Chapter 755 - 228: [The Pinnacle Sect of the Righteous Path??]
Chapter Two Hundred Twenty-Eight [Leader of the Righteous Path Sect??] (7000)
Chen Yan crouched beside the broken Substitute Puppet — this item was of an advanced level. He had only heard its name before, and it was his first time seeing the real thing.
In the shops at Snow Cliff Pass, Chen Yan had once seen this item on a product list. At the time, the price on the list for this item was eighty thousand coins!
To give some context, when Chen Yan ordered a Spirit Communication Pill, it only cost him ten thousand coins.
Eighty thousand coins, if exchanged for the heads of the Fierce Beast Race, calculated at the Domain Realm price of two hundred and fifty coins per head, would be enough to exchange for the heads of three hundred and twenty Fierce Beast Warriors.
But Chen Yan did not find this price expensive — on the contrary, when he first saw the pricing, he thought he had misread it.
The price of this item was unimaginably cheap!
This thing can be used as a life-saving measure!
Only eighty thousand?!
Eighty thousand coins is an unbearable fortune for a bottom-tier Loose Cultivator.
But for advanced cultivators or the wealthy or gifted heirs in prominent families, spending this bit of money to exchange for a life?
Chen Yan thought, if he were the eminent heir of a wealthy family like Gu Jinjia, he’d want to wave his hand and buy a thousand or eight hundred of these life-saving Substitute Puppets to carry around!
With this thing, charging into the Evil Land Mountain wouldn’t just be infiltration — it would be a direct invasion!
It’s like having immortality; can you stand that?
With such a treasure on you, charging into the army of the Fierce Beast Race, cutting through them seven times without even blinking.
Come on! Fight life with life! Whoever cowers is a grass dog!
Such an advantageous weapon, only eighty thousand coins? For wealthy families, it’s practically a bargain!
That’s how Chen Yan thought at the time.
But soon after, he realized he oversimplified things.
Something like fate cannot simply let you exploit loopholes like that!
Is the Heavenly Dao so easily manipulated, letting you play around with such a bug?
Substitute Puppets that let you cheat death have usage restrictions!
The first restriction is, above the Celestial Human Realm, the Substitute Puppet is useless! This item can only be used by cultivators below the Celestial Human Realm to cheat death.
Because in cultivation, the first major Realm Breakthrough celestial tribulation is at the Celestial Human Realm.
After experiencing the Celestial Tribulation, a Realm-Breaking Celestial is equivalent to preliminarily comprehending one’s Life Chart with the Heavenly Dao.
Though not quite at the Venerable Realm, where one’s Life Chart and destiny fully merge with the Heavenly Dao.
But starting from the Celestial Human Realm, to put it plainly, your fate and Life Chart are already registered with the Heavenly Dao.
After the first major celestial tribulation, the Heavenly Dao remembers you as an individual.
Below the Celestial Human Realm, to the Heavenly Dao, you’re all unregistered "black accounts," operating according to individual destinies. Occasionally gaming the system, the Heavenly Dao doesn’t notice and won’t care about you.
At this stage, you use a Substitute Puppet to snatch back a life, and the Heavenly Dao won’t pay attention to such a small ant like you.
But beyond the Celestial Human Realm, sorry, you’re now on the Heavenly Dao’s list.
Each and every one of you is counted; trying to exploit a loophole here won’t work — so above the Celestial Human Realm, the Substitute Puppet is useless.
This restriction directly cuts the value of the Substitute Puppet by more than half.
And also shatters the demand into fragments.
Imagine this life-saving treasure; the higher the cultivation, the more it’s needed and valued.
The higher the cultivation, the more perilous the journey and the more precious life becomes.
The key point is, advanced cultivators, with high cultivation, naturally have greater Wealth Value. They can afford it.
The problem is, above the Celestial Human Realm it’s useless, which means that in the Domain Realm, the group with the greatest spending power, the advanced cultivators, are directly excluded from the target audience for Substitute Puppets.
Below the Celestial Human Realm, the cultivation isn’t as high, thus limited in resources. Affording an eighty-thousand coin Substitute Puppet, one’s financial ability is first put to the test.
Of course, even so, below the Celestial Human Realm, there will always be some with strong family support, like the heirs of wealthy families. Similar to families like the Gu Family, there are always a batch in the Domain Realm.
For these wealthy heirs, eighty thousand coins aren’t really a significant amount. Buying a bunch to save lives is naturally satisfying.
But...it doesn’t feel satisfying.
Because the second usage restriction of the Substitute Puppet is— it affects a person’s destiny.
The Heavenly Dao!
Because of the existence of the Heavenly Dao, all creatures have a Life Chart and fortune, and life and death, prosperity and decline, all operate according to destiny and fate.
Below the Celestial Human Realm, although it won’t provoke direct retaliation from the Heavenly Dao immediately, once a Substitute Puppet is used, it naturally affects one’s original destiny.
You were dead, and you’ve come back to life!
Wouldn’t that mess up the destiny?
The Heavenly Dao doesn’t settle scores with a small ant routinely, but using it once naturally has serious side effects on one’s destiny.
Originally, you should have died, but using this method to steal back life, the destiny where you should have died, you stole back — even if alive, it means you’ve overdrawn much good fortune that wasn’t yours.
The accounts don’t balance!
What happens when the accounts don’t balance?
You’ve stolen good fortune that wasn’t yours and survived, so you’ll have to repay it in the future.
You’ll have to endure misfortunes that weren’t originally yours. (When reading this, Chen Yan fell into deep thought...)
In the shops at Snow Cliff Pass, Chen Yan had once consulted the shopkeeper.