Chapter 182: Performing Puppet

Half a month passed in the blink of an eye. Chen Mobai, through his diligent firewood chopping, finally cornered the market for Red Sun Firewood at New Bud Hall.

Yu Lian, Luo Yixiu, and Luo Yixuan each contributed 100 low-grade spirit stones to him. From Liu Wenbo, he only charged market price, bringing in 50 spirit stones.

Of this amount, he spent 100 spirit stones to purchase Yuan Chizhi’s storage bag.

Combined with his previous savings, Chen Mobai now possessed a substantial sum of 280 spirit stones.

After smoothing things over with Yuan Chizhi, Chen Mobai submitted his Red Sun Firewood quota and immediately requested two and a half months of leave for secluded cultivation.

He needed to focus on the Instrument Dao Academy because he was falling behind in his studies.

Chen Mobai chose “Talisman Creation” and “Puppetry” as his major subjects.

He also elected “Talisman Ink and Pigment Extraction,” “Calligraphy,” “Spirit Machine Design, Manufacturing, and Automation,” and “Agronomy” as electives.

Among these, “Calligraphy” was fundamental to Talisman Creation; if one wished to major in Talisman Creation, this elective was mandatory.

As for “Talisman Ink and Pigment Extraction,” Chen Mobai considered that talismans in the Heavenly River Realm required special inks for their creation, and thus felt it necessary to study this subject.

“Spirit Machine Design, Manufacturing, and Automation” was similar to Calligraphy in nature, being a mandatory elective when majoring in “Puppetry.”

As for “Agronomy,” Chen Mobai hadn’t originally intended to choose it.

After all, two majors and three electives would yield 12 credits if all were passed.

Even if he failed one elective, he would still have exactly 10 credits, enough to pass the final assessment.

But the problem was that among the thirteen students in the “Spirit Transformation Class,” the absolute minimum chosen by anyone was two majors and four electives.

The most extreme student registered for three majors and six electives, and this was only because first-year students were limited to registering for this many; otherwise, they would likely have chosen even more.

Moreover, these freshmen weren’t registering for so many courses to show off, but genuinely possessed the capability.

Those who could get into the Instrument Dao Academy were at least academic elites, and those confident enough to choose Spirit Transformation cultivation methods were academic elites among elites, veritable gods of study.

To fit in, Chen Mobai could only reluctantly choose “Agronomy,” a subject he was interested in.

Originally, he had planned to wait until his second year to take this elective, and in later years, if he had free time, to expand into “Spirit Plant Cultivation” as a major.

On this day, he was attending a “Puppetry” class.

At the podium, the silver-haired elder Che Yucheng was explaining the origin of the Formless Puppets, which began with the Dharma Manifestation Puppets.

Since each person’s physique and talent varied, different individuals cultivating the same cultivation method would exhibit various subtle differences.

To make a cultivation method perfectly suited for oneself, it needed to be adjusted according to one’s personal characteristics.

However, only those who could accomplish this were at least Core Formation True Persons.

True Persons were rare, making it utterly impossible for them to adjust cultivation methods for every Qi Condensation cultivator.

But if their direct descendants or close kin pleaded, Core Formation True Persons would occasionally do so.

One such puppetry master, while customizing a cultivation method for his daughter, suddenly had a burst of inspiration and created the “Dharma Manifestation Puppet.”

The puppetry master created an identical puppet based on his daughter’s body data, then had it execute the cultivation method. Through continuous trial and error, he refined and adjusted it, ultimately perfecting the Qi Condensation cultivation method most suitable for his daughter.

Later generations were inspired by the Dharma Manifestation Puppet and further developed the Formless Puppet, which simulated the Foundation Establishment process.

Afterwards, they added functions such as simulating cultivation, breakthrough attempts, and cultivation method execution.

Furthermore, after Foundation Establishment, the Formless Puppet also retained a reserved function for simulating Core Formation.

However, due to the scarcity of spirit stones, this stage had not yet been developed.

