Three years passed, and before anyone knew it, the year 100,065 of the New Calendar had arrived.
After years of steady growth, Guangyun, which had long been developing at a rapid pace, had become a thriving new hub. Numerous workshops and production yards had been established there, with more than a dozen Flying Boat arrivals and departures each month and merchants traveling to and fro from every direction.
Guangyun was no longer a destination for exploring secluded wonders and hunting monsters in the traditional sense. Few of those travelers were wilderness rogue cultivators, but Puppet Masters came in an endless stream for the marketplace and for the processing and manufacture of various mechanism parts and Origin Device components.
Beneath Broad Cloud Peak, in the Inner Valley, Li Chen inhabited his combat avatar, standing inside a room in the form of a burly ape-man clad in dark-gold alloy battle armor. Opposite him sat his original body, smiling from a hovering Mechanized Flying Chair, an expression of heartfelt satisfaction on his face.
"After more than a year of adjustments and painstaking refinement, I've finally forged this combat body into a true fighting force. Even among Five-Star creations, it ranks fairly high. Better still, it can merge into my original body through the secret art of blood essence fusion."
This was a convenient technique. From now on, he would no longer have to hold back in battle like someone afraid of smashing a vase while throwing stones at a rat. He could also carry it with him and deploy it anywhere, anytime, with the same ease and flexibility that Outer Dao cultivators claimed when they spoke of "gathering all the mighty power of divine abilities into oneself."
Li Chen extended his arm and pressed his fingers against those of the ape-man avatar blended