Aspiring to the Immortal Path

Chapter 282: Avatar

He now had only ten-thousand-some coins left.

Rushing back to his residence with the materials, he carefully inspected his surroundings before returning to his room to make the avatar.

He took out the formation diagram and threw the various materials inside.

The Celestial Treasure Supreme Heart Mantra recorded the method to create the avatar. In essence, it was a kind of art that only those at the Mortal Shedding Realm or above could cast, and in normal circumstances, even members of the Five Gods Faith would have to wait until then.

Fortunately, while Tang Jie lacked cultivation, he had formations to replace it. This was also why others couldn’t understand what he was doing: it was too complicated. To reach a greater goal, Tang Jie had used countless little tricks.

After putting in all the materials and laying out the formation, Tang Jie took out the Heartbreak Saber and slit his wrist, dumping out large amounts of blood.

This was exactly what he had once done for the Spirit Blood Rebirth Formation.

What was different was that he let out even more blood, draining himself even more. It was so bad that just once wasn’t enough, and he had to give blood several times. Thus, half a month ago, Tang Jie had already started letting out blood, and the amount of blood in the formation diagram was now more than half the volume in an adult body.

As blood poured in, the formation diagram finally began to show a change. Bloody smoke rose up and filled the room.

In the middle of this cloud of blood, a human figure began to form.

The Sanguine Rebirth spell!

This was a spell art on a higher level than the Spirit Blood Rebirth. It used flesh and blood to create a new body.

A true avatar was made starting with a strand of the soul. When starting from the inside out, the body came naturally, so there was no need to go through such a hassle. Tang Jie was only at the Spirit Platform Realm, so he needed to make up for it with other methods.

Thus, the first step for his avatar was creating the body.

When the body was complete, it had no features or intelligence, not even sharing the same height as Tang Jie.

At this time, Tang Jie took out the Soul Jade fragment. He pointed at himself, and a black phantom emerged from the top of his head.

Yin Yang Soul Division.

This was a soul division spell recorded in the secret texts of the Five Gods Faith.

As the soul left his body, Tang Jie shouted, “Yiyi, quickly!”

Yiyi jumped out and swung the Crystal Ice Sword at Tang Jie’s soul.

This slash cut off a small portion of Tang Jie’s soul, causing him to groan in pain and his entire body to turn cold. He knew that this was the pain brought from injuring the soul, and if he hadn’t been prepared with some Soulnurture Grass, a Soul Guardian Pill, and some Hanging Fate Medicine, this swing would have killed him on the spot. Even so, he felt dizzy and weakly plopped to the floor.

On her side, Yiyi took that piece of the soul she had cut off and placed it in the Soul Jade fragment. Together with the fiend pellet from the fox, she threw it into the human figure in the formation diagram, upon which it trembled.

The figure within the formation diagram had been lifeless, but now that a piece of Tang Jie’s soul had been sent in, it immediately had a will of its own. Meanwhile, the fiend fox’s fiend pellet gave it the ability to subtly change its body, and it began to take the form of Tang Jie. In a mystical display, it even began to form organs, a Jade Gate, and the Spirit Eye.

Without the powerful control and the ability to transform granted by the fiend pellet, even with the soul fragment’s guidance, this clone would never have been able to appear exactly like Tang Jie, and so it wouldn’t have been an avatar.

Tang Jie’s form gradually emerged, and Yiyi took out the Eye Flesh and stuffed it into the clone. As the Eye Flesh was inserted into the body, it began to let off a brilliant glow.

In a flash of light, the clone Tang Jie slowly opened his eyes. A sharp beam of light shot out, and there was a twinkle of starlight on the center of his forehead. Even Tang Jie’s Celestial Eye had been carried over.

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This was one of the functions of the Eye Flesh: opening the Nine Orifices.

“The Nine Orifices” referred to the seven regular orifices of the eyes, ears, mouth, and nostrils, adding onto them the heart orifice and spirit orifice.

Of these, the eye, heart, and spirit were the three most important orifices.

