Puppet

What ruthless methods! Feng Wu looked at the desiccated bones filling the passage and realized that the poisonous gas from earlier had probably not been specifically meant for him, an intruder.

It had most likely been a measure taken years ago to kill all the craftsmen inside the Dou King Tomb and bury them alongside its owner.

What Feng Wu had encountered was merely the lingering poison and residual power!

Just like many ancient emperors who built their own mausoleums, once construction was complete, they would tightly seal the tomb passages and trap the craftsmen inside, leaving them to die of suffocation, starvation, or poison.

One reason was to prevent those who built the tomb from leaking its location, layout, and mechanisms, or from stealing from it themselves. The other was to use living people as burial sacrifices!

This Dou Wang had probably thought the same way. What a vicious heart! There were likely no fewer than several hundred skeletons here.

Feng Wu mentally crossed off this Dou Wang. Judging from the hundreds of craftsmen who had died in the tomb and the various sinister traps, this Dou Wang had likely been an evil figure.

His determination to keep his resting place hidden and undisturbed was exceedingly obvious.

There was probably no shortage of danger inside this tomb chamber!

Feng Wu continued to hold up the system interface, identifying things as he made his way deeper along the passage.

Although he could not completely trust the system's surface-level assessments, it really was useful.

Over the hundred-plus meters of downward passage, Feng Wu encountered no fewer than twenty traps!

Some were destroyed remotely by Feng Wu, some had likely been triggered and damaged by the panicked craftsmen trapped inside the tomb, and others had decayed on their own after existing for too long.

Truly, danger every five steps and calamity every ten!

With traps everywhere, it took Feng Wu more than half an hour to finally leave the narrow passage and truly enter the tomb chamber.

Upon entering the tomb chamber, it was no longer as dim as the passage. Instead, it gave him the feeling of Peach Blossom Spring: "At first, it was extremely narrow, barely wide enough for one person to pass. After walking several dozen more steps, everything suddenly opened up!"

Before him lay a vast tomb chamber spanning over ten thousand square meters, exceptionally spacious!

From the vaulted ceiling more than ten meters overhead, an expensive Night-Luminescent Pearl hung every ten meters or so!

More than a hundred had been densely arranged, illuminating the entire tomb chamber brightly!

"What extravagance!" Feng Wu sighed. It was truly wasteful beyond measure!

Although Night-Luminescent Pearls were not particularly sought after in this world where strength reigned supreme, since they offered no benefit to cultivation—

—they were still extremely expensive. A single Night-Luminescent Pearl was worth at least several thousand Gold Coins.

To the east of the tomb chamber was an entire Medicine Garden, though the vast majority of its herbs had withered, leaving fewer than ten plants alive.

"Yang God Flower, Water Spirit Lotus Seed, Snow Bone Ginseng..." Feng Wu looked at the few medicinal herbs still growing in the Medicine Garden. Every one of them was top-grade!

There were even several he would not have been able to identify without the system interface!

Then he looked at the withered herbs that had not yet completely crumbled into ash. "Clear Flame Grass, Night Spirit Leaf, Clear Body Grass..."

They were all excellent materials as well, making Feng Wu clutch his chest in pain! He had long regarded these things as his own!

Beside the Medicine Garden on the left stood a shelf for medicinal pills, with the large character for "Pills" written on it. It was packed with bottles and jars of every material, though it was impossible to tell whether the pills inside had expired.

To the right stood several Weapon Racks and more than ten shelves of ancient books, though most had been unable to withstand the passage of time and had rotted away!

But what Feng Wu cared about most was the very center of the tomb chamber!

There was a raised platform there. Upon an exquisite jade throne rested a skeleton!

Its bones were white as jade. If not for the tattered, decayed clothing upon it, one might have mistaken it for a carved ornament placed on the jade chair!

The corpse of a Dou Wang!

However, several roots extended down from the shattered hard earth above the tomb, tangled together and piercing through the bones of the Dou Wang's remains. The sight was somewhat eerie.

"No wonder that giant tree above was so conspicuous, several times sturdier than the others. So this is where it all went!" Seeing the enormous roots, Feng Wu understood most of what had happened.

In building his tomb, the Dou Wang had destroyed the giant tree's thickest root. Yet he could never have imagined that his own corpse would become nourishment for that tree!

Without the Dou Wang's body as fertilizer, that giant tree likely would never have grown so massive!

"What goes around comes around. Perhaps it was all ordained from the start!" Looking at the decayed skeleton, Feng Wu sighed. "The two strongest forces in this world are nature and time..."

"It seems that as long as I deal with them, there won't be any more danger in this tomb chamber." Feng Wu stared ahead.

At the center of the northern side of the tomb chamber stood the Dou Wang's jade throne. At its feet were three jade chests, likely containing treasures.

Before the throne stood ten metal puppets, divided into two rows on either side!

Dilapidated Tier 3 Puppet: Originally a Tier 3 Puppet. After several hundred, nearly a thousand years of decay, damage, and rust, it can now only unleash the overall capabilities of the first rank.

Tier 3 Puppets—what extravagance!

And behind those ten puppets, standing at the side of the throne, was a more exquisite puppet with greater strength!

It looked like a Grand Eunuch attending a king.

Combined with the "ten ministers" standing in rows on either side, it seemed this Dou Wang liked this sort of arrangement.

Dilapidated Fourth Order Puppet: Originally a Fourth Order Puppet. After several hundred, nearly a thousand years of decay, damage, and rust, it can now only unleash the overall capabilities of the second rank.

Its description was similar to that of the Tier 3 Puppets, except it had originally been one rank stronger—a Fourth Order Puppet! It could now exert the power of the second rank.

The moment anyone entered their alert range, they would activate and take the initiative to eliminate the intruder.

To be honest, upon seeing the system description, Feng Wu truly wanted to turn around and leave!

If they had merely been first- or second-rank puppets, it would not have mattered. Feng Wu could still give it a try.

But what did it mean for them to be Tier 3 and Fourth Order Puppets?

It meant that these puppets had originally possessed the strength of Great Dou Shi and Dou Ling-level experts!

These ten puppets could massacre Wu Tan City!

Although the system said that, due to rust and other issues, these eleven puppets could only display first- and second-rank strength and speed—

—their defenses would not be reduced much by rust and such!

The rust and friction in the puppets' joints affected their force output and movement, but the material strength of the puppets themselves would not change at all.

Their defenses, originally at the Tier 3 and Fourth Order levels, definitely would not have dropped by much.

Moreover, the puppets were metal. They did not feel pain, and their metallic bodies were sturdy. Their defenses should be counted as another half-rank higher. He simply could not break through their defense!

How was he supposed to fight this?

Feng Wu felt utterly at a loss.

(Note: The low-level puppets I set up have not yet reached the level of the Dou Zong and Dou Zun puppets in the original work used by Xiao Yan, which were just like real humans.

It is not too much to make low-end Tier 3 and Fourth Order puppets primarily semi-metal mechanical constructs, right?)