Seeing his puppet army wiped out, the Right Protector roared in fury, "I'm a Golden Core cultivator too! You've gone too far!"
"Go!" The young master wasted no more words. The Six-in-One Sword split into six blades, surrounding the enemy to hamper his movements. At the same time, the light on his puppet gathered in its right palm, forming a green sphere. He roared, "Azure Tour Palm!"
The spell unleashed through the puppet shot toward his formidable foe like an arrow loosed from a bow.
Several more wounds appeared on the Right Protector's body. The six little flying swords had been tempered through countless trials and were incomparably sharp. In the young master's hands, their movements were even more nimble and unpredictable, leaving him no way to escape.
"You're courting death!" Seeing the formidable attack bearing down on him, the Right Protector immediately summoned his life-bound magical treasure, a golden ring that shielded him from the front.
"Strike!" The young master bit through the tip of his tongue and sprayed a mouthful of blood essence onto his mask. The Hundred-Refined Puppet's palm shone even brighter.
The palm met the ring, and the Right Protector's face drained of color. He had never imagined that this strike could be so powerful. The young master was only at Late Foundation Establishment. Even with armor at Late Foundation Establishment, how could he possibly hurt him?
This was the young master's genius. The Hundred-Refined Puppet was designed to compensate for the shortcomings of the flesh, making one plus one greater than two and allowing him to challenge an early Golden Core cultivator.
Boom! The Golden Ring shattered. The Azure Tour Palm continued into the Right Protector's body, smashing him in two like rotten wood before a crushing storm. Blood and flesh flew everywhere.
Before the Right Protector could release his nascent soul, his life was snuffed out.
Utterly drained, the young master fell into the desert.
"Still alive?" Mo Caihuan lowered the plane's altitude and found the young master buried deep in the yellow sand.
"Cough, cough... still alive," the young master said weakly.
Everyone scrambled to haul him aboard the plane.
"Head to the Crescent Oasis first." Mo Caihuan needed to get some clear answers. She could not bring a stowaway back to the Mo Kingdom without knowing the circumstances. If the Thousand Bamboo Sect came to the Mo Kingdom demanding its young master back, that would be trouble.
The puppet's back opened, and a young man who looked to be in his twenties stepped out.
His face was pale, and he wore a short tunic and long trousers, with no outer robe.
"Thank you," the young man said. "My name is Nan Yunhe."
Mo Caihuan did not introduce herself. Instead, she said sternly, "We nearly got killed because of you. Don't you owe us an explanation?"
"I simply admire the Mo Kingdom's technology and wanted to go there to study," the young master said innocently.
"But you're a young master with weighty responsibilities," Mo Caihuan said. "If you disappear, the Thousand Bamboo Gang will look for you. Even with the Ten-Thousand-Mile Desert between you, they'll bring you back to inherit the sect."
"I don't want to inherit the sect at all. My dream is to develop puppets that surpass my grandmaster's," Nan Yunhe said in all seriousness.
"That has nothing to do with me. You can't cause trouble for the Mo Kingdom just to pursue your dreams," Mo Caihuan said. "You'd better go back. That would be best for everyone."
"I'm not going back. I'd rather die than inherit the sect."
Mo Caihuan felt helpless. Others would have been beside themselves with envy at having a sect waiting for them to inherit from the moment they were born. Yet he wanted none of it, insisting on pursuing his dreams rather than returning home to take over the family legacy.
If I can't invent a Super Puppet, I'll have to go home and inherit the sect.
Food Immortal suddenly asked, "Do you know Artifact Refining?"
"Puppets and Artifact Refining aren't exactly the same, but their underlying principles are similar. If I study it, I can master it quickly," the young master said confidently.
Food Immortal said, "From now on, you'll be my attendant and help me with my work."
"Senior?" Mo Caihuan looked at Food Immortal in confusion.
"Don't worry. I have a plan," Food Immortal said. "If the Thousand Bamboo Sect causes trouble, I'll handle it for you."
Nan Yunhe agreed at once. "No problem. An attendant it is. Can I look around this plane first? What spell did you use just now? It could actually corrode puppets!"
He was utterly fascinated by technology.
Mo Caihuan could only hope the Thousand Bamboo Sect would not cause trouble.
The Thousand Bamboo Sect had been founded by the Great Evolution Divine Monarch. Several thousand years ago, he had swept across the Heavenly South without a single worthy opponent and established the Thousand Bamboo Sect in the Extreme Western Lands. A master of puppets, he had also created the Great Evolution Art for Divine Sense Enhancement. He was a true genius.
