Ren Qing began to doubt the purpose behind the Longevity Species attacking the town.
Back during the Longevity Immortal era, their objective should have been using mortals to plant trees so they could continue climbing to higher realms.
But things had clearly changed later on. The Longevity Species were creatures transformed from bizarre objects. If the bizarre objects within the forbidden zone were gradually disappearing, then if they wanted to save themselves, they would have to replenish those bizarre objects.
Their moth-to-the-flame assaults on the town were indeed very likely a form of self-preservation.
The number of Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators who had mastered cultivation methods was at least in the tens of thousands. If the Longevity Species truly succeeded, who knew what changes would occur within the forbidden zone.
Ren Qing pondered silently. He still could not tell whether the degeneration of the Longevity Species was related to the immortal position.
He then looked toward the fungi inside the storage pouch. They resembled palm-sized moss.
Ren Qing frowned slightly. He noticed patches of yellowing on the fungi's surface, and they were spreading at a visible rate.
Only after he removed the fungi did the yellowing stop spreading.
Ren Qing took a light sniff. A faint smell of blood entered his nose, mixed with the stench of a rotting corpse, emanating from the yellowed sections of the fungi.
While he was examining the fungi, what little remained suddenly burst apart, releasing a cloud of spores into the air.
Ren Qing blew at them, but the spores instead drifted toward his nose and mouth.
He heard fragmented chanting beside his ears. It seemed to be praising Boqiang. Though he could not understand the meaning, it was clearly coming from the spores.
A flicker appeared in Ren Qing's eyes. Using Ghost Shadow, he isolated a half-meter radius around himself to prevent the spores from spreading, then allowed them to land on his face.
Ghost Shadow began to squirm.
After devouring the bizarre object of the Human Skin Book, Ghost Shadow could sense abnormalities in Ren Qing's skin. He had indeed come under a slight attack from sharp instruments.
Interest appeared on Ren Qing's face. Zhili Technique was pushed to its limit, and he took out sixteen Dreamflowers, transforming them into Double Pupils attached to his forehead.
Eighteen eyes brought his vision to the limit of mortal sight. He could even see the irregular shapes of dust particles and the patterns of air currents.
He looked toward the spores on his skin and immediately witnessed a startling scene.
Dozens of tiny people, no larger than dust particles, were climbing across his face.
Their appearance was humanoid, yet completely hairless. The ends of their limbs resembled suction cups. They used blade-like bone tools to stab into pores, attempting to drill into Ren Qing's nose and mouth.
Several fungus people were covered in grotesque tentacles. They generally possessed greater strength and could recover injuries by devouring members of their own kind.
After noticing over a dozen Double Pupils staring at them, the fungus people immediately began chattering noisily.
Some of them became frightened and hurriedly summoned balloon-like spores, intending to flee from Ren Qing, only to be knocked unconscious by dream techniques.
Ren Qing estimated that the fungi had withered because the fungus people had died from oxygen deprivation.
He casually found an empty bottle and stuffed all the fungus people into it, then tossed it into a corner of the Stomach World before walking out of the temple.
Ren Qing arrived on a bustling street. After looking around, he found no trace of fungus people.
Instead, he attracted reverent gazes from numerous cultivators. The many Double Pupils on his forehead actually made them feel a sense of familiarity.
After all, most Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators had aesthetics that leaned heavily toward demons and monsters.
After responding to greetings from several cultivators, Ren Qing vanished from the spot and instantly appeared atop Wuwei City's wall.
He looked out beyond the city.
Both the air and the ground were occupied by densely packed fungus people. The endlessly spreading moss served as their tribe.
Temples were clearly visible among the settlements, and the deity they worshiped was none other than the Wind God Boqiang, with a human face and bird body.
The cultivators burned the fungi with cultivation methods. From the fungus people's perspective, demons and monsters were destroying their tribe, so they rode spores and attempted to resist, though naturally to no avail.
The fungus people could not even penetrate magical artifacts. Furthermore, cultivators always cleansed themselves with flames before entering the city, making it impossible for them to invade Wuwei City.
Bang bang bang...
