Li Yan was in no hurry. He waited for Shuang Qingqing to sort through her thoughts. Yet she paused for only five or six breaths before continuing.
"As for the reason, I can only make a few guesses right now. First, although the materials used to forge the five hundred Arhats were the same, these eighteen Arhats needed that strange mind-power I mentioned earlier to be infused into them during their refinement.
"Only then could they use that mind-power as a foundation to absorb spiritual energy from the outside world and gradually strengthen themselves. Or perhaps once that strange mind-power was exhausted, the monks cultivating this technique had to inject more into them.
"Perhaps cultivating that strange mind-power was an exceedingly difficult process. So even if they obtained a great deal of this peculiar material, they could ultimately refine only a portion of them.
"As for why it had to be eighteen Arhats, Junior Brother, you already know the reason. The Buddhist sect has the Eighteen Arhats Formation. That creates the most complete Arhat formation, and it is also the most perfect formation that can be completed with the fewest puppets.
"These do not count as my explanations. They are merely my guesses as well. Perhaps only after I study them further will there be a more truthful answer."
Shuang Qingqing revealed everything she knew and everything she had inferred without the slightest concealment. Through her descriptions, Li Yan also understood just how much she valued these puppets.
If Shuang Qingqing could use them to uncover some hidden principles, whether by directly making use of these eighteen Arhats or by refining such puppets herself—
Then her path in puppetcraft would absolutely rise to an entirely new level. Though puppetcraft was not as scarce as soul arts, across the entire cultivation