By a conservative estimate, this Pig Demon weighed at least three or four thousand jin. At a sixty-percent meat yield, its flesh could sell for over six thousand Talisman Coins.
But Li Chen knew that the brain matter in its skull, the marrow in its bones, and its various High-Energy Organs were the truly valuable spiritual materials.
The Demon Core in particular, condensed into solid form, could fetch anywhere from several thousand to over ten thousand Talisman Coins at auction. This Pig Demon was worth more than twenty thousand Talisman Coins, and half that value lay in its core alone!
"This is one of the raw materials used to make puppet cores..."
Li Chen put away the choice meat he had bought, then saw the crowd part as managers and shopkeepers from the surrounding spiritual-material shops arrived.
Their errand-running servants had already reported the situation. They had timed their arrival precisely and brought plenty of money.
"The Wang family offers eight thousand for this Inner Core!"
"Hahahaha! Shopkeeper Zhang, are you trying to take advantage of these friends because they're outsiders? I, Lin Cheng, am not as unscrupulous as you lot. I offer eight thousand five hundred!"
"I offer nine thousand!"
"Then I offer nine thousand five hundred!"
In the end, the man who called himself Lin Cheng bought the Demon Core for exactly ten thousand.
Li Chen then saw the Lei Family's manager hurry over as well and buy the intact pig hide for twelve hundred Talisman Coins.
That was probably on Artisan Lei's instructions. There were certainly uses for the hides of demonic beasts.
Li Chen suddenly thought, Martial arts can enhance bodily functions, but should they be used for fighting and killing, or for slaughtering pigs and hauling bricks?
Ordinary people could not dispose of a demonic beast's carcass so cleanly and efficiently. This, too, had to count as an application.
Li Chen vaguely sensed that the essence of the Puppet Masters' philosophy lay here. It was not merely about tinkering with Mechanism Puppets.
He just wondered what the martial artists of the other continent would think if they saw this.
Once he had seen enough of the bustle, it was time to eat. Li Chen returned to the Lei Family estate with Laifu.
Without disturbing anyone, Li Chen returned to the small courtyard where he was staying. After eating the lunch delivered from the private kitchen, he shut himself away to build in isolation.
He had paid others to work on the Fang Tiger puppet and Storage Ring. What he was doing now was assembling his own four-rotor Rotary-Wing Aircraft from custom-made parts.
When he submitted the schematics, he had formally named it the Flying Disc, meaning a rotary-wing flying saucer. Now he intended to produce them in batches for future use.
The work was not difficult. The Commandery Seat had numerous Puppet Master apprentices and professional artisans, and during the time he had spent shopping and watching the commotion that morning, he had already paid to have a batch of ready-to-use components made.
These Flying Discs were simple in construction and inexpensive to make. In just over two hours, he assembled twelve Flying Disc puppets and began installing their all-important cores.
Each was a crystalline substance no larger than a fingernail, ink-black throughout and resembling a lump of coal. It was a "Sealed Box" component in which Li Chen had encapsulated his crucial Secret Art, following the teachings in the fundamentals of Yan Shi.
It contained special restrictions that tightly protected its interior, along with a self-destruct switch that effectively prevented outsiders from cracking it. Puppet Masters throughout the Eastern Victory Continent widely used this black-box-like technology.
Of course, it added to the cost of fabrication, so it was generally used only for critical components.
Over the years, Li Chen had made quite a few finished cores while studying the schematics. Now he only needed to install them one by one.
Unlike the puppet core Li Chen had submitted to the Creation Sect in exchange for a path to advancement, however, the ones he was using now were Integrated Circuit Chips made according to the technological principles of Earth.
As he personally fitted each puppet core into place, a reflective look appeared on Li Chen's face.
"Even Artisan Zhao doesn't know that all those years I spent weren't merely devoted to studying the Flying Disc and the Swarm of Bees Technique. I was using scientific concepts from Earth to unlock the secrets of this world's precious jade!"
"The technological civilization of my previous life had plenty of merits, but when it came to the supernatural, its depth of understanding fell far short of what I've learned in this life."
"This is actually a kind of science too. Cultivation methods, pills, treasured artifacts, talismans, formations-all of them are technological achievements developed through the exploration and research of earlier sages. They are natural laws that have been classified and summarized. Wherever cultivation methods and formations exist, even scattered scraps of experience passed down by word of mouth, the methods of scientific research apply."
"But the Puppet Dao and cultivation in this world resemble ancient martial arts and traditional Chinese medicine. They belong to a kind of primitive science. Only by developing large-scale production, industrialization, and information technology, introducing all kinds of assembly lines and putting them into widespread use, can they progress into modern science."
"Since I'm someone exceptional, there's no point in clinging to broken remnants and guarding what's incomplete. I should combine the strengths of both."
What no one else knew was that Li Chen had independently pioneered electronic chips and microprocessors that had never existed in this world. He had also used machine language and assembly principles to integrate instructions, steadily advancing toward higher-level languages. In recent years, he had even begun applying programming concepts to the realms of restrictions and magical formations!
This Secret Art made Li Chen far more efficient at development than ordinary Puppet Masters. While others were still studying the most primitive Dao patterns and restrictions, he had already integrated and processed them, developing his own operating system and compiler.
He had even combined these with the formation arts of this world to create an entirely new programming language, which he called "Rune Script." This raised his attainment in formation arts far above what any ordinary rogue cultivator should possess, to a level even he found difficult to assess.
The Flying Discs he was assembling now looked crude and primitive on the surface, but in truth, they were something this world had never seen.
Naturally, the control method he had developed here by incorporating qi-guided linkage was extraordinary as well.
Li Chen set the twelve assembled Flying Discs on the ground one by one and extended his arm. As the rather modest magical power within him circulated, the sensing components installed inside the puppets began to respond.
Unlike ordinary Puppet Masters, who used their spiritual sense to interact with and directly control every movement of their Mechanism Puppets, Li Chen was using the integrated instructions built into the remote-control core to assist his control. This placed very little strain on his spiritual awareness, allowing him to control a great many at once.
"Rise!"
Whirr, whirr, whirr, whirr!
The Flying Discs shot upward one after another, all stopping in the air above the courtyard as Li Chen willed, then hovering at a height of about a zhang.
Li Chen curled his fingers slightly and continued circulating his magical power.
The Flying Discs alternately formed lines, chased one another nose to tail, and rose and fell, performing different formations and flight maneuvers.
After confirming that everything worked normally, he brought all the Flying Discs back and landed them neatly on the ground. At last, he began fitting them with weapons.
These were Mechanism Dart Launchers he had purchased: small metal tubes about three inches long and as thick as bamboo skewers, with poisoned steel needles already concealed inside. Their firing mechanism relied primarily on a mechanical trigger, assisted by a simple magical formation.
They were all finished products made to the standard specifications used throughout the Eastern Victory Continent. Li Chen had already prepared mounting interfaces on his Mechanism Puppets, making installation extremely simple: he only had to insert them and twist them tight along the threads.