A Burning Flame Valley Elder chuckled and waved his hand, producing a puppet with the combat strength of a Two-Star Dou Zong. He respectfully said to me, "Alliance Leader, there's no telling whether there are new mechanical traps in this passage. Let this puppet scout ahead."
"Alright!"
Delight appeared on my face. A puppet with the cultivation of a Dou Zong was far from cheap, and they were basically unavailable even at a price. For him to take out something this precious showed that he had developed a basic sense of belonging toward me and this team. My efforts to show off along the way had not been in vain...
You had to know, I had always been a low-key person. I never showed off!
If it had not been to win over the hearts of the team, would I have needed to go against my conscience and show off like this?
Now that I was finally seeing results, I felt immensely gratified, almost moved to tears. With a wave of my hand, I also took out three Azure Serpent Guard puppets. I had brought them from the Snake-People Small World. They possessed the combat strength of Dou Emperors and were usually of little use to me, so I had kept them in my Ring of Holding. Now, they were perfect for scouting ahead.
The four puppets lined up in a row and flew deeper into the passage at a steady, unhurried pace. Our group formed up behind them and headed farther into the Ancient Ruins.
To everyone's relief, we encountered no mechanical traps along the way. We proceeded all the way to the end of the passage, where another ancient stone door, covered in dust, blocked our path.
Before the stone door stood ten figures as straight as spears,