But even such Formless Puppets were already considered the pinnacle of puppetry.

Halfway through the lecture, Chen Mobai’s mind was filled with thoughts of the “Dharma Manifestation Puppet.”

He had recently begun cultivating the Longevity Scripture, but without the necessary conditions from Geomancy Star, transitioning was difficult, and he hadn’t even begun to grasp it yet. This led Chen Mobai to consider giving up on the Two-Phase Art and focusing solely on the Pure Yang Scroll.

However, the progress on the Pure Yang Scroll was also slow, which further exasperated him.

After class, Chen Mobai immediately rushed to Che Yucheng and asked if there were any “Dharma Manifestation Puppets” available for application and use in the academy.

“These need to be custom-made,” Che Yucheng replied. “You wouldn’t be able to use the Dharma Manifestation Puppets in the academy.”

Hearing this, Chen Mobai looked disappointed.

“However, I have a student who has a few replicas of the Formless Puppets,” Che Yucheng continued. “They also have the functionality of Dharma Manifestation Puppets. As long as you input your body’s model data, the effect will be similar to a Dharma Manifestation Puppet.”

Che Yucheng gave Chen Mobai a contact number, advising him to get in touch directly.

This senior student’s name was Chai Lun.

He was an eighth-year student at the Instrument Dao Academy. Since crafting and maintaining puppets required considerable investment, he opened an online store to sell his own works and those of his peers from the puppetry major.

The “Formless Puppet,” as the pinnacle of puppetry, was naturally regarded by many “Puppetry” students as a graduation challenge.

Chai Lun had three replicas left by graduating senior students.

Although their effectiveness was not as good as the original Formless Puppets, they were more than sufficient for use as Dharma Manifestation Puppets.

Chen Mobai was very interested.

He then inquired about the price.

Chai Lun explained that they could be rented per use or bought outright.

Renting was cheaper, with a charge of ten thousand merit points per use.

Buying outright was much more expensive, costing a staggering five hundred thousand merit points.

Since he didn’t know how effective these replicas were compared to the original Formless Puppets, Chen Mobai wanted to see them in person and, ideally, test them out.

Chai Lun naturally welcomed this.

He had rented a warehouse outside the academy to serve as his studio and happened to be heading there today.

Upon hearing this, Chen Mobai immediately asked for the address.

“You seem quite eager,” Chai Lun remarked.

Chai Lun was a burly, tall man. As he arrived from the dormitory, he saw Chen Mobai waiting at the warehouse entrance.

“I’ve had many doubts during my recent cultivation, and my progress in switching to the Pure Yang Scroll has been slow,” Chen Mobai replied. “I’m quite anxious, to be honest.”

Chen Mobai looked helpless, but it was also the truth.

Hearing that Chen Mobai had actually chosen to cultivate the Pure Yang Scroll, Chai Lun couldn’t help but give him a thumbs-up in admiration.

“Of the three I have here, two are for deriving fire-attribute cultivation methods, and one is for wood-attribute cultivation methods,” Chai Lun said. “The price is the same for all. You’d probably want a fire-attribute one, right?”

After they entered the warehouse, Chai Lun pointed to three life-sized, one-eyed puppets hanging on the wall.

“Oh, why is there only one numerical dial?” Chen Mobai asked.

Chen Mobai recalled that the Formless Puppets had a movable numerical dial on each of their left and right eyes.

“While these three graduating seniors were exceptionally talented,” Chai Lun explained with a wry smile, “they certainly couldn’t compare to Teacher Che. Being able to replicate to this extent is already quite impressive.”

The left eye dial of the Formless Puppet could deduce cultivation for all nine levels of Qi Condensation, while the right eye dial represented the Foundation Establishment stage.

Originally, there should have been another numerical dial on the forehead representing the Core Formation realm.

However, the academy lacked sufficient spirit stones to serve as a power source, making it impossible to test this theoretically simulated Core Formation function, as well as the cultivation after Core Formation.