Chapter 138: Inheritance Assessment, Chess Puppet

Ji Chang was shocked but remained calm on the surface.

He quickly thought about how to respond to Fairy Hong Ling's questions, knowing clearly that at this moment, any hesitation or nervousness might allow the other party to see the clue.

He smiled faintly, looked directly into Fairy Hong Ling's eyes, and said frankly: "Fairy Hong Ling, what do you mean by this?"

"Zixuan...Fellow Daoist, his cultivation is higher than mine, and I have no grudge against him. Even if I were to fight him, I would never be his match."

"As for Cheng Yaolong, could he be a foundation-building cultivator of the Cheng family?"

Ji Chang's face showed a hint of doubt just right.

Fairy Hong Ling stared at Ji Chang intently, as if looking for flaws in his words.

However, Ji Chang's eyes were firm and his tone was calm, without a trace of nervousness or guilt.

"Since Fellow Daoist Han said so, I will naturally believe you." Fairy Hong Ling said slowly.

"However, the disappearance of these two people is indeed a bit strange. After Fellow Daoist Han left the Hu family, the two of them disappeared one after another."

"I don't know which master helped my Hu family solve a serious problem."

After hearing this, Ji Chang nodded slightly and followed Fairy Hong Ling's words and said, "Oh? Is this true?"

"However, the master who can solve this kind of serious problem for the Hu family must be a person with profound cultivation. He must be at least in the middle stage of foundation building, or even in the late stage of foundation building."

"This person is so secretive, probably because he doesn't want people to know his identity."

After hearing this, Fairy Hong Ling smiled faintly and said, "Fellow Daoist Han is right, but there are not many cultivators of this level in the Zheng Kingdom's cultivation world. I wonder which cultivator made the move in secret."

"I don't even know what plans or calculations they have."

Speaking of this, Fairy Hong Ling frowned slightly.

Ji Chang nodded and agreed, "That's true. Since this kind of cultivator is unwilling to reveal his identity, it would be extremely difficult for us to find out his identity."

Upon hearing this, Fairy Hong Ling nodded slightly to show her agreement.

Although she still had some doubts in her heart, seeing that Ji Chang spoke so calmly, she didn't say anything more.

It seems that Fairy Hong Ling no longer doubts that Zixuan Sanren and Cheng Yaolong were killed by Ji Chang.

In other words, Fairy Hong Ling didn't think that Ji Chang had killed these two people.

After all, logically speaking, with Ji Chang's level of cultivation, he is not capable of dealing with these two people.

It’s just a guess that the person who took action might be related to Ji Chang.

The two chatted about some irrelevant topics.

Fairy Hong Ling noticed that the sky was gradually becoming gloomy and covered with dark clouds, and it was probably going to rain.

So, she stood up and said goodbye to Ji Chang, with a hint of apology in her tone: "Friend Han, it's getting late. I'll take my leave now and visit you again another day."

When Ji Chang heard this, he was secretly glad.

He hurriedly stood up to see her off, his face full of courtesy and warmth: "Fairy Hong Ling, take care. I will definitely come to visit my humble abode again when I am free some other day."

As he said this, he sent Fairy Hong Ling out of the cave.

At this time, thunder had already sounded faintly in the sky and raindrops began to fall sparsely.

Upon seeing this, Fairy Hong Ling said no more and turned into a beam of red light and disappeared in the rain.

Ji Chang stood at the door, watching Fairy Hong Ling's back disappear in the rain, and he couldn't help but breathe a sigh of relief.

He knew that he had temporarily gotten rid of Fairy Hong Ling's suspicion this time.

Ji Chang was not worried about the mid-stage foundation-building cultivator who had escaped from the Cheng family.

However, if people knew that he was the one who killed Zixuan Sanren and Cheng Yaolong, his true strength would be exposed.

At that time, not only will he be wooed by various foundation-building families, but he will also be noticed by some cultivators in the late foundation-building stage.

This is not conducive to living peacefully in Baishuixian City.

Ji Chang is about to break through to the middle stage of foundation building. There is no need to create trouble before the breakthrough.

……

Deep in the quiet room, Ji Chang sat cross-legged in front of a pale corpse puppet.

The air around the corpse puppet was filled with thick death and poison gas. These auras intertwined together, making the quiet room a little colder.

However, Ji Chang clasped his hands together, holding a medium-grade spirit stone, muttering something, and sending one spell after another into the body of the Foundation Establishment cultivator.

