A few days later.
Enchanted Everwood farm.
[ A farmer needs to protect his farm. ]
This was the introductory line in the Scarecrow Puppets Creation manual.
Hour of Shadow Ox (07:00 PM - 08:00 PM)
At this point, Aksai was hard at work. From the last few days, he had been spending most of his time inside the Everwood farm refining his own Scarecrow Puppets.
This process had been ongoing ever since he returned from his trip to Lakir City. He would appear to the outside world during the daytime, work on his Spirit farm, complete his daily tasks as quickly as possible, and then retire early inside his house.
He only barely talked with Aunt Reta and her son. That too so that they'd know he was okay so that they don't check up on him. Essentially, he had become a shut-in to expedite the progress of the Scarecrow puppet creation.
After all, the Scarecrow Puppet Creation manual hinted that the process needed to be completed within a week of the target's actual death. Otherwise, the process would fail, and the corpse would never be able to be turned into a puppet. It also meant that the sooner Aksai finished the process, the better the result of the puppet creation would be.
Aksai could tell that this manual of puppet creation definitely didn't belong to the Righteous Way. However, he didn't particularly care about the vaguely established rights or wrongs of the cultivation world. Mostly because he had seen the definitions of rights and wrongs get flipped by the might of powerful cultivators.
The so-called Righteous Way and the Demonic Ways were just for show. A cultivator belonging to the Righteous Way would cause great harm to those weaker than him if he could find a valid justification to do so. He could always concoct his own justification if there wasn't any in the first place.
And cultivators belonging to the demonic faction would help the mortals and treat them well if they had some vested interests in them.
In the end, cultivators from both factions prioritized their own benefits over the needs of others. It was just the way they prioritized their own benefits that set them apart.
The Righteous cultivators were sly and manipulative, whereas the demonic cultivators were direct and decisive.
Aksai didn't see the logic in sticking to one particular faction.
He had come to realize long ago that a man needs to be as flexible as the grass in the Spirit farm for him to survive the storms of the cultivation world.
Only when he can survive the storms can he hope to become a towering celestial tree unaffected by worldly storms.
Aksai believed that he still had some morality left in him. However, his promise didn't allow his father to permit him to become kind to his enemies. Since the original trio of cultivators had approached him with bad intentions, Aksai didn't see anything wrong in using them as puppets to allow them to make amends after their deaths.
Aksai was a kind and forgiving person. However, in the case of his mortal enemies, his forgiveness could only be obtained after they died.
At this point, the three targets had been embalmed in a special gel-like oil that Aksai had created following the recipe given in the Scarecrow Puppet Creation manual. This gel-like oil had allowed him to preserve the Spirit essence of the three corpses, not allowing it to dissipate even after so much time had passed post-death.
The three lifeless forms were laid on three stalks of dry yellowish hay. The hay itself was normal and fetched from the Spirit farm outside the Enchanted Everwood farm.
However, the three stalks had been imbued with Aksai's Spirit essence for hours on end using the [ Spirit Essence Bath ] spell. This Spirit Essence Bath was extremely simple in that it only imbued certain objects with the caster's Spirit Essence.
There were various ways one could use to refine the Scarecrow Puppets for themselves. However, the easier and more profound ways required Aksai to have some knowledge related to the other Arts of cultivation.
For example, if Aksai had enough knowledge about the talisman-making process, he could have skipped bathing the dry hay with his Spirit Essence. And if he had elementary knowledge about Array Formation, he could have skipped embalming the Scarecrow puppets with a special form of gel-like oil.
However, Aksai had a poor background as a Spirit cultivator. So he had to take longer, harder roads instead of making use of the shortcuts mentioned in the manual.
With the puppet creation manual right in front of his eyes in the form of the Spectral Screen, Aksai straightened his back and assumed a meditative position.
After once again checking that everything was done as per the steps mentioned in the manual, Aksai decided to take the final step.
Aksai started making Mudras one after the other. Thanks to the neural link fabric, he could follow the steps mentioned in the manual to its last detail. At the same time, he started practicing the Basic Greenwood Tantra and channeled his Spirit Essence throughout his body.
After enough repetitions were performed, a pattern was created. When the neural link fabric identified the pattern, it offered Aksai the option he had been waiting for.
[ Automated Execution ]
Aksai's hand-sign-making speed suddenly shot up, allowing him to complete the complex steps with no errors and reduced time. When he was finally done, his body was drenched in sweat. He then raised his right hand, used his index finger like a brush, and created a complex Essence Equation in the air, in the shape of a vertical line.
Aksai followed the same steps and created two more Essence Equations. When the three Essence Creations were completed they exuded a peculiar spiritual pulse, as if they were somewhat conscious.
Aksai didn't waste time and pointed at the three corpses, promoting each of the Essence Equations to get assimilated with them respectively.
When the three Essence Equations buried themselves deep within the three lifeless forms, a peculiar form of spiritual fluctuation was spread in the surroundings.
And then… the three lifeless forms opened their eyes together.