"What are you playing at, pouring cold water on him one moment and praising him the next?"
Shortly after Li Chen sent Luo Jin away, Mei Xuan entered through another doorway and addressed Li Chen with a hint of curiosity.
Li Chen said, "I was merely telling the truth. That hardly counts as playing tricks on him."
Mei Xuan asked, "Do you truly think this young man has a promising future?"
Li Chen said, "Anyone who explores of their own accord and achieves something can be considered a gifted Puppet Master, because when exploring the natural world and fathoming the principles of all things, the most important thing is to be driven by interest."
"We place no emphasis on Spiritual Root aptitude, nor do we attach much importance to Divine Sense or Magic Power. For the most part, what matters is the difference in intelligence and interest. In fact, with the methods Puppet Masters have for modifying the brain, ordinary differences in intelligence can be disregarded. We value that interest even more."
Mei Xuan asked, "Does your specifically bringing Luo Jin here to see him mean that you intend to completely dismantle their old master-disciple relationships and turn the Array Dao disciples into Puppet Masters?"
Li Chen said, "Not just the Array Dao disciples. The Slave Workers and artisans I brought from Great Qian-everyone with normally developed mental faculties and a certain measure of physical strength and energy-is to be transformed."
"As for the means of transformation, you have already seen them. The chips I implanted in Luo Jin and the others' brains cost a great deal to manufacture!"
"Perhaps many of them think those chips help me monitor and control them, but the truth is that they contain extensive built-in Puppet Dao knowledge and encyclopedic information. Moreover, they began