In the legend of Yan Shi's Creation, his Mechanism Automaton Fu Huige was made from wood, glue, lacquer, and white, black, red, and blue pigments. Within were liver and gallbladder, heart and lungs, spleen and kidneys, stomach and intestines; without were sinews and bones, limbs and joints, skin and fur, teeth and hair. Nothing was missing.
All of these corresponded precisely to the seven great Secret Arts: Melt Gold, Temper Bone; Gather Essence, Condense Marrow; Five Elements Organ-Shaping; Knead Clay, Transform Flesh; Draw Silk, Rejoin Meridians; Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting; and Fill with Mercury as Blood. All were used to fashion a physical body.
The Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting Secret Art that Li Chen now possessed was one of them.
This was a Secret Art that used magical power to refine hides, fashion outer skins and shells for Mechanism Puppets, transplant hair, and paint their appearance. It contained knowledge as vast as a sea of smoke, along with countless tricks that ordinary people could scarcely master.
Although the inherited True Intent had allowed Li Chen to grasp its basics in an instant, and he had even used it to disguise a mechanical rabbit so lifelike that it won his prey's trust and brought him a catch, that did not mean he had truly mastered it completely or could perform those feats of miraculous skill.
Something like this was both a craft and a Divine Ability. Beyond advances in a Puppet Master's knowledge and the Art of a Hundred Crafts itself, one's cultivation realm also had a considerable influence.
In this life, Li Chen's Root Bone and natural aptitude were quite good, and his magical power could be considered exceptionally pure, but his current cultivation realm still fell far short.
Fortunately, Li Chen had understood how to cultivate and improve since childhood. By consciously using his refining Divine Ability more often to repair and modify Mechanism Puppets, he could temper his magical power through constant expenditure and replenishment.
This was a method of improvement shared by Artifact Dao cultivators, roughly equivalent to warriors tempering their bodies or spellcasters meditating and regulating their breathing. Generally, the higher the grade of the Mechanism Puppet being refined, the better.
Thus, although Li Chen looked young, his cultivation was actually quite impressive, and his foundation was exceptionally firm.
This was the advantage of transmigration and rebirth: winning at the starting line.
"Just as I thought, my magical power is enough to refine it!"
Li Chen took the precious hide of the Tiger Demon Chief from his Storage Bag and spread it across a long worktable. As he infused it with his magical power and sensed the changes in its texture and properties, he immediately perceived its subtle response to the workings of his Divine Ability.
He discovered that the inner membrane of the hide was being stimulated into activity, slowly awakening like an object endowed with spirituality.
Li Chen understood that this was because the Tiger Demon possessed extraordinary spiritual potency, allowing it to draw in Spiritual Energy and refine vital essence.
Some Nature Spirits that had achieved success in cultivation could circulate Spiritual Energy within their bodies and turn it into Demon Essence, continuously transforming and strengthening their bodies.
Cultivators could likewise continually refine Spiritual Energy, converting it into their own True Essence and magical power to advance their cultivation realms.
This was not limited to skin, sinews, bones, and internal organs. It could also utterly change the essence of a species' life from within.
This was the origin of cultivation and spiritual attainment.
"But it's so different from an ordinary wild beast!"
Before long, however, Li Chen frowned slightly.
From what he had seen and learned, the difference between a Tiger Demon and an ordinary tiger was the difference between a supernatural creature and a wild beast.
The former's skin, sinews, and bones were all exceptionally strong and tough, already surpassing the physical laws ordinary people could comprehend.
Li Chen had witnessed this firsthand. Everyone had sent their Mechanism Puppets forward to hack at it repeatedly, yet they had failed to inflict much damage. In the end, Old Hou had thrown himself at it without regard for his own safety, staking his life on the fight before finally killing it.
"I can refine rabbit skin in the space of a breath, and the hides of pigs, dogs, cattle, and sheep are no trouble either. But refining a demon beast's hide like this is much slower, and it feels terribly strenuous!"
"That may be because it contains spiritual potency, and because the Tiger Demon Chief itself had copper skin and iron bones, making its hide far superior to that of an ordinary demon beast."
Li Chen silently ventured this guess.
Only after a good while did he barely manage to refine the inner membrane of the entire tiger hide. By then, sweat was already beading on his forehead.
Li Chen thought to himself, My magical power still needs improvement. Once my cultivation and realm rise, this should become much easier.
Refining a demon beast's hide like this took considerable time and effort, but fortunately, its cultivation benefits were quite impressive. In Li Chen's eyes, it was countless times better than simple rabbit skins and the like.
"It's just a pity that these things are so expensive, and opportunities like this don't come along often. If I could use them to help me cultivate every day, wouldn't my progress be lightning-fast?"
He treasured the opportunity all the more. Without stopping to rest, he immediately fitted the hide over the Mechanism Beast Fang Tiger.
The Tiger Demon Chief had been far larger than the Mechanism Beast Fang Tiger, but the miraculous Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting Divine Ability erased that difference.
Li Chen deftly used his Divine Ability to shrink it until it matched the Mechanism Beast. It looked entirely natural, as though it had always been that size.
Clad in its painted skin, the Mechanism Beast Fang Tiger resembled a hero character whose "skin" Li Chen had changed while playing games in his previous life. Its entire appearance, and even its aura, had become utterly different.
What now stood before Li Chen was no longer a Mechanism Beast in the color of bare wood, but a great tiger with slanting eyes and a white forehead, lifelike in every detail.
Its body was a majestic orange-yellow, covered in striking black stripes. A white marking seemed to curl upward across its forehead, lifting its brows and eyes and giving it an extraordinarily ferocious appearance.
As Li Chen circled it and carefully examined it from every angle, there were several fleeting moments when he almost thought he had returned to the mountain forest, facing that powerful, troublesome Tiger Demon once again.
Lifelike!
That was Li Chen's silent assessment.
Soon, however, he turned his attention to the wounds in the hide.
He could not leave those wounds as they were. Not only did they spoil its overall beauty, but they might also become weak points that invited attacks.
Li Chen could only get back to work.
Compared with an ordinary Skin-Painting Art, the greatest advantage of Shape-Stealing Skin-Painting was that, beyond realism, it could impart an incomparable vitality. It could even use form to mend form, preserving the hide's original properties to the greatest possible extent.
In other words, the Tiger Demon Chief's tiger might, domineering presence, and innate copper skin and iron bones could all potentially be retained, granting the Mechanism Beast Fang Tiger immensely powerful defensive properties.
With this trait alone, the Mechanism Beast Fang Tiger could leap from an ordinary Mechanism Mount to a being with the strength of a top-tier demon beast.
This was a strengthening method unique to Puppet Masters. Although it relied on external materials, it was simple and effective.
After smoothing over the wounds, Li Chen connected the hide to the pathways leading to the puppet core. He then used the Mechanism-Performance Method to adjust its internal settings, filling it with Spirit Essence, before drawing his Hunting Knife to test it.
Clang!
Sure enough, sparks flew as the Hunting Knife struck it, as though it were a genuine Blacksteel statue.
But flaws remained around the hide's mouth and nose, at the cuts made when butchering and skinning the demon, and along its various seams.
"I'll still have to touch it up properly."
Li Chen bent over again and continued refining it.