After its burden was reduced and sensing that Ren Qing was standing on its back, Wuwei City immediately began hurrying toward its destination.
Yet Ren Qing signaled for Wuwei City to stop.
Closing his eyes, he activated Walk Among Mortals and immediately sensed fungus people spread across the land like stars.
Ren Qing noticed that the closer one got to the source of the hurricane, the stronger the fungus people became. Quite a few even carried traces of cultivation methods.
Although the fungus people possessed civilization, they maintained a tradition of blood sacrifice. The occasional explosions among the fungi were the result of mutual slaughter.
However, the fungus people posed no threat to Restraint Officers' Hall. Even a Martial Practitioner cultivator could easily deal with them so long as they had mastered fire-attributed cultivation methods.
A thought suddenly occurred to Ren Qing. This might be an opportunity to seize control of the Longevity Forbidden Zone and perhaps even uncover clues regarding the immortal position.
With a pull of his palm, he drew tens of thousands of fungus people into the Stomach World. He then attached Ghost Shadow to the exterior of Wuwei City to prevent the fungi from spreading again.
Ren Qing returned to the city and sat cross-legged once more within a secluded courtyard.
After studying the fungus people for a while, he discovered that they were not living beings in the strict sense. They possessed no souls, and their intelligence was relatively low.
The fungus people were products of the Longevity Forbidden Zone's transformation.
The bizarre objects contained within the Longevity Forbidden Zone had likely already vanished. All that remained were the two core bizarre objects of the Six Diseases Method and the Rebirth Technique.
The current rules of the Longevity Forbidden Zone were primarily governed by the diseases of the Six Diseases Method and the cycle of life and death from the Rebirth Technique, which was why this peculiar ecosystem had emerged.
If Ren Qing could uncover the cause behind these changes, he might be able to use the forbidden zone's ability to fuse bizarre objects and completely refine it.
First, he needed a group of fungus people that belonged to him and could govern the entire forbidden zone.
If he truly succeeded in controlling the Longevity Forbidden Zone, the absence of other bizarre objects would actually be beneficial. It would make it easier for him to construct the forbidden zone's rules using bizarre objects of his own choosing.
At that point, the fungus people would become natural laborers who worked tirelessly without complaint.
Ren Qing placed the tens of thousands of fungus people onto the Disease Tree within the Mud Pellet Palace.
Upon seeing the unfamiliar environment and the insect-like disease seeds, the fungus people's first reaction was actually to blood sacrifice their companions. They immediately built an altar on the spot.
After observing for a moment, Ren Qing noticed that the target of their blood sacrifices was Boqiang. They seemed to be praying for the attention of an immortal deity.
Without hesitation, he activated Dragon Roar Within the Casket, causing the fungus people to undergo mutation.
Dragon scales grew across their bodies, and their size increased by a circle. Then the disease seeds refined them, completely bringing them over to his side.
The disease seeds contained all kinds of illnesses, causing the fungus people to become increasingly bizarre in appearance.
The Cold-Wind Disease Seed could release frigid air; the Fatty-Liver Disease Seed could exhale scorching breath; the Hard-Bone Disease Seed grew bone spurs from the joints; the Night Blindness Disease Seed granted abundant stamina...
The reproductive method of the fungus people was actually similar to that of disease seeds. Both relied on consuming flesh and blood.
Due to Dragon Roar Within the Casket, they would be affected by pseudo-dragonization generation after generation, resulting in slight improvements to both intelligence and physique.
Ren Qing tossed several chunks of flesh to the fungus people and watched their terrifying rate of reproduction. No wonder they had managed to cover Wuwei City in such a short time.
Only after the fungus people's population exceeded one million did Ren Qing release them outside Wuwei City.
The pseudo-dragonized fungus people's tribe settled near the city gate. The moss they produced carried a grayish-black coloration, standing in stark contrast to the normal dark green.
Ren Qing issued several tasks, instructing Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators to occasionally feed them flesh and blood. Afterward, he returned to communicating with Song Zongwu's remnant soul.
