MSBITRS Chapter 83 V1

Xiao Qiong Peak, the back mountain.

By a few nearly withered old trees, Li Changshou stood frowning, sighed softly, and gently placed his hand on the trunk of one of them.

“You’ve worked hard.”

A breeze rustled the bare branches, causing them to sway slightly—almost as if they were saying, “It’s okay, it’s okay.”

In reality, though, they were probably trembling.

There wasn’t much he could do. Over the past half-year, to produce more paper effigies for use in real combat, Li Changshou had repeatedly come here to harvest sap from these trees, using all kinds of methods to try and restore their vitality.

Back and forth, again and again…

These ancient spirit trees, which might have lived for tens of thousands more years and even had the potential to give birth to wood spirits, were now barely hanging on.

Take good care of them, he thought.

Li Changshou let out another sigh, a pang of guilt rising in his heart.

He glanced toward the nearby plot of land where some branches had successfully taken root and silently promised, If you can’t make it, I’ll take good care of your children.

Another breeze blew through, and the old trees shivered once more.

Maybe… that was their way of showing they were touched.

Cough—no joke.

With a light tap of his toe, Li Changshou floated away like a drifting willow catkin.

He drifted to a tall tree near the lake and landed on the treetop, hidden within the canopy.

With his eyes closed in meditation, his loosely tied hair fluttered in the wind, and the hem of his robe swayed with the branches beneath his feet…

When still, he was as light as a feather; when in motion, he could shake the heavens.

To achieve such presence without the use of spells or powers was a mark of profound cultivation and control.

Over the past six months…

Thanks to the sacrifice of the old trees, the first phase of his preparation plan was finally complete, just barely.

Fortunately, those secretly coveting Du Xian Sect had yet to act, giving him this precious time to prepare.

Had war truly broken out earlier, there wouldn’t have been much he could do.

During this time, the original and newly added formations atop Xiao Qiong Peak hadn’t been updated, but they had now fully integrated into one cohesive system.

All throughout the forest, intricate ancient patterns had emerged—seamlessly blending into the landscape. No longer did they give off a sense of dread at first glance.

Trapping and illusion arrays were meant to hinder enemies; killing arrays were, naturally, for killing.

If your killing array warns people and scares them off before they even step in, then it’s not a good killing array.

As for the massive formation beneath Xiao Qiong Peak, everything he had envisioned was now fully in place and operating at its best.

His technique of using paper effigies, enhanced through high-level artifact restriction talismans, had also been refined. They now met his baseline requirement, no longer needing his full mental focus to control.

It would take a long time for this technique to truly evolve into something akin to creating avatars, but for now, it was good enough.

They were emotionless tools—capable of poisoning, breathing fire, chanting incantations, remote control, multi-functional “magical products” ready 24/7.

Of course, not everything had gone perfectly.

The poison-based divine technique Poison Net Hand, which he had learned from Elder Wan Linjun, was still at the beginner level due to the short practice time.

This technique essentially weaponized poison, turning it into a spell or divine art, making it more efficient, and making the user more confident.

Li Changshou opened his eyes and looked toward the lake, where his master and junior sister were practicing escape techniques.

At his insistence, his master had reluctantly begun practicing earth escape half a year ago.

His junior sister had already started learning the five-element escape arts earlier on, and was now under strict orders to master water escape.

So now…

Occasionally, a graceful figure in flowing robes and black hair would rise from the lake, trailing sparkling droplets as she descended again—a rather beautiful sight.

But…

“She’s still way too slow.”

Li Changshou shook his head, frowning.

He had already taught Ling’e every trick he knew for speeding up the water escape, but she still obsessed over her “entrance” and “exit,” focusing too much on the aesthetics.

That vain little girl…

Why not float some treasure orbs around herself and add a soft lighting effect while she’s at it?

Still, Li Changshou didn’t scold her too harshly. After all, she was at the age where girls cared about their appearance, and she was indeed a natural beauty.

