"Golden Thunder Essence Lock, bind!" Han Li clasped his hands together and shouted.
The golden patterns on the golden platform suddenly shone brightly. A golden thunder pillar as thick as a calf soared into the sky and hit the dome above. A golden electric light split from it.
The two mother beans were in the middle of the golden thunder pillar. Hundreds of electric arcs ejected from them, turning into a golden electric net that enveloped all the beans scattered around.
A loud crackling sound rang out!
In the electric net, strands of golden electric wires were like slender branches, connecting all the beans together. The golden thunder pillar below the mother beans was like the trunk of the tree, making it look like a small golden thunder tree.
Wisps of spiritual energy flowed out of the spirit stones on the ground and flowed through the main trunk and branches of the Thunder Tree, entering every single bean, causing the lightning patterns carved on them to suddenly light up and shine brightly.
Looking at the Tao soldier beans hanging all over the thunder tree, as if there were a lot of fruits hanging on it, Han Li couldn't help but show a touch of joy on his face.
He took a deep breath, changed the incantation gesture with his hands again, and yelled,
"Thunder Inscription True Pattern, form!"
With this shout, the array on the ground suddenly trembled. Many nodes on the array patterns began to light up with black light, connecting with each other to form an extremely strange beast-shaped pattern.
Its shape was like a cow, but it had dragon horns on its head. Judging from the proportion of its body, its body was quite large. There were ancient runes on its round abdomen, which emitted bursts of strong thunder and lightning fluctuations.
What was surprising was that this beast only had one thick leg under its body. At a glance, it looked a bit like a black giant hammer, and there was a long whip-like tail hanging behind it.
In fact, this beast was called "Thunder Kui". It was a famous strange spirit beast in the Realm of True Immortals. It was born to control the Ninth Heaven's thunder and lightning. It often used its long tail to hit its abdomen, which could make a thunderous sound that could disperse evil spirits. It was feared by all ghosts.
As soon as the pattern was formed, Han Li's eyes immediately focused, and he let out a sigh of relief.
He knew that the most critical moment of refining the bean soldier had arrived.
He crossed his hands in front of him and made a new sign. His lips kept opening and closing, chanting an incantation.
Accompanied by the sounds of chanting, the Thunder Kui Seal Patterns on the ground immediately shone with a dark light and floated up, passing through all the beans and arriving at the dome of the lightning screen.
The blue light in Han Li's eyes became even brighter upon seeing this, and translucent threads formed from his spiritual sense shot forth from his glabella into the golden lightning tree. At the same time, his hands were intertwined in front of him as he continued to carve in the air.
As his movements continued to change, all the beans hanging on the golden lightning tree began to tremble slightly. Specks of black light began to appear around the lightning patterns on them. The inscription of the runes had officially begun.
Outside of the spell formation, Han Li was waving his hands at an extremely fast speed. As for the black veined patterns on the pea inside the spell formation, they were growing at an extremely slow pace. It was as if they were crawling at a snail's pace, slowly accumulating.
Inscription of runes was the most exhausting. If it was other ordinary True Immortal Realm cultivators, most of them would inscribe all the beans in batches to reduce the consumption of inscription.
Although this approach was fine, there was a disadvantage.
Since not all the beans were successfully refined at the same time, apart from the batch of beans refined at the same time as the mother beans, the bean soldiers formed by the rest of the beans would have a much weaker connection with the mother beans.
Usually, this would not have much of an impact, and there would not be any problems even if it was used in battle. However, if it was used to set up a magic circle like the Yellow Turban Bean Soldiers in the past, there would be a difference, and the reaction of the Bean Soldiers would be slightly slower.
Han Li's spiritual sense was far stronger than ordinary people, so he did not divide these beans into batches, but chose to inscribe all at once.
Time passed little by little, and soon a month had passed.
Han Li was fully immersed in it. He had been concentrating on the inscription, and he was completely unaware.
His hands moved from both sides and closed in the middle in front of him. The Thunder King runes on all the beans in the array also completed the last inscription, emitting a striking black light.
Seeing this, the blue light in Han Li's eyes slowly faded, revealing a touch of exhaustion, but there was a smile at the corner of his mouth.
The light of the array in the secret room gradually dimmed, and all the golden arcs began to gradually converge, condensing on the two mother beans. The layer of thunder and lightning that shrouded the outside also disappeared.
After all the thunder and lightning converged, the golden thunder tree also disappeared. All the beans slowly fell and flew back to the golden platform.
Han Li took the yellow gourd from his waist, raised his hand and patted the bottom. The mouth of the gourd immediately lit up with a yellow light, and a suction force came from it, sucking all the beans in.
