Chapter 1530 - 1083: No Reason Not to Take It
The ideal is very fulfilling, but reality is always so skinny.
Jiang Yuan thought carefully. From design to forging, creating a massive puppet that scatters like a starry sky and gathers into a city is quite a large project. Unfortunately, this Puppet City of the Ten Thousand Puppet Sect is too dilapidated to use the information collection device to gather blueprints.
Currently, there is only Yun Ying, a puppet master, under my command. She’s already busy enough forging so many ordered puppets, where would she find the time to ponder these things?
Leng Yutang is recognized by the system as a genius refiner. After participating in the repairs with Yun Shu, he’s mastered quite a bit of knowledge about puppets. But to have him oversee the construction of a massive Puppet City seems unrealistic.
"Forget it, let’s just deal with the matters at hand first, and think about other things later." Just cleaning up the waste here will consume a lot of time. There’s a big pile waiting to be handled when we get back, so he temporarily put this thought aside.
The subsequent cleaning work became increasingly proficient.
The summoned crowd quickly established an assembly line. One by one, waste items wrapped in purple light were picked out, and Jiang Yuan selected the remainder to be placed in.
Dozens of people worked for two days, and the discarded puppets in the Immortal Peak’s small space piled from the foot of the mountain to the mid-mountain, visibly filling it up further.
In the corresponding small space here, the waste decreased at a visibly rapid speed.
When the last pile was finally dealt with, only the tip of the Immortal Peak remained, while the remaining parts were all buried under discarded puppets.
"Sir, a total of 17,422 discarded items wrapped in purple light were selected," Bai Yunqi reported after tallying: "This matches exactly with the number of people City Lord Yan mentioned in the Dream City, not one less."
Looking at the heap of battered and broken puppets, he sighed and said, "But all the sealing objects are severely damaged, and some are unrecognizable just by their appearance. Even with spirit stones and immortal jade, there’s nowhere to install them, providing no power."
[Severely damaged puppet beast: Contains the mortal soul of Zhang Niu, aged 22. Tricked into labor migration, he was sold to the hands of evil cultivators and his soul was sold to the Ten Thousand Puppet Sect; his body was refined into a corpse puppet. His soul resides in a world constructed by the Nightmare Technique, nourished by the fusion with many soul powers, with 31 years of lifespan remaining.]
[Severely damaged mechanical puppet: Contains the cultivator soul of Wang Yi, aged 86. Part of the mermaid race, tricked ashore as a child...]
...
[Discarded puppet remnants: Contains the cultivator soul of Yan Zheng, aged 391. After her beloved disciple was tortured and killed by Ten Thousand Puppet Sect disciple Wan Chong, she angrily went to seek justice, only to be ambushed and killed by the Ten Thousand Puppet Sect’s Great Elder Zhang Bingyi. Her soul was extracted and sealed in discarded parts, her corpse destroyed, skilled in the Nightmare Technique, constructing a Dream Realm to accommodate sealed, abandoned souls, with 511 years of lifespan remaining.]
With a glance at the heap of purple-glow-covered discarded puppets, Jiang Yuan saw the details popping out from the most insignificant irregular part.
It’s truly miserable for Yan Zheng!
Her beloved disciple was concerned about disaster victims and spent a fortune on auctioned magical treasures to save them, only to be murdered. As the sect leader and mentor, she went to seek justice, only to be killed by the protective Zhang Bingyi.
It’s an unfortunate fate for this master and disciple duo, to encounter the bastards of the Ten Thousand Puppet Sect, leading to their joint demise.
He was very angry, thinking that in the future, if given the opportunity to find the Ten Thousand Puppet Sect, he would definitely examine each and every one. All evil cultivators should be handed over to the Elder Scholar, so they can also experience what true immortality feels like!
"Thank you all for the hard work in identifying them one by one from so many discarded puppets. Let’s take a break, and later we’ll go home together for a meal." Jiang Yuan felt complicated. On one hand, it was a relief that none were missed, the needle in a haystack was found; on the other, nearly twenty thousand living souls were sealed in this heap of scraps, living only in dreams. It’s pitiful just to think about.
So, even though a massive project has ended and there’s much gain, he really couldn’t bring himself to say "celebrate."
"This many living souls being trapped—if puppets were custom-made and transferred for each, it’d indeed be a considerable project." Leng Yutang frowned and sighed, "Earlier, I found some puppets that appeared intact. Even with minor repairs, they aren’t enough."
Yun Ying shook her head and said, "For the soul power of cultivators, even undergoing multiple extractions and resealing can be endured; but those mortal souls might not withstand further torment. For them, maintaining their current condition in the Dream City until their lifespan naturally depletes and disperses into reincarnation is the best choice."
"However, City Lord Yan also mentioned: the current Dream City constructed is interwoven with various soul powers, nourishing the mortal souls and slightly extending their lifespans." Yun Shu hesitated, "If we extract the cultivator souls, giving them puppet bodies to live better, the mortals in the Dream City might not survive many years before their lifespans deplete."
Years of mutual support have already turned them into a harmonious whole. Extracting the souls with the strongest energy, even if City Lord Yan could stabilize the Dream City, she couldn’t further prolong the mortal lives.
"We have no right to lightly decide the life and death of others, so I’ll discuss with City Lord Yan and see how she plans." Jiang Yuan selected the purple-glow-shrouded discarded items and transferred them all into the small space of the Divine Wood Forest.
He then focused his attention on another large pile of remnants that were selected, suspected to be the Puppet’s Heart parts.