The giant corpse Buddha was still sinking toward the depths underground, and it was unknown how long it would take before reaching the range of the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Ren Qing carefully pondered the state of corpse transformation, wanting to probe the secrets of the Dead Man's Sutra from it.
He also discovered that when living beings were in a cold environment, corpse transformation would be greatly slowed.
Moreover, although the reproduction of animals was affected by corpse transformation, it merely increased the probability of stillbirths, rather than directly causing the loss of reproductive ability.
So Ren Qing simply cast Dao births Dao, changing the rules of the world inside the stomach.
He directly made the world inside the stomach enter an ice age, with the temperature gradually dropping by twenty degrees; in the future there would no longer be four seasons, only eternal winter.
Ren Qing knew it was inevitable that a large number of animals and plants would be unable to adapt to the environment and perish, fortunately there was Reincarnation Remaining Soul, which could accelerate the evolution of species.
Thus, he only needed to expend life force once every half year to form torrential rain.
Ren Qing estimated that, by external time, the life force stored in the Yellow Springs of Rebirth was sufficient to last for more than two hundred years; if the flow rate were kept consistent, it could even reach six to seven hundred years.
He temporarily did not adjust the flow of time, after all he was still counting on more Cishi people advancing to the Half-Corpse realm.
However, very soon, Ren Qing discovered another channel to supplement manpower.
Inside those enormous creatures, there were usually thousands of living beings, but due to corpse transformation they had fallen into corpse-like state.
Ren Qing did not know whether life force could revive them, but he did not want to waste the opportunity.
Compared to the dull-witted Cishi people, the cocooned humans were far more suitable for Restraint Officer methods; they could advance to the Ghost Envoy realm with little resource consumption.
He also did not rashly reach toward the enormous creatures, but quietly waited.
Because of its metallic bones, the giant corpse Buddha sank much faster than usual, and might be able to come into close contact with corpses.
Time passed unknowingly, and unexpectedly the opportunity came after nearly half a year.
A half-human, half-rat corpse appeared at the upper right of the giant corpse Buddha; its body was five to six hundred meters, far from enormous.
Aside from Ren Qing, the cultivators also noticed the corpse through the stomach wall.
However, they did not pay attention; they were already too busy completing various tasks every day to spare energy on illusory matters.
All organs had already reached the peak of the Half-Corpse realm, and breaking through to the Ghost Envoy realm was just around the corner.
Considering the manpower issue, Ren Qing did not add new aberrant organs, but the existing organs were already enough to keep more than ten thousand people busy.
Only Sen Sheng stared at the giant rat corpse with a complicated expression, as if vaguely sensing something.
Seeing this, Daoist Yuhua could not help asking, "What's wrong?"
Sen Sheng hesitated as if wanting to speak, but in the end said nothing, only staring fixedly at the corpse.
Seeing this, Daoist Yuhua did not ask further and left alone.
Only after a long time did Sen Sheng come back to his senses. If his intuition was correct, there must be cocooned humans of the same race inside the rat corpse.
He had always lived underground in the Rotten Blood Plain, in a relatively closed environment, and had never encountered other cocooned human tribes, so he could not help feeling curious.
However, Sen Sheng merely sighed and then prepared to leave the stomach.
At this moment, Ren Qing's figure suddenly appeared before him. Sen Sheng, terrified and trembling, was about to kneel, but was fixed in place by a technique.
"Sen Sheng, come with me for a trip?"
"Replying to immortal, this lowly one would not refuse even in death."
Sen Sheng immediately agreed, then felt the world spin, and after a few breaths he had already arrived inside the sealed navel cave.
Ren Qing held Sen Sheng with one hand, and did not go in person with his main body.
The dragon spine emerged from behind, its claws grabbing Sen Sheng and the ghost shadow, traveling through the hard white bone sand without any effort.
The ghost shadow could open a fissure leading to the world inside the stomach, so ensuring Sen Sheng's safety was not difficult.
