On the desolate plain, a lizard several feet long cautiously emerged from under a rock weathered halfway through, ready to begin its day of hunting.
But just as it crawled out of its nest and ventured a few yards away from the rock, a yellow monster about ten feet long suddenly burst forth from the sandy soil nearby. Using its front claws and mouth together, it pounced fiercely on the lizard, effortlessly snapping its neck. Then, clutching the corpse in its jaws, it dashed rapidly in a certain direction.
This beast, with its four claws, long tail, and pointed snout, resembled a giant lizard. However, its entire body was rigid, and as it ran, it emitted creaking sounds—it was actually a mechanical puppet-like contraption.
After running for over a mile, the beast arrived beside a yellow-robed figure seated cross-legged on a flat rock. It dropped the corpse next to the person and then scurried away again.
The yellow-robed figure showed no surprise or change in expression.
Calmly, he gestured with his hand, and the lizard’s corpse floated smoothly to a spot several feet in front of him, hovering motionlessly in the air.
Then, the yellow-robed man extended an index finger, pointing it toward the lizard’s head while murmuring incantations.
After a short while, his extended finger began to glow faintly with a soft white light.
As the chanting continued, the white light grew increasingly brighter, eventually becoming almost dazzling.
“Now!” the yellow-robed man exclaimed in a low voice, sensing the timing was right.
A thin strand of white light shot from his fingertip, piercing deep into the lizard’s skull. With visible effort, he slowly pulled back, his expression tense and extremely cautious.
Under his careful watch, the white thread finally extracted a green glowing sphere from the dead lizard’s body. It floated lightly, no larger than a thumb.
Seeing this, the yellow-robed man looked as if he had obtained a great treasure.
With his other hand, he produced a pale yellow jade vial. With a soft *puff*, several rays of light shot out from the vial, enveloping the green sphere and drawing it inside.
Only then did the yellow-robed man let out a long sigh of relief, wiping the faint sweat from his forehead. It was clear that this effort had consumed a significant amount of his energy.
“This Soul Extraction Technique is truly not something an early Foundation Establishment cultivator can perform easily. The success rate is far too low—only one success for every three or four attempts. It seems I’ll be stuck here all day,” the yellow-robed man muttered to himself, glancing at the small jade vial in his hand with a resigned expression.
This person was none other than Han Li, who was cultivating the “Great Development Art.”
He had come to this desert nearly a hundred miles away from the spirit stone mine precisely to collect animal souls, a task typically associated with demonic cultivators. His reason for doing so was entirely due to his study of the “Puppet True Scripture.”
After a preliminary study of puppet refinement techniques, Han Li discovered that crafting puppets required not only materials commonly used for magical instruments but also the souls of living beings. These souls had to be fused together with the materials to truly complete the process. Otherwise, the resulting puppets would lack spiritual intelligence and be no different from ordinary dolls.
The higher the grade of the puppet, the stronger the soul needed to refine it, in order to maximize its effectiveness. To this end, the “Puppet True Scripture” included three spells commonly used by demonic cultivators: “Soul Extraction Technique,” “Soul Condensation Technique,” and “Soul Refinement Technique.”
The “Soul Extraction Technique” was the spell Han Li had just used to draw the soul from the corpse.
This spell not only had low power and success rate but could only be used on recently deceased bodies. Compared to the secret soul-manipulating techniques of demonic cultivators, its effectiveness was vastly inferior!
However, its only advantage was that it required very little spiritual power; even a mid-Foundation Establishment cultivator could use it normally. Of course, an early Foundation Establishment cultivator like Han Li could barely use it, but the success rate was not high.
The “Soul Condensation Technique” was a method to condense souls. After all, powerful souls were not easy to find. Typically, higher-grade puppets used artificial souls created by merging several, dozens, or even hundreds of souls together. Although these artificial souls were not as effective as naturally powerful ones, they were far superior to using low-level souls. Thus, this technique was also essential for learning puppetry.
Finally, the “Soul Refinement Technique,” as the name implied, was used to refine and alter souls. Since ordinary souls were unsuitable for fusion with puppets, they needed to be specially processed and refined.
As for the lizard-like mechanical beast earlier, it was the first puppet Han Li had successfully crafted after cultivating the Great Development Art and splitting his first independent spiritual sense. The soul fused into it was merely from a few weasels he had casually captured.
But before this success, Han Li had failed seven or eight times, with a success rate that could hardly be called high.
