbers of unknown disease seeds.
Disease Sniffer was slightly better, able to sense surrounding diseases with techniques, but its means of collecting disease seeds were likewise extremely cruel.
It was almost equivalent to refining corpses from living people.
Ren Qing always felt that the Tai Sui Dao Lord who created Winter Insect and Summer Grass, and the Heterodox Dao Lord who created the Six Afflictions Method, should be related.
The difference was that the Six Afflictions Method formed diseases through techniques, while Winter Insect Art cultivated diseases autonomously.
The methods of the Tai Sui Dao Lord were clearly unfathomable, with Winter Insect and Summer Grass resembling ice and fire.
Both Winter Insect and Summer Grass were relatively suitable for the Supreme Dark Nightmare Lord, whether it was Summer Grass Art evolving into "sweet dreams" that cured diseases, or Winter Insect Art refining disease seeds to compensate for the shortcomings of the Six Afflictions Method.
Unfortunately, if he wanted to cultivate them, he could only choose one to integrate into dream techniques.
Ren Qing had estimated that four secondary techniques were already the limit.
Adding one more would require three additional aberrant transformation fusions.
The danger involved was self-evident. Even if he directly advanced using the information flow, the lifespan required for aberrant transformation fusion would be extremely exaggerated.
He could not possibly waste six or seven hundred years of lifespan on aberrant transformation fusion.
Moreover, excessive aberrant transformation fusion would inevitably affect breakthroughs to the Yang Spirit Realm, and even the Heaven Aberration Realm. It was truly not worth the loss.
"If Winter Insect and Summer Grass were neutralized..."
Ren Qing suddenly had a thought, hurriedly closed his eyes, and carefully compared the two techniques, discovering that many areas indeed shared common ground.
This indicated that Winter Insect and Summer Grass were two parts split from a single technique.
Such a method was likely due to doctrinal inheritance; the original technique's entry difficulty was probably extremely terrifying and simply impossible to master.
Thus, the Tai Sui Dao Lord directly split it into Winter Insect and Summer Grass, allowing it to be passed down enduringly, likely for more than several thousand years.
Of course, recombining them into a single technique did not mean it would far surpass Winter Insect and Summer Grass; it might simply integrate their respective characteristics.
Ren Qing decided that he still had to give it a try, after all, he possessed the information flow.
Just like when he had perfected the Marshland Method, through the information flow he could obtain the detailed technique, and the rest was simply continuous supplementation.
He stored the books recording Winter Insect and Summer Grass into the Eternal Interminable Prison.
There would be plenty of time later, but for now he should first handle all matters at hand. Song Zongwu's situation could not be delayed.
The branches of the dragon tree were put on the Immortal Market as artifacts for storing Nether Yuan. The price was not expensive, and they were quickly snapped up by Daoist temple disciples.
They had long envied the wider areas explored by Restraint Officers, but the Netherworld Heavenly Insect Method was restricted by Nether Yuan, limiting them to the vicinity of Wuwei City.
Now with dragon tree branches, even replenishing Golden Core stage cultivation was completely sufficient, let alone Foundation Establishment or Qi Refining stages.
However, there was only a single dragon tree, resulting in extremely limited output of dragon tree branches.
Fortunately, dragon tree branches, as artifacts, could be reused, and if cultivators were capable, they could even be refined into stronger artifacts.
Ren Qing left part of the ghost shadows in Wuwei City to serve as a means of contacting the Restraint Officers' Hall at any time.
As he set out, he extracted the Six Afflictions Method aberrant object located within the divided soul, then sent the divided soul toward the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
The Six Afflictions Method aberrant object was extremely special, actually composed of imperceptibly tiny bacteria, capable of residing throughout his body.
Even without aberrant objects attached, the divided soul's strength far exceeded that of the original Marsh Immortal Method, even making Ren Qing feel somewhat alarmed.
When it first arrived in the outside world, without deliberately restraining the aura of the Six Afflictions Method, the main body immediately developed a faint cold.
