“You…”
Seeing the neatly assembled puppet standing right in front of her, Jiang Feifei was visibly stunned.
Even with her fastest carving speed, she would still require an entire day at least, but how long did the other party take?
Ten breaths?
Eight breaths?
How could he carve such delicate parts precisely while manipulating so many swords at once?
“That’s not right.” After a moment of shock, Jiang Feifei swiftly noticed something was amiss, and she asked in a deeply perplexed tone, “My puppet doesn’t have any clothes, so how could yours be perfectly dressed?”
Under normal circumstances, the Xingyun Puppet should have been completely nude. Yet, the one carved by the young man before her was impeccably dressed—in fact, there was an ornament on its chest, and the ripples on its clothes flowed beautifully like real silk. This was completely at odds with the blueprint!
“Ah… I happened to have some additional time, and I thought that it would be inappropriate to display the body of a nude male puppet to a young lady like you, so I thought I would make a set of clothes for it. It doesn’t look too bad, right?” Zhang Xuan replied with a gentlemanly smile.
A puppet it might be, but it would have been severe breach of etiquette if he had allowed it to appear nude before a young lady. As a civilized gentleman, it went without saying that he could not allow something as indecent as that to happen!
“You even had time to make a set of clothes for it?” Jiang Feifei’s body froze in sheer astonishment. She slowly proceeded forward to take a closer look at the puppet that Zhang Xuan had crafted.
The puppet’s clothes were in perfect harmony with its body. Every single stitch was done so impeccable that it was impossible to tell that it had been made with spare parts with one’s eyes. In fact, even when she scanned the puppet’s clothes with her Spiritual Perception, she could hardly tell the difference between them and real silk at all!
“H-how did you do it?” Jiang Feifei asked with eyes widened with shock. Her mind could hardly process what was going on.
In terms of carving speed, she could be said to be at the forefront of 8-star celestial designers, but even so, it would still take her at least an entire day to finish carving the Xingyun Puppet. On the other hand, the other party managed to complete it in just a few breaths… and to add insult to injury, its finish was actually far better than hers!
What was with this monstrous ability?
“After looking at the blueprint, I thought that it would be too troublesome and time-consuming to use a carving knife, so I decided to use my swords instead. Fortunately, it seems to have worked out fine,” Zhang Xuan explained with a nod.
For a celestial designer to carve swiftly, there were only three requirements that they would have to meet. First and foremost, they needed to have a sharp memory that would allow them to remember every single detail on the blueprint impeccably on command.
Given that Zhang Xuan possessed the Library of Heaven’s Path, he could retrieve the details of the blueprints on command, so that was not a problem for him at all.
Secondly, the celestial designer had to possess precise control over their movements and exertion of strength.
The Flowing Water Swordsmanship was known for its unparalleled defense, capable of even keeping the thinnest strand of Spiritual Perception at bay. As its practitioner, it went without saying that Zhang Xuan possessed near absolute control over his swords.
Thirdly, due to how precise and exhausting the job would be, one had to possess an exceptionally powerful soul and a sharp eye of discernment.
As a soul oracle, there was no way the resilience of Zhang Xuan’s soul could possibly be lacking. As for eye of discernment, there was probably nothing in the world that could compete with the Eye of Insight.
Since Zhang Xuan had met all the criteria, it was a given that he would be able to carve swiftly.
“It’s too early for you to celebrate. Just because you were able to carve your puppet so fast doesn’t mean that it’ll necessarily be strong!” Jiang Feifei harrumphed after hearing the explanation.
Being capable of crafting a puppet fast was indeed a formidable skill, but more important than that was for the various parts to be aligned in a manner that did not differ too much from the blueprint. Otherwise, it would be nothing more than random parts connected together to form a figurine; there was no way it could exert the exceptional strength that the Xingyun Puppet wielded.
“You don’t have to worry about that. It would be a little troublesome and time-consuming to wait for you to craft a puppet, so why don’t you suppress your cultivation to Grand Dominion realm pinnacle and test its strength yourself?” Zhang Xuan asked.
“You are asking me to fight with your puppet personally?” Jiang Feifei was taken aback by Zhang Xuan’s proposal.
Had the other party gone mad?
She was a Saint 7-dan Phantasmal Space realm expert! Even if she suppressed her cultivation to Saint 6-dan Grand Dominion realm, the strength that she wielded would still be unmatched by any other Saint 6-dan cultivators. Did the other party really think that a puppet he had crafted in just a few seconds would be able to match her?