When Han Li attached his split spiritual sense to the puppet and commanded it to move, the feeling was incredibly novel! It was neither the elusive sensation of controlling a magical instrument nor the tangible control of his own limbs.
In fact, his relationship with the puppet beast felt like that of a superior and a subordinate. He would send a thought, and the puppet would act according to his command, though the specific actions were carried out by the puppet itself. However, Han Li could clearly sense everything the puppet saw and heard, which delighted him immensely.
Playing with the puppet for the first time, Han Li felt a childlike excitement. Besides this primary puppet he had crafted, he also manipulated the slightly higher-grade mechanical puppets he had, indulging in a puppet-show fantasy he had dreamed of as a child.
While controlling these puppets, Han Li gradually became aware of their limitations.
First, the puppets could only operate within a three-mile radius of himself. Beyond this distance, they would become immobile, and his split spiritual sense would return. Han Li guessed that this was related to the maximum range his spiritual sense could travel from his main body. This could likely be improved as his cultivation and spiritual power advanced.
However, the next flaw was an inherent shortcoming of puppetry itself and could not be remedied. There was a delay between the puppet receiving a command and taking action, making it impossible for them to move instantaneously. This could easily be exploited by opponents in actual combat.
Despite these two flaws, puppetry was still remarkable. By splitting a few more spiritual senses and mastering the first layer of the Great Development Art, Han Li would be able to rival powerful Foundation Establishment experts. After all, having a dozen or so helpers, even if only at the Qi Condensation level, would be more than enough for self-defense.
At the very least, if he were ever trapped by the Young Master of the Ghost Spirit Sect again, he would not fear the endless army of blood ghosts. Low-level mechanical puppets only consumed low-grade spirit stones to operate.
Only puppets like the giant tiger under Huang Long of the Thousand Bamboo Sect, due to their immense power, consumed mid-grade spirit stones. Han Li estimated that such a puppet must be at least third-grade or higher. Even the combined protective barriers of several Foundation Establishment cultivators could not withstand two of its attacks, demonstrating its terrifying power.
It was a pity that such a puppet had been turned to ashes by his Senior Thunder with a magical treasure. Otherwise, obtaining it would have been an incredibly sharp trump card.
Just thinking about the benefits of such a giant tiger puppet made Han Li itch with desire, increasing his dedication to refining mechanical puppets.
After successfully crafting dozens of primary mechanical puppets, Han Li decided to attempt refining a second-grade puppet. This was the main combat puppet used by the Thousand Bamboo Sect members he had seen before. If he could refine puppets of this grade, he would no longer have to worry about puppet consumption.
However, refining a second-grade puppet required materials far beyond scrap metal and junk. Almost all the materials needed were on par with those used for high-grade magical instruments, especially large quantities of centuries-old ironwood, which would be quite costly.
In truth, if Han Li were in his own cave dwelling, cultivating a few aged ironwood trees would be no trouble at all. But now, with his duties, he had to reluctantly have others collect them from afar at the market.
Now that he had the materials, he still needed suitable souls. After all, the souls of the weasels, the most common creatures in the canyon, were too weak. Even condensed together, they would not provide significant improvement.
So, Han Li set his sights on the natural enemies of the weasels—the desert lizards.
By this time, after three or four months of rigorous training, Han Li had split several spiritual senses. He used these to control a few low-grade puppet beasts, scouring the desert for lizard nests, leading to the scene at the beginning.
After storing the vial containing the lizard’s soul, Han Li closed his eyes again to continue cultivating the “Great Development Art,” slowly strengthening his spiritual sense.
The “Great Development Art” was the key to utilizing puppetry, and Han Li did not dare slack off in the slightest!
But it had to be said, the “Great Development Art” truly lived up to being the Thousand Bamboo Sect’s foundational technique. Ordinary soul-splitting secret techniques were practically worthless in comparison!
Ordinary soul-splitting techniques merely forcibly split off a small part of the original spiritual sense. The number of splits possible depended entirely on the individual’s innate spiritual power and could not be improved later.
The Great Development Art precisely made up for this regret. Through cultivation, it could gradually strengthen the original spiritual sense, allowing it to rival those with naturally powerful spiritual senses. Moreover, its method of splitting spiritual senses was far safer and more refined than ordinary methods, enabling more and finer splits without harming the spiritual sense.
With such a comparison, it was no wonder the Thousand Bamboo Sect treated the “Great Development Art” as their foundational technique, and why Senior Brother Lin could not forget the oral formulas for the latter three layers.
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