Ren Qing finished digesting the sub-soul's memories and couldn't help becoming even more interested in the Longevity Forbidden Zone, and he also discovered quite a few clues from small details.
He noticed that the flow of time in the Forbidden Zone seemed to be different from the outside world.
Inside the Longevity Forbidden Zone it was clearly faster, and it should be connected to some kind of technique.
If Ren Qing could obtain this technique and then form a primary–secondary association with The Taotie Method, then he would be able to control the time flow within the stomach-world.
"Longevity Forbidden Zone truly deserves to be Yang God realm. Who knows how many kinds of Supernatural Remnant are hidden inside, it's completely a treasure trove."
Ren Qing was excited and decided to put all his energy into exploring the Forbidden Zone.
After all, with his current rate of life extension, he definitely would not reach the Yang God realm before the aberrations completely turned Jingzhou into primal wilderness.
Only the Longevity Forbidden Zone could allow him to touch a strand of hope toward Yang God realm.
Ren Qing issued some tasks to continue collecting wild beasts, then visualized The Blindless Method, striving to nurture another sub-soul as soon as possible.
He also kept paying attention to Jingzhou, avoiding his information becoming too delayed.
The construction of Wu Wei City had already been roughly completed, and the next stages were mostly refinement, so the Restraint Officers' Hall began organizing personnel to go outside the city.
Outside the city, things changed with each passing day; under the erosion of demonic qi, many plants grew over ten meters overnight and were demonized to various degrees.
Li Tiangang examined the demonized plants and beasts and noticed that they had organs capable of absorbing demonic qi; once the demonic qi was dispersed, they were all excellent materials.
The Grand Dream Pavilion of the Restraint Officers' Hall originally relied entirely on cultivators selling their own materials to accumulate resources, which was only barely enough to support the auxiliary cultivation of Restraint Officers.
Now, because the Weird Fetus Refining Method was on the rise, the demand for artifacts among Restraint Officers increased greatly, causing the Grand Dream Pavilion to become somewhat insufficient.
Jingzhou happened to fill this gap.
The Restraint Officers' Hall encouraged reserves from the Water Marsh and Xiangxiang regions to come to Jingzhou; the ghost market already had a thick stack of posted missions regarding demon beasts.
To ensure an uninterrupted supply of future manpower, Wu Wei Academy was set up throughout the city, where Daoists taught children techniques.
Ren Qing could clearly feel that the number of Ghost Envoy realm cultivators was growing at a geometric rate, with three or four even reaching completion and entering seclusion.
Many people could see that Jingzhou was full of opportunities; because of the influx of resources, the difficulty of breaking through to the Ghost Envoy realm was gradually decreasing.
Unfortunately, to prevent overpopulation within the city, and also fearing that the Blood Moon would cause severe casualties, the number of Restraint Officer slots issued was not large, though there was no limit for reserves.
Ren Qing had not yet nurtured another sub-soul, but the matter of weird-beast mounts had made progress.
The ghost market also experienced a stir.
The Dream Tree's branches extended by more than ten meters; as the street area of the ghost market expanded, a fenced-off enclosure appeared at the end.
Inside the enclosure were many strange and bizarre wild beasts, some similar to the demon beasts of Jingzhou.
Several reserves hurried over to inquire, and the workers transferred from Great Dream Forging of Artifacts immediately stepped forward to introduce things.
Ren Qing named the weird creatures formed by feeding on Jailer blood "Weird Beasts," since they were entirely unrelated to demon beasts and their temperament was relatively docile.
Weird Beasts had some potential for growth, but limited by the Jailer's realm, they could only reach at most the Half-Corpse realm; their assistance in battle was negligible.
Their intelligence was also rather dull; they would not actively cultivate the qi within their bodies.
If kept inside the Eternal Prison Manacle, Weird Beasts could continuously absorb the qi emitted by Jailers and gradually increase their cultivation imperceptibly.