Ren Qing mainly wanted Sen Sheng to help locate the cocooned humans inside the rat corpse; otherwise, who knew where within the five viscera, six bowels, and extraordinary meridians they were hidden.
The dragon spine, having finally come out for some air, immediately grew restless.
It transformed into a size of thirty to forty meters, lightning flickering in its mouth, eagerly wanting to fire a burst of Five Elements lightning at the rat corpse.
Ren Qing felt a slight headache; after the ghost shadow carried Sen Sheng into the rat corpse, he decisively threw the dragon spine into the world inside the stomach.
It just so happened that outside should be night, so he used Night Roaming to attach his consciousness to the ghost shadow.
Sen Sheng's eyes were dull as he looked at the intestines and stomach composed of rotting flesh, still not reacting, completely unaware of what had happened.
"You can sense the location of the cocooned humans?"
Ren Qing's voice came from within the ghost shadow, and Sen Sheng quickly replied, "Perhaps because this lowly one has Ghost Envoy realm cultivation…"
Sen Sheng rambled on trying to explain, but Ren Qing directly signaled the ghost shadow to swallow him.
"Just tell me where."
The time the two corpses were in contact was limited, leaving them at most two or three hours.
Once the distance between them became too great, even if the ghost shadow was unaffected, Sen Sheng might be unable to use the fissure to return to the world inside the stomach.
Sen Sheng stopped talking nonsense and hesitantly guided the ghost shadow's direction.
The ghost shadow moved extremely fast, arriving in the blink of an eye at the destination where the cocooned humans were hidden, namely the location of the rat corpse's kidneys.
The kidneys govern water, so the organ was relatively cold.
Inside were placed five to six thousand corpse-like cocooned humans, as well as three cocooned cocooned humans, with a foul stench filling the air.
Ren Qing guessed that the cocooned humans had also discovered that cold could slow corpse transformation, and wanted to use the kidneys to suppress the increasingly severe corpse transformation.
However, they clearly could not avoid falling into corpse-like state.
Seeing the cocooned cocooned humans, Sen Sheng muttered in disbelief, "It really is possible… to form a cocoon and become immortal?"
Ren Qing had no time to indulge Sen Sheng; the surface of the ghost shadow split open a fissure, pulling all the cocooned humans along with Sen Sheng into the world inside the stomach.
The ghost shadow then dissipated without leaving any trace.
Sen Sheng again felt dizzy, and when he opened his eyes he had already arrived at the familiar Heaven Above Heaven.
However, the Cishi people somewhat bore the characteristics of corpses; when reciting Buddhist scriptures they looked increasingly eerie, lacking any appearance of enlightened monks.
Ren Qing threw the corpse-like cocooned humans into the Yellow Springs of Rebirth, then examined the three cocooned cocoons.
Cocooned humans grow a new layer of skin every year; usually only when they die of natural causes, after accumulating a certain amount of human skin, will they form cocoons.
After forming a cocoon, the human skin becomes extremely hard and takes on a gray-black color.
Ren Qing tested it with a sharp weapon; ordinary blades could not damage the human cocoon, and even if there were scratches, they would recover in a short time.
As for the inside of the human cocoon, like insects turning into butterflies, the cocooned human had completely become a gelatinous liquid, with no trace of human form.
The information flow showed something different.
[Age: 381 Lifespan: none] The lifespan of the human cocoons had also become "none".
However, Ren Qing did not sense any aura from the human cocoons; even when stimulating them with life force, there was no sign of breaking out of the cocoon to become immortal.
If not for the information flow, he would have thought that inside the cocoon was a dead object.
Ren Qing brought the human cocoons to the intestines and stomach, wanting to see whether being within the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone would cause unexpected changes.
As a result, there was indeed a faint trace of life force, as if something was being nurtured.
