Mechanical Abomination Puppeteer

"This is the Conversion Ritual."

Suren seriously immersed himself in the process that could grant him supernatural power. The sensation of surging energy continuously pouring into his body made every pore feel comfortable.

The entire Conversion Ritual lasted about fifteen minutes before the light of the hexagram Alchemy Array gradually faded. All the materials looked as though they had been burned, turning into a pile of utterly lifeless ashes.

"Success!"

Suren was delighted.

Because he could see his own status panel, he clearly observed the changes in his body after successfully taking up the profession.

All his attributes had increased: Strength, Perception, and Constitution had each risen by roughly three to five points.

But the increases in three attributes were particularly exaggerated.

Agility had risen from 6 to 24!

Technique had risen from 8 to 35!

Mental Power had also risen from 19 to 31!

They had more than doubled.

A new passive skill, Multitasking, had also appeared on his skill panel.

It was like separating a fragment of his soul and fusing it with the Puppet Doll. New abilities had appeared in Suren's mind, yet they felt as though they had been carved into his very bones.

The most direct change brought about by the improved data was that Suren felt physically stronger.

The three attributes that had increased the most made him clearly experience the feeling of the supernatural.

The change in Agility made him feel as light as a swallow, with his neural reaction speed soaring;

The increase in Technique made him clearly feel that his body had become more flexible. His nerves had become extremely effective at recruiting his muscles, allowing him to precisely control nearly every skeletal muscle in his body;

The increase in Mental Power had no obvious outward manifestation, but Suren felt that all his senses had become considerably sharper.

At that moment, Suren felt like a superhero.

He felt that his current self could defeat ten versions of his former self in close combat!

Moreover, the most direct manifestation of the increased data was in the skills on his panel.

The Beginner Firearms Mastery and Advanced Combat Beginner skills Suren possessed had directly changed into Intermediate Firearms Mastery 334/800 and Beginner Combat Mastery 99/300!

An increase in Technique can directly enhance the skills I've already mastered?

Suren found this somewhat unexpected.

He urgently wanted to experience the sensory difference brought about by the increase in skill level, so he casually drew the flintlock pistol at his waist. He immediately sensed the difference.

At that moment, the flintlock no longer seemed like a tool. It felt like an extension of his arm. He felt that if he fired, he could casually take aim and hit his target with ease.

It was the ultimate smoothness of "There's nothing special to it. My hand is simply skilled."

"So this is Intermediate Firearms Mastery? Raising it by one level is actually this powerful?"

Suren's eyes shone brightly.

Until one reached that height, one could never understand what the scenery from the mountaintop looked like.

What he had been unable to understand before suddenly became clear.

He even felt that with a little more practice, he might soon master the highly technical secret art, Gun-Fu.

But after thinking about it briefly, he understood.

The tremendous increase in Technique had also brought his control over every large and small muscle group in his body to a microscopic level. With his muscle control greatly improved, any skill that relied on muscle use, whether combat techniques or firearms techniques, would inevitably see a substantial increase in proficiency.

"Swish~"

The flintlock spun into a flourish in Suren's hand before he precisely slipped it back into its holster.

Just then, he suddenly thought of something. Both his hands shot out, and he drew two flintlocks like lightning, aiming one at the room's doorway and the other at the windowsill.

The instant he attempted this, a new passive skill automatically unlocked on his panel.

Looking at the changes on the panel, Suren sighed inwardly. Multitasking. Tsk, tsk, it even unlocked Dual Wielding Mastery!

This was an entirely new and wondrous experience.

He could clearly sense his left and right brain controlling his left and right hands separately while aiming at two targets. The two thoughts in his mind were clearly divided, and each could independently issue commands to search for a target, aim, and pull the trigger.

Although it was still firing two guns at once, the difference was fundamentally worlds apart.

One merely "knew how to use" both hands, while the other was true "mastery"!

His combat power had skyrocketed by more than a little.

The inn was not a shooting range, and he had no opportunity to test-fire.

Suren put away the flintlocks.

Although Multitasking was also extremely powerful for a gunslinger, in truth, it was an awakening ability specifically directed toward the Abomination Puppeteer profession.

Suren turned his gaze back to the wooden box that had previously held the Puppet Doll. It clearly contained a copy of Complete Guide to Abomination Puppet Crafting.

The tremendous increase in Mental Power and the passive ability Multitasking were obviously skills exclusive to a puppeteer.

"The road ahead is still long."

Suren fell into thought.

To become a qualified Abomination Puppeteer, he still had many things to learn, such as puppet crafting and maintenance.

The process of crafting an abomination puppet was extremely complicated.

It involved engraving, enchantment, and runes. Every step required a great deal of time and study.

Take the most basic rune drawing, for example.

It might seem that all one had to do was draw some crooked, special symbols onto a puppet, but the road was actually very long. If someone gave you a sketch, could a person with no foundation immediately copy it? Even the slightest mistake could cause the Rune Anomaly Puppet to fail or suffer a severe reduction in combat power.

"Looks like I'll have to visit the black market again sometime, buy some wood, and try to make my own Rune Anomaly Puppet."

Suren was not intimidated by the difficulty. Instead, he rather enjoyed the process of learning new knowledge.

Just then, as a transmigrator, a novel thought suddenly popped into his mind. Huh? The material for an anomaly puppet doesn't necessarily have to be spiritual wood!

He recalled the scene in the ruined underground manor when Pestoya controlled a swarm of puppets to attack Bald Ivan.

At the time, Ivan had awakened the Tempered Skeleton talent and possessed the Vajra Scales implant. He had slaughtered his way through the puppet swarm, going back and forth seven times. The ordinary puppets wielding cold weapons could not hurt him in the slightest.

A large portion of the Abomination Puppeteer profession's combat power lay in its puppets.

And the puppets' own attack power was also the most important factor determining victory or defeat.

Wooden puppets were easy to break. But what if they were replaced with Mechanical Puppets equipped with firearms?

At this thought, Suren's expression suddenly brightened.

The reason for using wooden puppets was that they were easy to control. After all, the lighter a puppet was, the greater the room for control. Low-rank puppeteers were fundamentally unable to control puppets that were too heavy.

But it wasn't a thousand years ago anymore!

Old Lindun was an era of black technological breakthroughs powered by steam machinery.

Miniature steam boilers could provide enough power for heavy Mechanical Arms and External Skeletons. Why couldn't they power Mechanical Puppets?

At this thought, Suren's mind immediately began to run wild.

As a transmigrator, he had no attachment to old traditions. Technology or supernatural power, weren't they both simply means of becoming stronger?

Having seen all kinds of high-tech products in his previous life, countless "design inspirations" now sprang into his mind. Since this world had no electronic control systems, how about "Puppet Gundams" or "Puppet Transformers"?

Suren felt as though he had opened the door to a new world. He could already imagine himself controlling not a swarm of wooden puppets, but a squadron of combat mechs.

However, putting the idea in his head into practice would be incredibly difficult.

It was like turning the techniques for making fireworks into the technology for launching rockets. The forms might look similar, but the technical content was worlds apart.

First, machines were not flexible enough. No matter how powerful the mechanisms were, steel was far heavier than wood;

Second, to create a Mechanical Puppet, he would need to master profound Mechanical Knowledge and puppetry knowledge.

Of course, there was also Alchemy, the foundation of all things.

For a transmigrator like Suren, there was far too much to learn. He would have to start from scratch in every field.

The amount of knowledge required would probably take hundreds of years to master.

But he had the Death Reaper!

Suren felt that, in the future, he would probably forge a New School path completely different from the old traditions: the Mechanical Abomination Puppeteer!