Outside, it depended on whether the Restraint Officer was willing to buy resources for the Weird Beast.
Ren Qing examined the Weird Beasts through the information stream, their average lifespan was around twenty years, and of course breaking through to higher realms would extend it.
The Weird Beasts sold in the ghost market came in two kinds:
one formed by using Ghost Wolf blood to transform giant wolves,
and the other a lizard over two meters long.
The lizard's appearance was somewhat frightening; each of its scales was palm-sized, and faces twisted in expression could be seen on their surfaces.
It was clearly related to the Sand Man, very suitable for traveling in desert and Gobi environments, though only average in forests or plains.
Ren Qing mainly targeted reserves preparing to travel to Jingzhou.
Because the journey to Jingzhou was long, reserves usually needed to wait two or three months for an available sand-ship; with a lizard mount, the process was much simpler.
The selling price was not cheap, and the Abnormal Stomach formed by The Taotie Method could not store living creatures for long, so special artifacts had to be custom-made.
Additionally, the Restraint Officer had to cultivate techniques to control the beast's mind, or spend more money to buy corresponding artifacts from Great Dream Forging of Artifacts.
The artifacts were refined using materials related to The Taotie Method, and could only store Weird Beasts; the cost was fixed and difficult to lower.
From this, one could see how troublesome keeping a mount was, Ren Qing was truly earning big.
The crowd grew larger and larger.
Even disciples from Daoist temples came to watch the commotion; several hundred people crowded around, discussing noisily until the scene became somewhat chaotic.
After setting up the Great Dream Weird Beasts, Ren Qing stopped paying attention.
In his understanding, it would probably only be after the Demonic Embryo Artifact became mass-producible that a large number of Restraint Officers would begin purchasing Weird Beasts.
But Ren Qing had clearly underestimated the Restraint Officers' pursuit of novel things.
Even if Ghost Envoy realm could barely handle it, that didn't mean they had to buy them individually, after all, a Weird Beast could obviously seat at least three or four people.
Many Restraint Officers were buying in groups, and some even started doing escort business heading toward Jingzhou.
The Great Dream Weird Beasts sold out very quickly.
Ren Qing simply put Yuan Si in charge of cultivating the Weird Beasts, and had him try more sub-species, even if most were not suitable for riding.
The Restraint Officers' Hall did not interfere with the ghost market's developments, but many people wanted to pull strings through Ren Qing to privately buy Weird Beasts.
Especially the Gobi People, who were extremely interested in the lizards, Sha Shanzi shamelessly came to Ren Qing wanting him to provide some Weird Beasts.
The Gobi People still lived in the Marshlands and indeed needed transportation tools.
Ren Qing agreed to provide them with a batch every month.
Seeing the ghost market enter a stable track, he continued visualizing The Blindless Method to nurture a sub-soul.
But just as Ren Qing sat down cross-legged, a call from the Nether Crow came from the ghost market, and he hastily let his consciousness descend into the Dream-Butterfly projection.
Sun spread its wings and landed atop the Dream Tree, staring wide-eyed at Ren Qing, its pitch-black feathers continuously trembling.
Naturally, it drew the attention of the Restraint Officers.
"Ren kid, help your brother out a bit."
Seeing more and more Restraint Officers gathering around, Sun simply grabbed Ren Qing's soul-butterfly projection with its claws and flapped its wings, flying toward a corner.
"Uh..."
Ren Qing looked somewhat hesitant; exploring the Longevity Forbidden Zone was not something accomplished in a day or two, where would he find time to busy himself with other things?
He was thinking of how to refuse Sun when he suddenly heard it ask: "How did you form those Weird Beasts of yours?"
Ren Qing answered tentatively: "Somewhat similar to the artifact-spirit method, but it requires using a Supernatural Remnant to nurture and form."
"Supernatural Remnant?"
"This is troublesome, you must have a Supernatural Remnant? What about a technique?"
"Of course."
