Green Hill Library Pavilion, third floor.
Wang Chen sat on the spotless floor, engrossed in carving the piece of wood in his hands.
As the blade of his carving knife repeatedly swept across it, wood shavings fell in fluttering drifts, and the outline of a puppet gradually emerged.
Carving was one of the hundred arts of cultivation, but Wang Chen could not even be considered a beginner at it. What he carved was scarcely any better than the work of a mischievous child.
After carving the head, torso, and limbs, Wang Chen stopped, satisfied.
He put away the carving knife and placed the freshly finished puppet on the floor.
Wang Chen raised his right hand and extended his index finger toward the puppet's head. A soft Spiritual Light glimmered at his fingertip.
The next instant, the Spiritual Light silently entered the puppet's head.
Crack!
With a sharp report, the tiny puppet suddenly sprang up.
Its limbs stretched out, and its head turned half a circle from side to side, as though it had suddenly come alive.
When the puppet landed back on the floor, it immediately began hopping around Wang Chen, like a playful, restless child.
Wang Chen smiled faintly.
What he had just used was a spell called Spiritual Rhinoceros Finger. Its purpose was to enlighten living things and grant spirituality to objects of grass and wood.
Wang Chen had learned this spell by reading Daoist manuals in the Library Pavilion.
This seven-story Green Hill Library Pavilion housed a vast collection of human Daoist books and codices. Many of its secret volumes would have counted as treasured texts in a sect, requiring merit contributions to read and study.
Before forming his core, Wang Chen had benefited greatly from reading extensively in the Library Pavilion, though he had not learned