The two mother beans, he did not put them into the gourd, but kept them in his arms.
Then, he spat out a long turbid breath, took out a green elixir, swallowed it, and closed his eyes to adjust his breath.
The next day.
In a snow valley somewhere in the territory of the Crimson Afterglow Summit, a green light descended from the sky, and Han Li's figure appeared out of thin air.
He glanced around the valley, found a relatively open and flat area, and flew over.
After landing, he reached out to take the gourd from his waist. After chanting silently for a while, the mouth of the gourd immediately shone with yellow light. Dark yellow beans flew out like rain and fell to the ground.
There was a burst of sound like rain hitting banana leaves. All the beans that fell to the ground shone brightly, and they instantly turned into a ten meters tall Dao soldier.
The shape of their faces was somewhat similar to the Yellow Turban Strongman of the past, but there was an additional set of armor on their bodies, which was engraved with thunder and lightning runes. Hundreds of people stood in a neat square formation, looking quite powerful.
Han Li flicked his finger, and a green sword qi flew out, slashing on the chest of a thunder armor Dao soldier.
A loud noise!
The thunder armor Dao soldier was hit and flew out, slamming hard on the ground, creating a big pit.
In the next moment, with a swoosh, the lightning-armored Dao soldier darted out of the pit and flew back.
The armor on its chest had been penetrated, and there was a wound on its chest, but it didn't seem to be deep, and it didn't affect its movement at all.
Seeing this, Han Li nodded slightly.
Although he only used about 1% of the sword qi just now, ordinary Mahayana stage cultivators might not be able to withstand it. But now, it only slightly injured this thunder armor Dao soldier. It seemed that the defense of this Dao soldier was still above his expectations.
Han Li pondered for a while, then he moved his mind. These thunder armor Dao soldiers immediately rushed into the valley. Golden lightning appeared on their armor, and their speed was extremely fast. They were like golden lightning, and they were many times stronger than the yellow turban strongmen before.
As soon as they entered the depths of the valley, the thunder armor Dao soldiers immediately formed groups of two and fought with each other.
There was a loud rumbling sound, as if countless thunder and lightning were exploding and tens of thousands of horses were galloping.
The entire valley rumbled, and the snow on the nearby mountains collapsed.
After observing for a while, Han Li realized that their fighting style was very similar to the yellow turban strongmen. They didn't know how to retreat and fought with all their might.
However, the difference was that these thunder armor Dao soldiers' recovery ability was obviously stronger. As long as they weren't completely defeated, some broken arms and pierced chests could basically recover quickly. This surprised Han Li again.
After that, Han Li controlled the Dao soldiers to set up a few more formations, but the effect wasn't very ideal. He knew that it was because he didn't practice much, so he didn't pay much attention to it.
The strength displayed by these Dao soldiers had already made him very surprised.
Han Li then put away all the Dao soldiers and returned to the cave abode.
After returning to the cave abode, he walked into the secret room, flipped his palm, and a metal ball appeared in his palm.
"Daoist Xie …" Han Li called softly.
Moments later, several deep cracks appeared on the golden ball, and a series of thin metal limbs emerged from within. The sound of metal clanging rang out, and it transformed into a palm-sized golden crab.
"Why did you summon me, Friend Han?" Daoist Xie asked as he looked up at Han Li.
"It's nothing much; it's just that I obtained a formation that can fuse bean soldiers with puppets, and I wanted to discuss it with you," Han Li replied.
"Are you trying to fuse bean soldiers with that immortal puppet, Friend Han?
Forgive me for being blunt, but this method won't be suitable for an immortal puppet that lacks a core, "Daoist Xie shook his head upon hearing this.
"Let's take a look at this female bean first, Fellow Daoist Xie," Han Li said with a smile.
He flipped his other hand over to produce a yellow bean that was around the size of a broad bean. The bean had Lightning Dragon Beast patterns inscribed on it, and there were also golden lightning patterns embedded within it.
Han Li picked up the female bean and placed it beside Daoist Xie.
Daoist Xie was quite taken aback by this development, and he immediately began to inspect the female bean before appraising Han Li with his small golden eyes.
"This … It possesses both the earth and lightning attributes; are you trying to …"
Han Li continued, "That's right. Fellow Daoist, you failed to fuse with the puppet because your attributes weren't compatible. But now that you have this female bean, perhaps you'll be able to turn the tide."
"That's a good idea … May I have a look at the fusion formation?" Daoist Xie asked.
Han Li didn't say anything, and he passed the jade slip over to Daoist Xie, while Daoist Xie picked it up with a crab pincer.
Moments later, he released the pincer and turned to Han Li.