Seeing Ren Qing nod, Sun let out a joyful caw from its beak and impatiently asked: "If I teach you Death Nether Cry, can you nurture a similar Weird Beast?"
Ren Qing had some impression of Death Nether Cry, knowing it was the technique Sun cultivated, and was also one of the techniques he most wanted to use as a Jailer technique.
[Death Nether Cry]
[Created by the Crow Immortal. The cultivator's throat tube is removed and replaced with a bird's throat tube; surviving seven days without dying while producing a cry is required to complete cultivation.]
Ren Qing pondered its feasibility, if he were to transform the Supernatural Remnant of Death Nether Cry into a Jailer, and then refine an artifact spirit with Nightmare Demonic Qi...
The Weird Beast derived from this would likely inherit characteristics of both techniques.
"It shouldn't be much of a problem..."
Sun's flying speed increased again, and it muttered under its breath: "You know, because I'm responsible for maintaining contact for the Restraint Officers, I have to stay in Avici Hell most of the time."
"Boring, far too boring."
The contents of Death Nether Cry were carved onto feathers and thrown to Ren Qing; after dropping them off, Sun disappeared, clearly unable to contain itself.
"Ren kid, remember never to cultivate it, this technique has enormous drawbacks."
Ren Qing's consciousness returned to his body, and looking at Death Nether Cry, he couldn't help feeling deeply interested.
When faced with techniques recorded in detail, the information stream naturally revealed even more clues.
[Death-Herald: Foretells fatal disaster]
[Cry-Caller: Voice like crow's cry]
[Death-Chaser: Pursues the deceased swiftly]
At a glance, Ren Qing saw Death-Chaser, which should be Sun's aberration route, and "殁" in ancient times had the meaning of death.
The Death-Herald's ability to foresee calamity was quite useful, but since it required possession to maintain the technique, and a Jailer was confined in the Eternal Prison Manacle, it became rather impractical.
Cry-Caller should be the offensive aberration route, using the Nether Crow's sharp, hoarse cry as its main method.
Ren Qing directly chose Death-Chaser, consuming lifespan and advancing to the Ghost Envoy realm.
The Ghost Envoy realm of Death-Chaser was called "Death-Seeking Crow."
The feathers of the Death-Seeking Crow would transform into special artifacts; placing them somewhere would allow the cultivator to sense them through the technique.
However, only upon reaching the Yin Runner realm's "Nether River Crow-Palace" would the feathers gain the ability to traverse the mundane world, allowing the Nether Crow itself to use them to reach the destination.
Ren Qing's skin tingled with a numb sensation, and he felt dry-mouthed, indicating that he was gradually aberrating toward a Nether Crow.
The Human Skin Book detected the anomaly and attempted to suppress the Death-Seeking Crow Supernatural Remnant.
Ren Qing hastily locked the Death-Seeking Crow inside the Eternal Prison Manacle; it formed into a two-meter-tall giant Nether Crow, landing on the peak of a mountain corner.
Before the Nether Crow could build a nest, the ghost-shadow bound it with Nightmare Demonic Qi, skillfully engraving artifact-spirit patterns on its surface.
Ren Qing stood to the side, using death-type materials to push the Nether Crow's aberration to the extreme.
When the Nether Crow mastered Nightmare Demonic Qi, its feathers became half-real and half-illusory, like black dust continuously dispersing and gathering.
Ren Qing extracted some Nether Crow blood and fed it to birds.
He chose small sparrows; even after being transformed into Weird Beasts, they were only palm-sized, their strength not even comparable to ordinary raptors.
Ren Qing examined the sparrows and found that although they could not travel between the Eternal Prison Manacle and the outside world, they could freely enter and exit the dream-market.
In this way, they could mimic the Nether Crow's information-transmission through the Butterfly Dream Technique, though the sparrows were too fragile and prone to dying inexplicably.
Ren Qing tossed the sparrows into the market and had Yuan Si continue experimenting with other birds.
The sub-soul was also nurtured during this period.