Chapter 480 - 440: Soldier Puppet (2)

Chapter 480: Chapter 440: Soldier Puppet (2)

It looked more like the notes of several Artifact Refiners who had worked together to reverse-engineer this Soldier Puppet.

He looked at Cyan Wood True Master, slightly puzzled.

Cyan Wood True Master explained aloud, "The refining method for Ancient Soldier Puppets has long been lost..."

"Are you joking with me, True Master?"

Chu Mu was clearly surprised, and his voice deepened.

The Soldier Puppet was this damaged—its Puppet Core was probably gone. To repair it, they didn’t even have a proper diagram of its structure to use as a reference...

This was a Tier Four Ancient Puppet!

Even if his Artifact Refining Skill was sublime and the Spiritual Radiance Effect was heaven-defying, he couldn’t possibly reverse-engineer something he had no prior knowledge of out of thin air.

"COUGH, COUGH, COUGH..."

Cyan Wood True Master cleared his throat, his expression turning a little awkward.

He was an Artifact Refiner himself, so he naturally knew how unrealistic this request was.

Cyan Wood True Master spoke slowly, his words now laced with caution. "The family’s intention is for you to give it a try first, my friend..."

Chu Mu frowned, but his brow quickly smoothed over. He nodded and didn’t press the matter further.

’It was understandable that the Chen Family wouldn’t want to leak a top-secret inheritance like the refining method for a Tier Four Soldier Puppet to someone who had just arrived.’

"Then I’ll have to trouble you with this matter, my friend."

Visibly relieved, Cyan Wood True Master cupped his hands in a salute.

"Once I accept a task, I see it through. I will do my best."

After a few more pleasantries, Cyan Wood True Master departed in a hurry.

Chu Mu looked at the Soldier Puppet before him, a new fire kindling in his eyes.

A Tier Four Soldier Puppet, and a broken one at that. Whether it could be repaired was a secondary concern.

But its broken state meant that whatever mysteries of this Tier Four Puppet remained would be clearly exposed.

After a moment of contemplation, he leaped. In the next instant, he soared upward and landed on the Soldier Puppet’s head.

The head was just as damaged. Bite marks were still clearly visible, and more than half of it was shattered. Metal fragments were strewn across the ruined cranium, amidst broken Array Prohibition Inscriptions and fragmented Runes that Chu Mu couldn’t decipher, all sealed within.

Though it was a complete mess, the glimpses of workmanship visible beneath the damage all possessed an exquisite, breathtaking beauty.

Inside the ruined half of the head, beyond the countless sealed Inscriptions, were innumerable, incredibly complex components, all intricately connected to form the brain for the Puppet Core.

A single glance was enough to be overwhelming, its complexity so dizzying that one wouldn’t know where to begin.

Instead of being daunted by the many puppet mechanisms before him that surpassed his knowledge, Chu Mu was delighted. The fire in his eyes burned even brighter.

’For him, any unknown was a tremendous opportunity.’

After all, this was a Tier Four Puppet—a terrifying existence capable of battling a Nascent Soul Great Power!

The secrets it held surely far surpassed his own understanding of Puppetry.

Unable to hide his eagerness, he activated his Spiritual Radiance Blessing with a single thought. His intellect soared, and he sank into a state of absolute, single-minded focus.

’For him, now a High-Tier Cultivator in the Golden Core Realm, the unknown was not something to fear. What he truly feared... was having no access to it...’

’Every unknown was a high-level mystery, a body of knowledge simply waiting for him to explore and master.’

’Once he had thoroughly explored an unknown, it would transform from a mystery into a solid foundation for his Artifact Refining Skill and Puppetry Skill.’

Lost in his single-minded focus, time flew by imperceptibly.

「In the blink of an eye, nearly three months had passed.」

In those three months, the number of Artifact Refiners gathered here had clearly grown.

Chu Mu, however, still had no contact with any of the others. Day and night, he did nothing but circle the Tier Four Soldier Puppet.

He had no idea what plans the other Artifact Refiners had for the puppet’s repair, nor did he know what the reward would be.

But as for him, only he knew just how immense his gains had been over these three months.

The crisp autumn wind swirled, carrying with it a thick, bloody stench. Suspended above the Soldier Puppet’s head, the fire in Chu Mu’s eyes slowly subsided into calm.

’It wasn’t that his thirst for knowledge had faded. Rather... he felt it was perhaps time to conceal it.’

The Jade Scroll remained suspended in his Storage Space, unmaterialized.

What was once just an ordinary, blank Jade Scroll now contained a massive amount of information.