The eyes were the window to the heart and the most difficult to create. Normally, the opening eyes would be lifeless. Only eyes opened with Eye Flesh could inherit that intelligent spark.

The heart was the window of intelligence, but rather than the actual organ, this referred to the brain. The parts of the Eye Flesh other than the nine eyes were used to create the brain and open the heart orifice.

Spirit was the window of cultivation, and it was also called the spirit link orifice, and it developed the hundred meridian channels. If the spirit orifice were not opened, cultivation was impossible. People were born with spirit orifices, so normal people never had this concern. It was only these artificial people that were born without spirit orifices. Thus, even with an open Jade Gate, a Spirit Eye, and an understanding of arts, it would still be unable to cultivate.

This was exactly why only Eye Flesh had the ability to make an avatar capable of cultivating.

And this was also why a nine-hundred-year Eye Flesh was needed if one wanted to open the nine orifices. Otherwise, the full effect could not be achieved. While one could choose to skip some of the less important orifices, they were all closely linked to each other, and opening one fewer would affect the rest. This was also why Tang Jie had gotten so excited when he saw that it was nine-hundred-year Eye Flesh. It was as if the heavens themselves were helping him!

As the nine orifices opened, the clone Tang Jie began to shift its appearance to be identical to the original.

But Tang Jie knew that this still wasn’t enough. He suddenly pulled out three small black knives and stabbed them into his upper, middle, and lower dantians. Tang Jie was utterly unmoved as he stabbed himself, and smoke began to rise from the knives. A wailing could be heard as the clouds of smoke took the form of three small people.

These three people were the Three Corpses.

The human body had three corpses: Greed, Anger, and Foolishness. They governed reckless thoughts and strengthened the Heart Demon.

Thus, it was said that in the cultivation world, to achieve the Great Dao, one had to first slay the Three Corpses.

But major sects like the Basking Moon Sect did not usually take such methods.

While the Three Corpses represented reckless thought, they were innate thoughts given form. They could strengthen the Heart Demon, but they could also nurture the Divine Soul. They were the best intermediary for a cultivator to go from the formed to formless, and were not to be recklessly slain.

Moreover, with a lack of greed, anger, and foolishness, a person’s nature would reach extreme good, but to walk in a world of darkness with such a nature was no different from choosing death. A wise man would not take such a path!

Thus, rather than slaying the Three Corpses, the major sects sought to use human will and cultivation to control and tame them.

And in the view of the Five Gods Faith, the Three Corpses had another extremely important use: nurturing the soul!

The part of Tang Jie’s soul that he had cut off was not even a quarter of his soul. It was too weak for the clone to truly have life. The Three Corpses’ nurturing was required to rapidly strengthen the soul and grant the clone life. As for the Three Corpses, so long as one did not desire their death, they would remain forever. Thus, the Three Corpses Conversion Secret Art was developed to nurture the soul and heal damage done to it.

The believers of the Five Gods Faith relied on this method to survive to this day.

As the Three Corpses emerged, Tang Jie shouted, “Yiyi!”

Yiyi once more swung the Crystal Ice Sword. Just like with the soul, she chopped half from each of them and threw the black substances into the clone Tang Jie within the formation diagram.

At this moment, the early work for the avatar was basically done. Once the soul fragment was stronger, the clone would come to life.

As for Tang Jie himself, he was ghastly pale after this job was done.

The damage of soul division was equivalent to a long and protracted battle, and he felt tired and dizzy. But Tang Jie knew that he couldn’t sleep. He shakily got up and said to Yiyi, “Clean up. I’ll be back in a bit.”

Leaving his room, Tang Jie went over to Shi Meng.

Seeing Tang Jie pale as death, Shi Meng said in shock, “What happened to you?”

Tang Jie weakly said, “I was cultivating a secret art and damaged my soul. I need to heal my Three Corpses, so I need you to use the Three Corpses Conversion Secret Art to help me out.”