As the giant corpse Buddha continued to sink underground, the life force of the human cocoons also grew vigorously.
Ren Qing guessed that races similar to the cocooned humans must have an inseparable connection with the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone, even possibly involving the so-called gate.
He looked into the Yellow Springs of Rebirth; of the several thousand cocooned humans thrown in, only some of the younger ones showed signs of revival.
The others, completely devoid of life force, were washed by the Yellow Springs water and turned entirely into ashes.
In the end, only more than two thousand cocooned humans successfully awakened, and their physiques were extremely weak; after leaving the Yellow Springs of Rebirth, several hundred died again.
Ren Qing had the Cishi people take care of the cocooned humans, while continuously nourishing them with life force.
Even being so cautious, only a little over a thousand cocooned humans recovered, and their intelligence had obvious damage.
Ren Qing selected a thousand cocooned humans and handed them to Sen Sheng, having him teach the Human Skin Book.
The remaining more than two hundred cocooned humans, too dull to cultivate Restraint Officer methods, were placed in the southern part of the world inside the stomach, where there was a cave with relatively mild temperature.
Ren Qing hoped the cocooned humans could reproduce there and quickly form a population.
Because Sen Sheng and the others had to teach their kin cultivation, manpower in the Restraint Officers' Hall instead became even more insufficient, barely maintaining the daily nourishment of the magical artifacts.
Ren Qing split off part of his attention to observe the outside world, to see whether there were other enormous corpses.
However, for two corpses to come into close contact was a rare coincidence; he would have to wait until reaching the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
Half a year later, the giant corpse Buddha's skin fused with the "Scapegoat Skin" strange embryo, followed by the insect eyes and double pupils.
The more complex skeleton also began fusing with the "Iron Bones Covering the Body" strange embryo, while the intestines and stomach's Prison Within the Abdomen lagged slightly behind, but caused the area of the intestines and stomach to expand more than tenfold.
The flesh of the giant corpse Buddha's entire body had also begun preliminary refinement into magical artifacts, just waiting for the cocooned humans to advance in batches to the Half-Corpse realm; then there would be sufficient manpower, as currently it was impossible to handle everything at once.
The flying sword in the lungs was finally nurtured.
But it was not a flying sword in the traditional sense, but a wriggling infant that had to be parasitized onto a magical artifact to be completed.
According to Miss Bai, the aberration path she followed was called "Fetal Sword Bearer", giving her control over the flying sword as if it were her own arm.
The flying sword was estimated to be five hundred meters in size; the workload was extremely terrifying. Refiners had little free time daily, and it would still take more than half a year.
Ren Qing had originally thought that once the organs reached the Ghost Envoy realm, the sinking speed would increase, but unexpectedly the speed instead gradually stagnated.
It should be known that with Giantization Disease Type combined with Hard-Bone Disease Seed, the giant corpse Buddha's weight had at least doubled; could it be that this was already the limit?
Ren Qing looked downward through the giant corpse Buddha's vision.
He could vaguely see that within the white bone sand, there seemed to be an invisible barrier, preventing the giant corpse Buddha from proceeding.
At this moment, the human cocoons were close to hatching, the viscous liquid inside reconstructing into human form.
Ren Qing controlled the ghost shadow carrying the human cocoons, easily breaking through the barrier and arriving at the true depths of the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.
The scene of the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone was beyond expectations; it actually possessed a different kind of ecological civilization.
After probing with various methods, he did not rashly drive the giant corpse Buddha, allowing the Restraint Officers' Hall to continue nourishing the organs within it.
If it had been a barren land, Ren Qing would have sent the giant corpse Buddha without hesitation, but clearly there were traces of habitation, so it was better to first understand the situation.
In any case, he could at any time summon the Restraint Officers' Hall through the world inside the stomach, even forcibly call out the giant corpse Buddha directly.
With the protection of the dragon spine, Ren Qing went alone to the Dead Man's Forbidden Zone.