The Elixir is for You, The Poison is for Me

#747 - Circular Agriculture

Lu Jing took the iron thumb ring handed over by Chi and put it on the thumb of his left hand.

A moment later, he clearly felt the connection between himself and the shadow puppet, and then Lu Jing ordered.

"Walk forward."

The shadow puppet stood still when it heard the words, without moving a step.

Lu Jing turned his gaze to Chi on the side, and just as he was about to ask Chi where the problem was, the shadow puppet suddenly took a step with its left foot, and then its right foot followed, striding forward.

As a result, after walking two steps, it crashed straight into its master, Lu Jing.

Lu Jing didn't move at all, the shadow puppet swayed from the impact, turned half a circle, and then continued to walk forward until it reached a stone wall.

Then it began to constantly hit the stone wall, looking exactly like a robot vacuum cleaner with broken obstacle avoidance.

"Why is this thing so slow to react, and it doesn't seem very smart. It was quite useful when it was in Zhi Hai's hands before, and it could entangle a second-rate expert," Lu Jing asked.

"It's normal, shadow puppets also need constant training," Chi said. "Changing the core is like starting from scratch. It's a blank slate now, and you need to teach it many things slowly."

"But I don't have time to teach it right now," Lu Jing shook his head. "I already have too many things on my hands. I knew I should have just sold this thing off."

After speaking, he ordered the shadow puppet that was still stubbornly hitting the wall, "Okay, stop."

The latter hit the wall twice more before finally stopping.

"Have some patience," Chi said, "Shadow puppets are the most complex and sophisticated magical artifacts in the cultivation world. They are rare in number, and even my master couldn't create one back then. If you teach it well, it will be like another you."

Lu Jing admitted that he was moved when he saw Zhi Hai order this shadow puppet to disguise as Mr. Ji, feigning an attack on himself, and then running away. The whole operation was smooth and seamless. If Xia Huai hadn't used her long sword to knock off the mask on the shadow puppet's face, there would have been almost no flaws, and he decided to keep it for himself.

He just didn't expect that this thing wasn't as simple as plug-and-play, and there was a learning curve.

Seeing that Lu Jing was still hesitating, Chi said, "Controlling a shadow puppet isn't as troublesome as you think. If you just want it to do a certain fixed and repetitive task, you just need to practice the command for that task first. You can learn the rest slowly later. This will take about a day or two at most."

Lu Jing's eyes finally lit up when he heard her words, and he asked, "Can the shadow puppet cast spells for me?"

"Yes," Chi said. "It itself is built from talismans and formations. The core can record three spells. Casting spells is even easier for it than walking, but it can only be simple low-level spells. It can't remember those complex mid- to high-level spells."

"The spell I want it to remember is very simple. The spell is called Lush Verdure, which is a spell to promote plant growth," Lu Jing said.

Regarding growing ginseng, the biggest problem Lu Jing faced was that when he was out on a case or busy with other things, he couldn't continue to ripen the herbs in the medicine field when he wasn't on Azure Dragon Mountain.

Especially when he went on a long trip, leaving for ten days or more, his ginseng growing business could only be put on hold temporarily, which meant that he lost money every time he went out. The amount lost could even reach tens of thousands of taels if he was gone for a long time, truly making time money.

If the shadow puppet could sit on Azure Dragon Mountain for him and take care of those medicine fields, that would be great.

Seeing Lu Jing's happy expression, Chi poured some cold water on him, "I need to remind you that shadow puppets need secret power to be driven, and casting spells also consumes secret power. Your shadow puppet is about the most advanced, and the core can store about the secret power of a Third Palace cultivator at a time."

Although the time away was too long, there would still be a window of opportunity, but it was much better than waiting.

Moreover, just as Lu Jing was thinking about how to continue to increase the standby time of the shadow puppet, someone actually gave him the answer.

This was already the unknown number of letters Lu Jing had received in a short day.

And this time the letter was sent from the Si Tian Jian, written by Qi Wenren, who had gone to Shizhou with Lu Jing before.

Qi Wenren's letter didn't contain any nonsense. After a simple exchange of pleasantries, he went straight to the point.

He told Lu Jing a spell that could absorb secret power from the Golden Scale Secret Carp, as well as a set of improved formations that could gather secret power from the heavens and earth.

When used together, the Si Tian Jian could successfully cultivate a batch of mobile secret power power banks, which could be regarded as alleviating some of the troubles caused by the decline of secret power.

However, Qi Wenren had obviously not yet put the reverse charging function that Lu Jing most hoped for on the development agenda.

Lu Jing was not too surprised by this. After all, in just less than three months, Qi Wenren was able to figure out the most critical spell to extract secret power, plus improve a set of formations. This research efficiency was already very impressive.

If it were Lu Jing himself, it might take him a year or two to figure it out.

Moreover, at the end of the letter, Qi Wenren wrote down all the habits of the Golden Scale Secret Carp and the breeding methods he had summarized during this period without reservation.

With these things, Lu Jing could also officially open up a second side business and start raising fish on Azure Dragon Mountain.

He could let the shadow puppet cast Lush Verdure in the medicine field for him, and then the part of the secret power that dissipated into the heavens and earth could also be gathered into the fish pond through Qi Wenren's improved formation.

And if he left for a longer time, the shadow puppet could also automatically replenish secret power using the Golden Scale Secret Carp. This was a circular agriculture!

Lu Jing was excited by his genius idea, and immediately put it into practice. He first spent half a day letting the shadow puppet, which bumped into walls when walking, record Lush Verdure and Qi Wenren's newly researched Returning Yuan Art, and then spent another day teaching it to repeatedly cast Lush Verdure in the designated area.

A production-type shadow puppet was born!