As he moved, the body began to tremble slightly, and the originally pale skin gradually turned a light green, which was a characteristic of the poison gas.

A hint of satisfaction flashed in Ji Chang's eyes. He knew that the refining of this poisonous corpse was almost successful.

However, Ji Chang did not dare to be careless at all and continued to activate the magic formula to nourish the poisonous corpse that was about to be refined.

As time went on, the poisonous corpse's trembling became more and more violent, and its skin changed from light green to dark green, as if its entire body was soaked in venom.

At the same time, a disgusting fishy smell began to emanate from its body.

This is completely different from the iron corpse that has no smell and looks like a puppet.

Finally, with Ji Chang's light shout, he suddenly pushed his hands forward.

Suddenly, the poisonous corpse's body trembled violently, and then slowly stood up from the ground.

There was a faint green light flickering in its eyes, as if two balls of ghost fire were burning.

Ji Chang looked at the second-grade, medium-quality poisonous corpse in front of him, and an indescribable joy surged in his heart.

“Finally it’s done.”

Although the physical strength of this poisonous corpse is far inferior to that of the iron corpse, which is also a second-level intermediate-grade refined corpse.

It is even much worse than the weaker second-grade inferior iron corpse.

However, the poison methods it possesses are extremely terrifying, enough to scare a cultivator in the Foundation Establishment Stage to death.

For monks, poisonous corpses are far more troublesome than iron corpses.

As a second-level poisonous corpse, the poisonous methods it possesses are not limited to targeting living creatures such as humans and monsters.

Even when facing dead creatures like corpses and puppets, they can still corrode the enemy with horrible poison.

It can be said that this poisonous corpse has become a powerful trump card in Ji Chang's hand.

For Ji Chang, activating three second-level refined corpses at the same time was not too stressful.

Because activating corpse refining is similar to activating spirit beasts and poisonous insects, it will not consume a large amount of the cultivator's mana like activating magic weapons.

Compared with puppets, corpses do not require spirit stones to provide spiritual energy.

Activating the corpse refining process will not consume a large amount of spirit stones.

However, there is still a big difference between activating corpses and activating spirit beasts.

A second-level corpse refiner only has instincts but no intelligence. Unlike spirit beasts, it is not able to adapt to circumstances in battle and requires a lot of mental effort to control.

However, if Ji Chang urged the corpse to die, the corpse would not have the desire to survive like a spirit beast and resist the control of its master.

For a foundation-building cultivator who has cultivated his spiritual consciousness, it is not too difficult for him to control dozens of refined corpses at the same time.

If one is proficient in the art of formations and masters the methods of battle formations, one can even use refined corpses to construct battle formations and unleash even more terrifying power.

If assisted by formation tools such as formation diagrams and formation plates, it would be much easier to control.

"I have quite a few second-level formation inheritances."

“Although my attainments in formations have only just reached the first level, if I follow the instructions and rigidly apply the battle formations recorded in the inheritance, I can activate the second level formation.”

"However, this array magic weapon still needs to be refined by the Hu family's weapon refiner."

Using formations and mastering them are not the same.

In the world of Zhengguo's cultivation, basically every foundation-building family has a clan-protecting formation. But this does not mean that every foundation-building family has a formation inheritance.

Although cultivators who are proficient in formations can fully unleash the power of formations, some formation masters can even combine multiple different formations together.

However, most cultivators can do it by simply using the existing formations.

"There is no rush for this matter. First, improve your cultivation to the peak of the initial stage of foundation building. Cultivation is the foundation."

……

one year later.

The core area of ​​the cave ruins.

In front of Hu Rending was a large open space.

The open space here is covered by a third-order formation, which is composed of nine straight lines and ten horizontal lines crossing each other, turning into a chessboard.

Hu Rending took a deep breath, walked forward, and sat cross-legged on one side of the chessboard.

The place where he sat was exactly where Shuai Qi was.

Standing around him were a dozen puppets of different heights and shapes.

Each puppet represents a different chess piece, depending on where it stands.

The grade of each puppet is different.

Among them, the grades of the two puppets, official and prime minister, have reached the second-grade upper level.

The three types of puppets, chariot, horse and cannon, have reached the second-order mid-grade level.

Puppet soldiers are only of the lower second grade level.

The puppets on the other side of the board are all of the same rank, with only slight differences in color and shape.

And under the protection of numerous puppets, standing directly opposite Hu Rending.

It was a second-level top-grade puppet. It stood there quietly, wearing armor, like a statue.

Hu Rending raised his hand and took out a chessboard magic weapon from the storage magic weapon and started fiddling with it.