This secret art was a soul healing spell, but cultivating it was difficult, it had few uses, and it would also damage one’s own soul to a certain extent. Thus, Shi Meng had never really liked to learn it.

As Tang Jie had damaged his soul, he couldn’t use the spell to heal himself. Thus, he needed Shi Meng to do it for him, which was why he had bribed Shi Meng with half a block of Softscent Jade so that he would diligently learn it.

Shi Meng hurriedly let Tang Jie into his room. As he cast the spell, he asked, “What secret art were you cultivating? The damage is rather severe.”

“The Soulshatter Strike.”

Shi Meng yelped, “Have you gone crazy? Why were you cultivating such a dangerous spell?”

“Isn’t the Immortal Fortune Conference starting soon? I wanted to put in some effort,” Tang Jie sighed.

“Didn’t you say that you had no interest in the little palace lord?”

“But I’m interested in the rewards.”

“……”

Once the spell was done, Tang Jie felt much more energetic, but Shi Meng now had a rather ugly look on his face.

“Are you okay?” Tang Jie asked.

Shi Meng gruffly replied, “I feel terrible and my head hurts like hell.”

Tang Jie’s self-severing of his soul was considered a grave injury.

As a result, Tang Jie had left Shi Meng with a rather heavy burden when healing him. But no matter how heavy the burden, it still wasn’t comparable to the damage Tang Jie had inflicted on himself, and Shi Meng would be fine after two days of rest.

“Mm.” Tang Jie nodded. He took out some spirit coins and passed them to Shi Meng. “This incident…”

“I know. I’ll keep it a secret,” Shi Meng replied, but he didn’t take the money.

After saying goodbye to Shi Meng, Tang Jie went back to his own room.

Tang Jie looked at the clone lying on his bed, and suddenly shook his head with a bitter chuckle. He raised his hand and placed it on the clone’s forehead.

There was a burst of dim light.

Three Corpses Conversion Art!

For the next few days, Tang Jie holed up in his room.

This was the most crucial phase of the avatar process. As the soul was still weak and the clone was lifeless and unable to recover, one or two Three Corpses Conversion Arts weren’t enough to bring the clone to life. Tang Jie would have to take things slowly.

When he was tired out, he would have Shi Meng treat him. This cycle greatly improved his efficiency.

After the third day, the clone Tang Jie finally began to move.

He breathed for the first time.

Tang Jie exhaled at the sight. He knew that the clone finally had life.

Of course, the life force of the clone was like a candle in the wind. It needed to be carefully protected so that it could rapidly grow.

Tang Jie couldn’t help but be envious of those top-class Immortal spell arts.

For example, the Three Purities Substantiation could produce an avatar with a single thought, whereas he had to spend vast sums of money, make countless preparations, bleed out his body, cut at his soul, and even tend to the clone like a nanny, and after bothering himself, he had to bother someone else. Only after all this endless work could he finally get an avatar.

But this was a necessary price to recreate the miracle of life!

Every accident, every miracle, and every impossibility concealed large amounts of work and sacrifice. Only by completing and subduing one difficult problem after another could he defy common sense and create a miracle!

And finally, Tang Jie had done it.

At Spirit Platform, he now had a real avatar, linked to him in body, soul, and even destiny.

When this clone was endowed with life, Tang Jie sensed that he had gained an external extension of his life.

It was an indescribably bizarre sensation, like having extra hands, feet, and a head. But though they were extra parts, everything worked harmoniously, and there was no impediment to his thinking or movement.

After another two days, the clone’s breathing grew stronger, and he started to move his fingers and blink his eyes. White smoke began to emerge from his pores—a sign of flowing spiritual energy, and also a sign that the clone had begun to increase his cultivation so that it was closer to the original.

The sixth day.

Just like before, Tang Jie used the Three Corpses Conversion Art.

When the art was complete, the clone Tang Jie slowly opened his eyes.

There was a flash of intelligence.

At that moment, the eyes of the clone and original met.

Two Tang Jies smiled in unison.