“Still no movement from those guys?”

He muttered to himself, closing his eyes again to sense the flow of spiritual energy.

The sky was vast and clear, while human intentions were murky and hard to read.

It had been over ten months since Jiu Wu and the two elders returned injured.

Things within the sect seemed to have quieted down again, and the attack was almost treated as if it had never happened.

Li Changshou had asked Jiu Wu about any follow-up investigations, but the elder was vague and avoided specifics.

Most likely, nothing useful was uncovered.

The experts from the Daoist Three Sects weren’t fools—this tactic of using others to kill for you was crude and painfully obvious.

But figuring out who had wielded the knife in the shadows? That was the hard part.

And from that uncertainty, suspicion began to grow…

A rather clever tactic by whoever was behind it all.

Li Changshou had spent this time analyzing the manipulation technique used by the mysterious enemy.

Controlling puppets.
Causing the puppet’s soul to instantly wither.

What kind of divine technique was that?

Had to be some sort of forbidden art.

There were simply too many powerful beings in the Great Desolation—so many that the known ones couldn’t even be counted, let alone the dangerous, hidden ones lurking in the dark.

His spiritual sense spread out slowly.

Today marked the start of Phase Two in his preparations. He was waiting for Elder Wan Linjun’s message—they’d be taking action together.

…

After three days of isolation in a secret underground chamber, analyzing every possible scenario, Li Changshou headed to Pill Cauldron Peak to meet Elder Wan Linjun.

Convincing the elder to help hadn’t been difficult—he’d used a very simple trick…

After using a full combo of dream-visitations, solemn oaths, emotional appeals, speculation, and logical deductions, the elder quickly came to trust Li Changshou and agreed there was a real chance powerful enemies could soon target Du’xianguan.

Ever since Yue Lao (the Matchmaker God) came to him in a dream, Li Changshou had realized that “divine dreams” were an incredibly convenient excuse.

It wasn’t uncommon for cultivators to have spiritual sensations or omens—these sorts of things weren’t exactly rare.

It’s just… he might have been using them a little too often lately.

At Li Changshou’s “suggestion,” Elder Wan Lingjun had even gone to the sect leader and the other elders to warn them—in his name, of course.

If it had come from Li Changshou himself, it definitely wouldn’t have been taken as seriously.

But whether or not that warning had any real effect was out of Li Changshou’s hands.

He had done everything he could do.

“Why hasn’t the elder left yet? We agreed to meet at this time,” Li Changshou murmured to himself, a little puzzled. His spiritual sense was still locked onto Dan Ding Peak.

Looking back over the last six months, it didn’t seem like he’d done that much.

Most of his time had been spent sealed away in the alchemy room, refining poisons and working on his paper constructs.

This round of poison-making was purely about quantity and potency.

Li Changshou had used the poisonous herbs he’d bought in Linhai Town, the ones he’d gathered in the Northern Continent, and those Elder Wan Lingjun had given him. He refined them all into poison pills.

Then he further processed the pills into colorless, odorless powders.

He had also made a bunch of poison-spreading tools like the “long sword” from before—cheap in terms of materials, but tricky to design. He had enough to equip every Paper Person from Unit T-1 to T-12 with several of them.

While working on the paper constructs, Li Changshou also discovered another major use for them—

As spiritual power batteries.

He could store his immortal energy inside them—or even draw it back out when needed.

If he were ever in a battle and ran out of power, he could just toss a few of them out and recharge mid-fight.

A true prehistoric mobile power bank.

And since his natural regeneration of energy never really stopped, he’d gradually filled all twelve constructs during his breaks in poison refining.

To be fair, though, this application was kind of redundant.

When would he ever actually run out of spiritual power?

After all, he’d specialized in escape techniques for years—it wasn’t like he was going to just stand there and burn himself out.

The first stage of preparation had ended with the deployment of the Paper People.