Seeing the situation turn dire, Yuan Ming quickly retreated to dodge, but he still couldn’t completely avoid it and was sent flying by a wave of scorching heat.

When he got up from the ground, rubbing his chest and covered in dust, he saw that the fire pit he had built with stones had turned into a charred pit three feet wide, with wisps of white smoke still rising from it.

The trees within thirty feet around him had been riddled with holes, battered and charred, with flames still visible.

The sight before him left Yuan Ming dumbfounded.

He had seen the Fireball Technique before, the most basic fire attribute attack spell that Chen Wan had previously used, but the power of this Explosion Technique was incomparable to even ten Fireball Techniques.

He feared that even inner disciples with higher cultivation levels than him, or even those in the early stages of Foundation Establishment, would not be able to face this attack!

After the surprise, there was more intense shock and joy.

“I need to hurry up and cultivate. Only by condensing more mana can I increase the power of this technique.” Yuan Ming thought to himself. If he had this technique, as long as he used it properly and supplemented it with spirit stones, he wouldn’t have to worry about being besieged by people like Kuntu.

“Boom”

Just then, a huge shadow fell in front of Yuan Ming with a loud noise, startling him.

The tree house he had spent a day building was smashed to pieces in front of him along with the broken tree trunk.

“Sigh, it seems I need to find a new place.”

Time flew by, and several months passed.

In the dense forest of the Hundred Thousand Mountains.

On top of a towering ancient tree, a man-made wooden platform was erected. A figure sat on it, bathed in the bright moonlight.

He held a green incense burner in his arms, emitting a faint glow.

At this moment, the glow around him suddenly contracted and returned to his body.

But a light shone from his forehead, and a pure black crow with a tuft of white feathers on its forehead flew out from the hazy light, heading east into the high sky.

Following it, another black soul crow flew out, heading west.

Then the third, and finally the fourth.

The four soul crows flew in four different directions: east, south, west, and north. Yuan Ming’s sea of consciousness immediately displayed four different scenes, seen through the eyes of the four soul crows.

Just now, his Death Moon method had finally reached the second level, his soul power greatly increased, and he had condensed the fourth soul crow.

The four soul crows flew far away, not very fast, only as fast as ordinary crows, but the distance they flew this time was greatly increased.

Each one flew twenty miles away before the connection with Yuan Ming began to weaken, and the scenes in his vision became blurry.

Yuan Ming summoned the four soul crows back with a thought.

After experiencing and feeling it, he noticed that the soul power fluctuations of the four soul crows were much stronger than before, which meant that if he launched the Soul Strike ability again, the power would be much stronger than before.

A cultivator of the same level as him could not withstand his Soul Strike attack.

During this time, Yuan Ming had been intensively cultivating the Nine Elements Formula during the day and practicing the Death Moon method at night. Not only had his soul cultivation method made great progress, but his Nine Elements Formula had also reached the ninth level.

At this moment, Yuan Ming’s cultivation level was already at the ninth level of Qi Refining.

The growth of his mana cultivation made him more proficient in techniques such as the Wood Spike Technique and the Wood Prison Technique, and the speed and power of his techniques had also increased.

The four soul crows returned one after another, re-entering Yuan Ming’s sea of consciousness.

Yuan Ming slowly opened his eyes, a look of joy on his face.

At this moment, a silver figure slowly descended from an ancient tree in the moonlight and came to Yuan Ming’s side.

“I didn’t expect such a stupid person to be able to condense the fourth soul crow.” The familiar voice of Silver Cat Xiying echoed in Yuan Ming’s sea of consciousness.

Silver Cat Xiying had indeed appeared. He could feel that during his retreat, this silver cat had been around all the time.

He immediately looked at her and said, “Xiying, I have mastered a new ability.”

“What ability?”

Xiying’s tone was clearly surprised.

“Corpse control,” Yuan Ming said with a smile.

“How is that possible? Generally, soul cultivators need to cultivate to the Foundation Establishment stage before they can master the ability to control corpses. Otherwise, their soul strength is simply not enough to support them in controlling corpses.” The silver cat found it hard to believe.

Yuan Ming’s soul strength and the speed of his soul growth far exceeded that of ordinary people. This was something the silver cat knew, but she never thought it would be so outrageous.

“Whether it works or not, we’ll only know after trying,” Yuan Ming said.

“I’d like to see if you can really do it,” the silver cat’s voice immediately echoed in his sea of consciousness.

Yuan Ming nodded, immediately formed a hand seal with both hands, closed his eyes, and began to perform the soul secret technique.

