Jiao Xiuyuan transformed himself into thousands of puppets, single-handedly supporting the vast commercial organization known as Qianli Hall, which spanned across various locations of the Ten Thousand Immortal Alliance.
In various ruins and desolate wildernesses with few people, one might catch a glimpse of his presence.
He even had the power to stir up great disturbances in the Xuanhuang Realm.
There was a certain flavor of "entering the Dao through business" about him.
However, his luck seemed to be somewhat unfortunate.
Though he claimed he never made a losing deal, from Li Fan's experience with him, it appeared Jiao Xiuyuan often lost money in business.
For instance, when Li Fan first met him, he had stockpiled a large number of Concealment Talismans, but due to the incident with Five Elements Grand Cave Heaven, the price of the talismans plummeted.
Later, he painstakingly unearthed a few Minor Medicine King Cauldrons, and if he had waited for the return of the "True Medicine King Cauldron", he would have surely made a fortune.
But it was as if he was destined not to be that lucky. He sold all of those minor cauldrons early on at a low price.
"Even in the previous life, when he partnered with me in the business of Spirit Mist Grass, a moment of greed caused him to hesitate too long, and the vast wealth he had in hand vanished in an instant."
"Only in this life has he truly profited. I wonder if something is going to change for him."
As Li Fan pondered, he carefully examined the items on Jiao Xiuyuan's shelves, hoping to find something valuable, like the Minor Medicine King Cauldron, to make a small gain.
The items on the shelves were diverse: talismans, formation diagrams, pills, and more, all available.
Li Fan paid special attention to the older-looking items.
Most of them were badly damaged, filled with the marks of history.
Scrolls, various ornaments, and artifacts that had long lost their spiritual energy filled the shelves.
Li Fan's gaze swept across them one by one.
Suddenly, he stopped at an ancient painting.
His expression became slightly serious as he carefully removed the scroll and slowly unrolled it.
It wasn’t that the painting itself was special, but rather its content that caught Li Fan's attention.
The painting depicted a grand and magnificent sect entrance.
The sky and earth seemed boundless, with dozens of cultivators standing in the clouds, pointing into the distance.
Among the sea of clouds, the towering buildings at the mountain's peak were faintly visible.
"Luan Birds" and "Jiaolong Dragons", along with other exotic beasts, wandered among the mountains.
In the square at the foot of the mountain, hundreds of young disciples, still innocent in appearance, stood.
They looked up at the cultivators in the sky, their faces full of excitement and admiration.
It truly depicted a thriving scene of a flourishing sect!
But...
Li Fan had seen this sect before, and it was the complete opposite of the prosperity in the painting.
The ground was littered with corpses, rivers of blood flowed.
The sect's entrance was in ruins, reduced to rubble.
It was the very scene he saw at the bottom of the Void Abyss after the dense fog had cleared during his time in the Great Xuan.
The words "Immortal Dao is dead" carved on the cliff had deeply shaken Li Fan at the time.
Now, Li Fan knew that this was undoubtedly the aftermath of the great calamity that occurred when the disciples of the sect slaughtered each other after the arrival of the Disaster of incompatibility Of cultivating same technique.
"Which sect was this? Why did I see this place back then?"
It was known that the scene each person saw at the bottom of the Void Abyss was different.
The fact that Li Fan saw this ruined sect might have been a coincidence.
But Li Fan believed there might be some kind of guidance in it.
After carefully storing away the painting, Li Fan continued to browse the shelves but found nothing else of value.
He then approached Jiao Xiuyuan.
"Daoist Jiao? Daoist Jiao!"
Li Fan called out symbolically a few times. When Jiao still did not respond, Li Fan reached out and began to feel around him.
It wasn’t due to any strange habit, but rather to take this rare opportunity to study Jiao Xiuyuan's Thousand Puppet Dao.
Although Profound True Spirit Transformation was already an astonishing divine art, it still had some small flaws.
Derived from the Stealing Sky and changing the Sun Technique, it could only maintain one clone at a time, which was a bit disappointing.
If he could combine it with the Thousand Puppet Dao and take it a step further...
"Thousands of avatars, indistinguishable from the real."
As Li Fan's imagination ran wild, his hands moved without hesitation.
"Completely identical to the real body, even using divine sense to penetrate and perceive would find no difference."
"The control core seems to be in the head, glowing with a blue light similar to the Dao Derivation Stone."
"I’ve seen the remains of puppets before—dry and yellow like decaying wood. Could it be that Jiao Xiuyuan’s puppet avatars are made from some special type of wood?"