10,000x Cultivation: I Gain Power by Adopting Training Acolytes

Huang Laodao's saffron robes stiffened like dried parchment as he turned with exaggerated slowness. His wrinkled face stretched into a smile that didn't reach his beady eyes. "Young friend from Lingxian Sect," he crooned, palms raised in mock surrender, "this humble daoist bears no quarrel with you. Merely wishing to depart—"

Zhang Yun's laughter rang sharp as broken porcelain. He gestured casually toward the three cooling corpses. "No quarrel indeed. But dead men make excellent witnesses, wouldn't you agree?"

The daoist's cheek twitched, his ingratiating grin freezing mid-curdle. Brat slaughtered a Golden Core elder like butchering chickens, yet feigns concern over witnesses? Aloud, he adopted a stern tone: "Though not peerless, this old dao has weathered centuries at Golden Core's peak. Push me, and neither of us leaves unscathed!"

"By all means," Zhang Yun shrugged, Immortal Eyes already dissecting his foe:

**[Huang Laodao]**​

Realm: Golden Core Peak

Techniques: Soulsummon Banner Art, Intermediate Puppetry

Weaknesses: 1) Fragile physique. 2) Vulnerable left arm during summoning. 3)...4)...

"Seven weaknesses?" Zhang Yun's eyebrow arched. Even for a puppetmaster, such glaring flaws reeked of sloppy cultivation. But what truly caught his eye was the pulsating banner in the daoist's grip—a genuine spirit tool, its obsidian shaft threaded with veins of celestial bronze.

In Nan Yun Province where common steel blades passed for treasures, this relic could ransom a mid-tier sect. Yet here it sat, clutched in this trembling fraud's chicken-claw hands.

"Arrogant whelp!" Huang bellowed suddenly, banner whipping upward. "Learn respect!"

The chamber roared with bestial fury as the banner erupted—a maelstrom of snarling wolf phantoms, bleating goat spirits, and at its heart, three towering Golden Core beast souls. Their combined aura pressed down like mountain chains, stone tiles cracking underfoot.

Zhang Yun's palms ignited with azure energy, stance lowering into Qingyuan Steps' ready position. The daoist's wrinkled face contorted in triumph as he lunged—

—only to pirouette mid-charge, saffron robes billowing as he fled toward a side tunnel.

"Coward!" Zhang Yun spat, already blurring in pursuit.

Skreee! A obsidian tiger phantom materialized, fangs glistening with spectral venom. Zhang Yun's fist shattered its skull, but the dispersing energy erupted into choking smog.

"Hack-hack! Damned trickster!" He waved away the noxious fumes to find empty tunnels echoing with distant foot slaps.

The disciples approached wide-eyed. Xu Ming's fingers trembled around his herb knife. "Master... you... you really..."

"Enough gawking." Zhang Yun flicked rat ash from his sleeve. "Those century-old herbs won't harvest themselves."

***​

Under their master's exacting guidance, the trio worked like surgical attendants. Xu Ming's jade-handled trowel paused above a pulsating Prismbloom. "Wrap roots in qi first," Zhang Yun chided without looking up, his own fingers dancing around a Violet Auspice Grass' delicate root hairs. "Exposed to air, its fire petal turns to ash in three breaths."

Wu Xiaopang yelped as his shovel neared a Twisted Mandrake's thorny stem. "Left to right, fool boy!" Zhang Yun's voice snapped. "Its roots coil counter-sunwise!"

By dusk's false glow (courtesy of luminous ceiling fungi), the last spirit herb settled into preservation jade boxes. Zhang Yun surveyed their haul—enough to bankrupt small kingdoms. His fingers brushed a Frostbell Bloom's crystalline petals. With these... Visions of pill furnaces and reforged meridians danced behind his eyes.

The cottage loomed ahead, its sagging eaves dripping mossy tears. Two centuries of dust coated its door like fungal skin. Zhang Yun's qi pulse sent the rotting wood crashing inward—

—right as a crescent blade emerged, its edge singing with malignant energy. The trio barely dodged the guillotine arc that bisected a stone pillar behind them.

From the shadows stepped their assailant—not Huang Laodao's cringing form, but a figure that froze even Zhang Yun's seasoned blood.

**[Ancient Guardian Puppet]**​

Realm: Half-Step Nascent Soul

Description: Jade-carved sentinel. Core sustained by...

The analysis shattered as the construct's eyes ignited—twin suns burning through twilight.