Though the Thousand Bamboo Sect was no longer as powerful as it had been several thousand years ago, its puppet technology remained outstanding.
At the sight of the plane, Nan Yunhe was overjoyed and could hardly wait to study new technology in the Mo Kingdom.
Upon returning to the Mo Kingdom, he immediately enrolled in school, studying so intently that he forgot to eat or sleep. It was clear that he truly had no desire to inherit the sect and wanted only to improve his technical expertise.
Since Food Immortal had said the responsibility was his, Mo Caihuan could only oblige him. She was now weighed down with worry. There were simply too many dangers in the regions beyond mortal reach. At every turn, one could run into cultivators intent on killing.
Where cultivators gathered in large numbers, they could still follow the rules. In cities, for instance, if fighting was forbidden, they would refrain from fighting, because anyone who started would be mobbed by everyone else.
But out in the wilderness, cultivators abandoned the rules and did as they pleased.
It was just like the ancient age of city-states. Humans could live only in enclosed cities protected by walls. Once they left, countless dangers awaited them outside-not merely wild beasts, but deception and treachery as well.
If someone died in the wild, the dead could bear no witness, and no one would investigate.
Mortals had no right to enter that dangerous, untamed world. Only cultivators were qualified to venture into it.
"No wonder people in the Spring and Autumn period were divided into rulers, nobles, city dwellers, and wilderness dwellers. A single city was a state. Those living inside were its people, while those outside were wilderness dwellers." Having entered the Ten-Thousand-Mile Desert herself, Mo Caihuan felt keenly that the cultivation world was simply a larger version of the Spring and Autumn period.
People were best off living in cities and never leaving them. Outside lay wilderness, without even a countryside. The Mo Kingdom spoke of narrowing the urban-rural divide, but for cultivators, there was no countryside at all-only survival in the wild.
Mortals relied on cultivators for protection, and their settlements were generally cave dwellings that cultivators no longer wanted.
Cultivators first defeated the local Demon Beasts, seized their territory, and then took disciples. Those disciples married and had children, and the population grew. Once the local spiritual energy grew thin, the cultivators would leave, abandoning the territory to mortals.
The cultivators sought other territories with denser spiritual energy and started over. Mortals received land devoid of spiritual energy and survived through agriculture, handicrafts, and other skills.
It was not only humans who did this. Demon Beasts and true spirits did the same. Cultivators occupied territory and produced offspring, and over time, cities took shape.
There were rules within cities. Outside them, strength reigned supreme.
"How should I put it? Should I say cultivators ruined the environment, leaving mortals unable to practice Body Tempering? Or that cultivators opened up the environment, making it easier for mortals to survive?" Mo Caihuan found it difficult to judge the relationship between cultivators and mortals.
For example, the abundant Upper Realm Spiritual Energy did allow Body Tempering, but mortals there also faced more dangers. Beast tides struck frequently, and cities were often destroyed.
Where spiritual energy was thin, Body Tempering was impossible, but Demon Beasts hardly ever attacked mortal cities.
"Each has its advantages and drawbacks." Mo Caihuan knew there were benefits and costs to both, and murmured to herself, "But for a transmigrator with ambitions, thin spiritual energy is still far too cruel."
She still hoped to cultivate, explore the wilderness, grow stronger, and live as long as heaven itself. Since she had transmigrated, she did not want to drift through life accomplishing nothing, as she had in her previous life.
Her name had already entered the annals of history, but even the achievement of unifying the Heavenly South would eventually be swallowed by time. Cultivators, on the other hand, could live for millions of years, comprehend the Great Dao, and create worlds of their own.
Cultivators were simply too powerful. Mortals could not compare.
Even if the Mo Kingdom was mighty, it would become ruins after ten thousand years, while cultivators could continue to exist.
Now in her fifties, she no longer brooded over it. She would do all she could and leave the rest to fate. Even a transmigrator was insignificant in this world of cultivation. Once cultivators possessed sufficiently powerful bodies, traveling between different worlds was hardly difficult.
A powerful cultivator could surely become a transmigrator, but a transmigrator was not necessarily a cultivator.
Though hope was slim, Mo Caihuan continued working hard at Body Tempering, accumulating Misty Fragrance and Stellar Power little by little.
And so she reached sixty, still a mortal.
That year, the Moon Worshipper Daoist returned to the Mo Kingdom after a long absence. They had not seen each other in ten years, and he had aged considerably, as though he had expended a great deal of true essence.