Hu Rending knew in his heart that this test was no ordinary chess game.

Here, he himself is the general chess piece, and the chess piece on the opposite side is the second-level top-grade puppet.

A second-level top-grade puppet, possessing the strength of a cultivator in the Fake Dan realm.

The battle between them will take place on this chessboard, and the condition for victory is to capture the opponent's general according to the rules of the game.

But it is different from the game played among mortals.

In this chess game, every time he controls a chess piece to capture an opponent's chess piece, the puppets controlled by both sides will engage in a real battle.

If it fails, the attacking piece will be eaten by the defending piece.

The outcome of the battle depends on the strength of the puppets on both sides, and is also affected by the ability of both sides to control the puppets.

However, the attacking puppet has a significant bonus due to the blessing of the enveloping third-level formation, while the defending puppet has also been significantly weakened under the influence of the formation.

Therefore, even a second-level low-quality puppet such as a military chess piece may have a chance to eat up second-level medium-quality puppets such as a chariot, horse, and cannon.

However, it is not so easy to use the second-level medium-quality puppets such as chariots, horses, and cannons to eat the second-level top-quality shogi puppet.

Even under the influence of the formation, the three types of puppets that can be used for attack, namely the chariot, horse, and cannon, were amplified to almost the second-grade upper level.

But against the weakened Shogi puppet, there is still no chance of winning.

Hu Rending has been trying for more than half a year.

Except for the first attempt, when Hu Rending lost the game and was almost killed by the chess piece puppet.

Basically in every game of chess, Hu Rending can capture all of the opponent's pieces except the shogi.

But there was no way to deal with the shogi puppet.

Even in the game with the best situation, Hu Rending took turns controlling six second-level medium-quality puppets, including the chariot, horse, and cannon, to fight against the shogi puppet.

In the end, they were all eaten one by one by the Shogi puppet.

Although according to Hu Rending's observation, after each game of chess, a lot of spiritual objects would be consumed when repairing the chess pieces and puppets.

Theoretically, as long as enough chess games are played, all chess pieces and puppets will eventually be consumed.

This chess game assessment will also be cracked.

But according to the assessment information, as long as you don’t win this game of chess, you will not be able to obtain the inheritance in this cave ruins.

The spiritual objects used to repair puppets are also part of the inheritance.

In order to win the game, Hu Rending even spent time refining a chessboard magic weapon to replicate the game.

At this time, after fiddling with the chess pieces for a while, Hu Rending put away the chessboard and looked at the chess game in front of him again.

"We should be able to win."

Hu Rending took a deep breath, and his spiritual consciousness emanated out, urging a cannon chess puppet to move.

After he moved the cannon chess piece, the chess piece puppet on the opposite side also moved.

A knight chess puppet jumped high up at a strange angle.

Hu Rending continued to calmly control the movement of the chess puppet.

As time goes by, the chess pieces of both sides keep moving.

Not long after, Hu Rending controlled a cannon chess puppet and attacked the opponent's horse chess puppet fiercely.

In an instant, the two chess puppets began a fierce battle.

There was no trace of panic on Hu Rending's face. He skillfully controlled the cannon chess puppet to eat the horse chess puppet.

After all, the opponent's chess puppets are controlled autonomously by the formation, which is not as good as the control of a real cultivator.

There is also the bonus of formation when attacking.

For Hu Rending, winning this battle was not that difficult.

After winning this battle, collisions and battles between other chess pieces and puppets soon occurred one after another.

Almost every move of the chess pieces is accompanied by a fierce battle.

Hu Rending stared at the chessboard closely. The opponent's chess pieces were getting fewer and fewer, while his own chess pieces had hardly any losses.

Even if he was attacked by the opponent, Hu Rending was able to win the battle narrowly by relying on his superb control skills.

As time passed, the situation on the chessboard became clearer and clearer.

Finally, after a series of fierce battles, the opponent only had one chess piece left.

If it were in the past, Hu Rending would be controlling a rook and charging forward with unstoppable force.

But now, Hu Rending abnormally stopped the rook chess puppet in front of the shogi puppet.

The next moment, the shogi puppet began to move.

Hu Rending did not struggle at all and allowed the rook and chess puppet to be shattered by the opponent's attack.

He stood up at this time and looked forward.

At this moment, there was no longer any barrier between him, the general, and the general.

An irrepressible excitement appeared on Hu Rending's face at some point.

This long game of chess has finally come to the final decisive moment.

(End of this chapter)