Every word, every sentence, every diagram, and every image was derived from the Tier Four Soldier Puppet before him.

Combining his own foundational knowledge of Artifact Refining with three months under the Spiritual Radiance Blessing, he had reverse-engineered and analyzed the structure of this Soldier Puppet—or rather, this half of a Soldier Puppet—with meticulous clarity, as if unraveling a silk cocoon.

He had even deduced every step of the Soldier Puppet’s refining process, the sealing of every Array Prohibition Inscription, and even extrapolated the designs for the missing Puppet Core and the other half of the puppet.

At least, in his mind’s eye, the design for this broken Tier Four Soldier Puppet was now nearly complete.

The only uncertainty was that a significant portion of the Artifact Refining Skill and Puppetry Skill knowledge involved in this Tier Four Soldier Puppet fell outside his area of expertise.

Therefore, apart from the half of the Soldier Puppet he had managed to reverse-engineer, the rest was pure speculation, without any tangible evidence to support it.

To bring his design to life would require much more detailed validation.

And for that validation, the cost of Spiritual Materials alone was an insurmountable hurdle for him.

The sheer quantity and rarity of the Spiritual Materials needed for such an enormous Tier Four Puppet were far beyond what he could possibly provide.

Now, the only way forward was to have the Chen Family produce whatever refining methods they had for this Soldier Puppet, allowing him to further validate the feasibility of his deductions.

As for Cyan Wood True Master’s claim that the refining method for the Soldier Puppet was lost, he naturally had his doubts.

The possibility that it was truly lost was high. After all, if the method hadn’t been lost, the Chen Family’s own Artifact Refiners, even if their skills weren’t the best, should have had no problem repairing it by simply following the blueprints in the Puppetry Room.

The Chen Family wouldn’t have needed to go to such lengths. In the three months he’d been here, at least twenty Artifact Refiners had gathered at this location.

Furthermore, those who had been invited were clearly all well-known figures in the outside world.

But an even greater possibility was that the records in the Puppetry Room were incomplete. Only that would explain why the Chen Family would go to such great lengths, inviting so many Artifact Refiners to pool their knowledge.

After some brief reflection, his focus returned to the Jade Scroll.

To him, this Tier Four Soldier Puppet was a treasure trove.

And now, he had excavated everything he possibly could from it.

’So, what’s next...’

Chu Mu looked toward the stone house, an inexplicable excitement surging within him.

’If I could be given full authority to lead the repairs on such a Tier Four Puppet, the reward would be far more than just this wealth of knowledge.’

At this thought, Chu Mu finally turned his gaze to the other Artifact Refiners around the puppet. Like him, they had all been circling this Soldier Puppet for months.

Some had arrived only recently, while others had been here even longer than he had.

In the mortal world, there’s a saying: "There is no absolute first in scholarship, but there is always a second in combat." The same held true in the Cultivation Immortal Realm.

Putting aside the Chen Family’s eventual reward, the refining method for this Tier Four Soldier Puppet alone—even an incomplete version—was a High-Tier inheritance with an almost fatal allure for any Artifact Refiner.

Not to mention, leading the repair project would mean access to vast quantities of High-Tier Spiritual Materials and rare Spiritual Objects seldom seen in the outside world...

While the Chen Family had gathered so many Artifact Refiners here to pool their knowledge, it was more likely that their true purpose was to select the best from among them.

Strictly speaking, every Artifact Refiner here was a competitor.

That was why, in all the months he had been here, it wasn’t that he was unwilling to interact with others, but that none of the Artifact Refiners were willing to interact with each other.

They each hoarded their research findings like a Supreme Treasure, terrified that others might learn their secrets.

Chu Mu merely spared them a brief glance before looking away, not paying them much mind.

’When it comes to Artifact Refining Skill in the Golden Core Realm...’

’...it would be incredibly difficult for an ordinary person to match my foundational knowledge.’

’Even if such people existed, they would be exceedingly rare.’

’As for the Chen Family...’

’A major power might have its own deep foundations, like the Immortal Dao Sect’s Inheritance Land with its miraculous ability of Refining Illusion into Truth.’

’But the Chen Family has focused on Bloodline Cultivation for tens of thousands of years. And Bloodline Cultivators—aside from a few special and rare exceptions, even those with a Flood Dragon Bloodline—tend to lack talent for the Hundred Skills of Cultivation Immortal.’

’The poverty of the Hundred Skills of Cultivation Immortal in the Vast Sea was something I saw clearly back when I was only in the Foundation Establishment Realm. Even then, my Pill and Artifact Dual Proficiency was unrivaled in Chixia, the very heart of the Vast Sea.’

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