In no time, a soul crow struggled out from his forehead, soared into the sky, and after a brief circling, flew in a certain direction.

The soul crow flew about seventy or eighty feet away, then suddenly dove towards the ground.

Below in the forest, a body lay sprawled in a pit filled with dead branches and leaves. The body was highly decomposed, its clothes turned to mud.

The body’s chest and abdomen were pierced by wooden spikes at the bottom of the pit, but the fatal injury was the collapsed skull, which seemed to have been smashed by a beast like a bear.

The black crow flew to the body, hesitated for a moment, then plunged into its half-collapsed head.

The next instant, ghostly flames seemed to rise in the corpse’s eyes, lighting up two green glows.

In the forest on the other side, Yuan Ming’s face twisted. His consciousness still held the vision of the soul crow, but the perspective had become somewhat strange.

At this moment, he felt as if he had grown an extra pair of eyes outside his own, and the world he saw through these eyes was shrouded in a faint green gloom.

“How is it? Tell me quickly.” Silver Cat Xiying’s voice echoed in his consciousness.

“I think… it’s successful.” Yuan Ming was somewhat uncertain.

“You have some talent.” Silver Cat Xiying’s experienced voice timely echoed in Yuan Ming’s consciousness. “If the soul crow enters a corpse and can see the outside world through the corpse’s perspective, then you have succeeded halfway. You can try to control the corpse’s movements.”

He immediately tried.

With a thought, the arm of the corpse dozens of feet away slowly and stiffly raised. Almost simultaneously, the arm of his meditating body also involuntarily raised.

Seeing this, Yuan Ming quickly lowered his arm, but the corpse also lowered its arm.

He frowned slightly, tried again to control the corpse to move its leg, and then his own leg also involuntarily moved.

Yuan Ming immediately pressed his own leg and again used his mind to control the corpse’s movements.

This time, his own leg did not cause trouble under the forceful external force, but this was obviously not a long-term solution.

In a sense, they, one man and one corpse, had become conjoined twins.

“I want to control the corpse’s movements, but when the thought is conveyed, it inevitably affects my own body. When the corpse moves, I also move.” After several attempts, Yuan Ming said with a troubled expression.

After a moment, Xiying’s voice echoed in his mind:

“For a soul cultivator controlling a corpse for the first time, this situation is quite normal. Controlling a corpse is about dividing a part of your consciousness to control another body, which is naturally ten times more difficult than simply dividing your consciousness to observe the outside world.”

“So, how can I do it as freely as you?” Yuan Ming asked.

“There’s no shortcut, only constant practice. Do you think you’re a genius like me?” Xiying did not give any shortcuts, and even took the opportunity to belittle Yuan Ming.

Upon hearing this, Yuan Ming immediately stopped being distracted and began to immerse himself in trying to control the corpse.

At this moment, Xiying seemed to deliberately keep sending him messages, disrupting his rhythm: “The longer the corpse has been dead, the less water and muscle activity it retains, the stiffer the corpse’s movements, and the harder it is to control. Conversely, if the corpse has just died and still retains some spiritual power, as long as it is controlled properly, it can even display its combat instincts from when it was alive.”

Yuan Ming took these words to heart and continued to control the corpse.

Until the next day dawned, a highly decomposed black corpse staggered out of the misty forest and came stiffly to Yuan Ming.

The next instant, the corpse collapsed, and a black soul crow flew out from its forehead and entered Yuan Ming’s consciousness.

At this moment, Yuan Ming looked exhausted, but there was an unmistakable joy in his eyes.

After a night of repeated practice, almost exhausting the power of the four soul crows, he finally mastered the knack of controlling the corpse and finally severed the conjoined twin-like sensation between himself and the corpse.

“You do have a little talent in soul cultivation. It’s not easy to be able to control a corpse to this extent in such a short time. You’re probably close to one-tenth of my ability back then.” Silver Cat Xiying said, having stayed by Yuan Ming’s side all night.

“Can you tell me your story from back then?” Yuan Ming asked curiously.

Without a reply, Silver Cat Xiying had already left.

After thanking the departing Silver Cat Xiying, Yuan Ming bathed in the morning light and continued to meditate and cultivate his spirit.

However, just as he was immersing himself, his mind suddenly “boomed” as if a heavenly bell had been struck.

Then, one by one, images emerged from his mind, flooding over like a tide.Yuan Ming suddenly felt a wave of intense pain in his head, involuntarily clutching his head with both hands and collapsing to the side.

After a long while, he stopped struggling, his forehead drenched in cold sweat, and slowly lifted his head.

His gaze was slightly focused, his eyes clear, seemingly unchanged, yet somehow different from before.