To Ren Qing, the fungus people were merely a casual move on the board. If they failed to uncover clues to the immortal position, he would not mind displaying the power of the Heavenly Aberration Realm.
However, the Longevity Forbidden Zone was already on the verge of collapse. Such actions might inflict severe damage upon it.
Ren Qing stopped paying attention to the fungus people, but a war on the microscopic level quietly erupted.
The gray-black moss began expanding frantically. The pseudo-dragonized fungus people were essentially a miniature version of Restraint Officers' Hall, possessing strength far beyond ordinary fungus people.
The cultivators guarding the city discovered something surprising. The gray-black fungi deliberately grew around Wuwei City. Expanding the defensive perimeter in this way was clearly an inefficient and thankless task.
Yet the pseudo-dragonized fungus people carried it out without hesitation, treating the protection of Wuwei City as their sacred duty.
If the city guards possessed Ren Qing's vision, they would discover numerous crude temples built among the gray-black fungi. The statues within depicted various Restraint Officers' Hall cultivators they had seen.
The statue occupying the main hall was none other than Ren Qing, with multiple eyes on his forehead.
The pseudo-dragonized fungus people regarded Restraint Officers' Hall as immortal deities. Naturally, Wuwei City was considered the mountain abode of immortals. Within a few days, they came into contact with ordinary fungus people.
A war of faith broke out.
Spores filled the sky. To the city guards, it was merely a gust of wind. Yet within the microscopic world, it may have been an aerial battle involving tens of thousands of fungus people.
The pseudo-dragonized fungus people held the advantage in strength, but their numbers were still too few.
Several months passed. When Ren Qing awakened, he discovered that the blood-colored moss had spread only a hundred meters. The efficiency of occupying the Longevity Forbidden Zone was somewhat low.
He simply instructed Restraint Officers' Hall to increase the supply of flesh and blood and dump proportional amounts outside the city.
As the reproduction speed of the pseudo-dragonized fungus people increased, their territory grew ever wider, expanding like a rolling snowball.
Ren Qing subtly exerted influence, directing the pseudo-dragonized fungus people to search for the source of the Boqiang temples while also expanding their power beneath the cloud layer.
In the future, he might need to transform the Longevity Forbidden Zone into a resource production area. The pseudo-dragonized fungus people would be the ideal gatherers and cultivators of those resources.
He had no desire to accidentally kill several thousand pseudo-dragonized fungus people with a single step and reduce resource production.
Ren Qing could feel the hurricanes within the Longevity Forbidden Zone growing increasingly turbulent. Clearly, the rise of the pseudo-dragonized fungus people had affected certain hidden entities.
"Chen Changsheng, Chen Changsheng..."
"You were at least a patriarch of Restraint Officers' Hall. There's no way you've lost even your soul, right?"
Ren Qing continued acting as though nothing was happening. His communication with Song Zongwu's remnant soul was also progressing smoothly. His consciousness repeatedly arrived at a temple surrounded by monks.
He discovered that each time he descended upon Lingshan Temple, he could bring a little more of Zhili Technique's aura with him.
At present, Ren Qing was waiting until he completely controlled the Longevity Forbidden Zone. At that point, he should be able to use its mobility to search for Lingshan Temple's location.
He intended to give those monks a surprise.
"Still too slow..."
Ren Qing examined the pseudo-dragonized fungus people's tribe, then activated The World Is Like a Dream, causing dreamlike fungi to grow and spread.
These fungi provided certain enhancements to the pseudo-dragonized fungus people, allowing them to digest flesh and blood more rapidly.
Mountains of flesh, bones, and meat fragments were dumped outside the city. The pseudo-dragonized fungus people's power expanded once more, and the moss spread at a rate of a hundred meters per breath.
The hurricanes in the sky became even more restless, and faint murmurs could be heard within them.
A thousand-meter-wide face emerged in midair, formed from countless branches and leaves stitched together.
Judging from its features, it was unmistakably "Chen Changsheng."
The giant face hung in the sky for a moment before retracting into its neck and vanishing once more.
It was as though Chen Changsheng had tacitly approved of Ren Qing's actions.