Inside the small hall, a gently intoxicating fragrance lingered amid curling wisps of incense smoke, filling the room with tranquil serenity.
Yet Feng Mingzhu spoke as bluntly as a worldly merchant, laying out his proposal for an exchange.
At his words, Li Chen sighed softly, not surprised in the slightest.
Not everyone in this world could be as selfless and generous as the two Master Artisans Zhao, nor were they obliged to be.
Learning the fundamentals and the String-Puppet Theater technique from them had already been a heaven-sent stroke of luck. What more could he ask for?
The String-Puppet Theater technique is a general-purpose technique, and it is also passed down in the Underworld.
Since it isn't a Secret Art, when Artisan Zhao taught it to me, he never told me not to pass it on. Instead, he tacitly allowed me to treat it as knowledge and wealth of my own, free to dispose of as I pleased.
So if I want to offer it to the Feng Household in an exchange, that's allowed too.
But although I've mastered this technique, I still seem to lack some of the expertise needed to distill it into a form I can teach to others!
I don't have any manuals compiled by accomplished predecessors, nor any suitable teaching materials. If I hand it over to Feng Mingzhu like this, he probably won't accept it!
Knowing how to do something and teaching someone else how to do it were different things. Li Chen was only a newly minted Master Artisan, and such a task was beyond him.
Otherwise, why would the Creation Sect define the rank of Master Artisan on the Puppeteer Dao Path by the ability to teach others?
Wasn't it precisely because distilling a technique and imparting it to others was a