Xia Xi had not managed to finish the puppet completely, but that did not mean Tetsujin, standing beside him, could not recognize the level of skill he had already demonstrated.
Lord Dawn Hashira's craftsmanship was already about on par with mine...
No, his level was probably a little higher than mine.
More importantly, it was not his technique, but how extraordinarily familiar he seemed to be with the Combat Puppet's structure.
He seemed far more familiar with it than Tetsujin himself.
It would have taken at least several years of secret practice to reach that point.
How had he done it?!
Even a genius couldn't be this unreasonable!
Moreover, Tetsujin keenly noticed that Xia Xi still seemed a little dissatisfied with what he had accomplished in just over half a day.
"Old pal, your family's Mechanism Technique is a lot more complicated than I imagined.
Xia Xi flexed his wrists and said, "But that's fine. I'll head back and keep working it out."
"Once I've finished it completely, I'll bring it over for a proper appraisal."
With that said.
Under the blacksmith's speechless gaze.
Xia Xi shouldered the puppet frame, which could not even be considered half-finished, and returned to his lodgings that night.
Before leaving, he also quite naturally took the useful tools on Tetsujin's workbench.
He packed those up and carried them off too.
All under the fine pretext of "borrowing them for research."
Over the following days, Xia Xi's daily activities were essentially streamlined into two things.
Going to the village's Forging Workshop to hammer iron.
And holing up at home to work on his puppet.
Sometimes, he even put his smithing off for a while.
He shifted more of his time toward studying his [Yoriichi Type Zero].
Seventeen full days passed like this.
When Xia Xi