Just what in the world was he thinking?
Noting the hesitation in Jiang Feifei’s eyes, Zhang Xuan quickly added with a smile, “Indeed. There’s no need to worry. I’ll make sure that it holds itself back properly so that it doesn’t injure you by accident.”
“You…” Jiang Feifei nearly blew up on the spot.
What she meant was that the puppet could not possibly be a match for her, but this fellow actually thought that she was worried about being injured by the puppet.
His head was really in the clouds!
Initially, she had still had a good impression of the other party for his courtesy of clothing his puppet, but in that instant, every shred of goodwill that she harbored for the other party had vanished without a trace.
“Very well! I’ll suppress my cultivation and test your puppet out personally. I won’t make things difficult for you either. As long as it’s able to withstand three blows from me, you will have cleared my trial!” Jiang Feifei harrumphed coldly.
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She had no idea what the fighting prowess of the puppet that Zhang Xuan had crafted would be, but it would have to be extremely resilient to be able to withstand three blows from her.
If the other party’s puppet was really that powerful, it would not be too much of a deal for her to acknowledge the other party.
“Great!” Zhang Xuan nodded.
After which, he walked over to his puppet and whispered a few words into its ears in a hushed tone. Then, he nodded, and the puppet took a step forward and assessed the young lady before it sharply.
“Humph!” Seeing that the other party was really so conceited as to have his puppet challenge her, Jiang Feifei harrumphed coldly.
She swiftly drove her zhenqi, and in the blink of an eye, her cultivation had already been suppressed down to Grand Dominion realm pinnacle.
Hu!
Right after she had suppressed her cultivation, she immediately saw a fist flying straight for her face.
The puppet had made its move!
“What?”
Jiang Feifei initially did not think that the puppet that had been crafted in a matter of seconds would be anything much, but the sheer might and speed of its punch left her face swiftly warping in astonishment. Despite being a Phantasmal Space realm pinnacle expert, she actually felt threatened by the puppet’s offense!
She hurriedly raised both of her hands to fend off the puppet’s punch.
Peng!
The palm and the fist collided, and a crushing shockwave rippled into the surroundings. Before Jiang Feifei could even react, she was flying backward at a furious speed as if a kicked ball.
Pu!
Her back crashed heavily into the wall, and crimson blood spewed from her mouth.
It was fortunate that she had released the seal that she had placed on her cultivation at the very last moment, or else the entire wall could have been knocked down.
“You have lost.”
Before Jiang Feifei could say a word, the puppet before her waved its hands with a forlorn expression, as if deeply regretting the fact that it had been born with such great strength that it would never find be able to find a proper opponent.
“You… are able to speak?” Jiang Feifei widened her eyes in disbelief.
Without a doubt, the Xingyun Puppet was indeed very powerful, but it should not have been capable of speech! Yet, the one that the other party had crafted had actually begun speaking human speech. What the heck was going on?
There was a huge difference in a puppet that was unable to speak and one that was able to speak!
“Ah. I had some time after assembling it, so I enchanted it while I was at it,” Zhang Xuan explained.
“…” Jiang Feifei.
It took her some time before she was able to steady her breathing once more. “In less than ten seconds, not only did you manage to carve the puppet, you were even able to make some clothes for it and enchant it?”
Even with speed like hers, ten breaths would only be sufficient for her to carve two parts, and the puppet standing before her had to have tens of thousands of parts.
Was this not a little too exaggerated?
“Yes. I am the Inceptive Sage of the Spirit Awakener Guild, so I’m able to conduct spirit enchantment quite quickly,” Zhang Xuan explained. “So, have I cleared your assessment yet?”
“Of course,” Jiang Feifei replied with a bitter look on her face.
She had thought that it would take a miracle for the puppet to be able to withstand three blows from her, but contrary to her expectations, she did not even manage to withstand a single strike from the puppet.
There were no words that could describe how stifled she felt at that very moment.
But unbeknownst to her, the worst was yet to come.
Just as the other party was about to make his way up to the next floor, he suddenly halted his footsteps and glanced at the puppet that he had crafted with a disapproving look. “Didn’t I tell you to go easy on her? Why didn’t you heed my instruction?”
“I did go easy on her, I really did! How was I to know that she would be so weak as to be unable to withstand even a single punch of mine?” the puppet cried in indignation.
“…” Jiang Feifei nearly clawed her hair out.