One had to know that Ren Qing was at Yin Constable Realm Perfection, while the divided soul was only at the Ghost Envoy Realm, and had not even completed three aberrant transformations.
He hurriedly controlled the divided soul to restrain its aura. A mere ordinary cold for himself could directly result in civilians dying of high fever.
However, the cold caused by the Six Afflictions Method was only formed by techniques; it did not cultivate stubborn diseases like Winter Insect Art, resembling gu worms.
Ren Qing stored the aberrant object in his lungs. Seeing that it was cowed by the pressure of the Supreme Dark Nightmare Lord and dared not move, he no longer paid attention to it.
The divided soul left the range of Wuwei City and submerged into the boundless yellow sands.
This time, Ren Qing's preparations for entering the Longevity Forbidden Zone were comparatively well planned.
The materials he carried were almost entirely used to strengthen mortal bodies, capable of increasing the resistance of the people of Weian Town, indirectly enhancing their aptitude for body martial arts.
The more civilians mastered body martial arts, the more lifespan the main body would obtain.
However, what still puzzled Ren Qing was why the towering giant tree formed after the divided soul's death could extend the lifespan of the main body located far away in the outside world.
One had to know that lifespan extension in the Dream Market was based on the Dream Butterfly Method. The Six Afflictions Method contained no description of lifespan extension. There must always be cause and effect.
The camp outside the Longevity Forbidden Zone remained as before, with the Restraint Officers on guard appearing bored.
Ren Qing's divided soul leapt into the well and soon entered the Longevity Forbidden Zone.
But what followed was not the dark space of constructing a body as imagined; instead, it was directly inside a fruit filled with juice.
The divided soul continuously absorbed the juice, and its body was gradually constructed.
Large amounts of body martial information flooded into his mind.
Amid his astonishment, Ren Qing immediately realized that with this towering giant tree, he could select disease seeds and body martial arts together.
"Why does it feel like being a chosen one? This Longevity Forbidden Zone is way too cooperative, isn't it?"
He still focused on "Gigantification," "Flesh Augmentation," and "Hard Bone," with "Easy Hunger" and "Drowsiness" as auxiliaries.
As Ren Qing expected, the Easy Hunger disease seed could enhance digestive ability, while the Drowsiness disease seed caused the divided soul to remain in a half-dream, half-awake state, suitable for maintaining cultivation.
A crack opened in the fruit at the top of the towering giant tree, and the newly born divided soul crawled out.
Due to the faster flow of time in the Longevity Forbidden Zone, Weian Town had already taken shape, with over ten thousand people building houses around it.
Ren Qing placed his palm on the towering giant tree, and immediately the information flow surged.
[Longevity Tree]
[Condensed from the Rebirth Technique, possessing the abilities to contain the memories of the dead, absorb leaked vitality, and nurture divided souls.]
Would that not mean that divided souls could continuously reincarnate with the help of the Longevity Tree, without the main body expending energy to nurture them? That would indeed save a lot of trouble.
But the prerequisite was that Weian Town be self-sufficient, as the divided soul would have to remain there indefinitely.
Detailed information about the Rebirth Technique came into view.
[Rebirth Technique]
[Created by the Longevity Dao Lord. Requires fasting for one month, no sleep for two months, comprehending death for three months, and rebirth in the fourth month; only when the physical body decays can it be cultivated successfully.]
Ren Qing was somewhat surprised. He had originally thought that the core aberrant object was called "Longevity Method," but it turned out to be named "Rebirth Technique." Regardless, it was indeed related to lifespan extension.
This further strengthened his determination to obtain the Rebirth Technique.
Ren Qing glanced at the busy civilians and did not rush to reveal himself. Instead, he simply sat cross-legged on the tree trunk and began cultivating the Nether Yuan Heavenly Insect Method.
The main body no longer paid excessive attention to the divided soul, allowing it to develop on its own.
Next, Ren Qing needed to focus his energy on Jingzhou, and take advantage of this trip to clarify the current situation he was facing.