Chapter 1502
Chapter 1502 - 1498: The Giver of Life
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"Indeed, it failed again..."
Lu Ping’an was looking down at a "puppet" that had shattered into pieces of Wood, a quality creation made of superior Lamp Tree Wood by a Courtyard Craftsman.
To form a legion, one must always start with the individual.
For Lu Ping’an, the pioneer, the simplest soldier unit was paradoxically the most difficult beginning...
"Your demands are too high, as you require not only its intelligence level but also its physical evolution ability, combat evolution traits, and even a mental network."
Professor Li Jihou, from the panel of experts, shook his head. He had checked the "puppet," and from the results, the failure was quite thorough, simply unable to sustain Lu Ping’an’s excessive demands.
Puppet mastery was not an excessively rare profession; it existed even at the lower tiers, but at that time, it was a fusion profession of Tamers and Craftsmen, with rather delicate strength.
The puppets you painstakingly produce using all your resources not only fall short of comparable battle-professions but also require full attention to control... In most people’s eyes, it was a career more about flair and stage performance than practical combat ability, a rare showpiece profession.
However, when higher-level Puppet Masters fused this profession with the Gardener profession to create "Life-bearing Puppets," the cost significantly reduced. More importantly, in real combat, there was no need for distracted control and it became possible to fight with multiple units simultaneously.
Despite repeated failures, Lu Ping’an did not give up, as the more he tried, the more convinced he was that Lord Xiuyi was right before; it indeed was a suitable combat style for Lu Ping’an.
"Your requirements are too many; let’s take it one step at a time..."
Theoretically, with Lu Ping’an now at the Tamer, Craftsman, and Gardener level, obtaining the basic Puppet Master ability was no challenge at all.
But his demands were too high... While others were satisfied just creating a puppet, he planned to create an entire war world, then designate a type of evolving chess piece.
"...Indeed, it’s impossible to achieve it in one step?"
Lu Ping’an sighed and nodded, refraining from making further demands.
The Professor Li and his team in front of him had already excellently completed Lu Ping’an’s task.
To make "puppets," the primary requirement was always Wood, and Lu Ping’an hesitated no longer in selecting the Lamp Tree species, but which specific type still required careful deliberation... The final validation results were not too good.
The reason was quite simple; the Lamp Wood was Lu Ping’an’s fusion of "Holy Fire" and "Bloodvine" into a "fire module." When altered into other structures...
"...It exploded again, even the Fire Oak Wood is still not stable enough, and being highly flammable at this moment isn’t a good thing, looks like it needs further improvement."
When Lu Ping’an broke the module’s role as Magic Plants, transforming it into humanoid form, its nature as fuel was all too apparent, and because of its "soft, oily interior," it lacked the hardness and toughness required for a close combat unit.
Being flammable and explosive was fine for a war tool, but as a war chess piece, it clearly did not meet requirements.
Lu Ping’an had also tried the much costlier Ark Wood (Fusang Wood); the results were quite delicate. While the hardness was perfect, the flexibility and evolutionary capability were not up to standard... Its cellular modules were too bulky, unsuitable for humanoid close combat units, unless turned into a large-type War Puppet.
Unable to figure it out himself, Lu Ping’an handed it over to professional developers, providing "Plant Acceleration" help to allow them to quickly trial and error, aiming for swift results.
From the analysis, it exceeded expectations; in just under two weeks, Lu Ping’an had received a quality material known as "Fire Oak Wood."
It was a descendant of the Lamp Tree but not entirely the same species; its superior workability was the material for Lu Ping’an’s first batch of puppets.
"Let’s try again, this time with lower demands..."
Lu Ping’an took out another box, inside which were roughly processed puppet parts, resembling the simple structure of a clothing model, convenient for various processing and testing.
In this respect, Lu Ping’an asked the factory to help with the processing. This type of Magic Plants could still maintain its activity for three days even after being cut down. If during the processing, the Gardener added a "Seed Dormancy" to preserve life force and used the black insulating box for near-contaminated products, the life force could last about three months.
Of course, this whole setup was costly and actually went beyond the normal range of contamination weapons, but after all, it was an experimental product, and Lu Ping’an could not possibly cut down trees and make puppets on the spot.
".....Okay, let’s do it once again."
Lu Ping’an had already accumulated sufficient knowledge in the Craftsman and Puppet Master Domains, and quickly assembled it.
The rough human-like shape could only be seen as a "person," and those spherical palms were a big taboo for Puppet Masters... Lu Ping’an didn’t have the leisure to make delicate finger joints now, its mobility was quite limited, and it couldn’t possibly hold weapons.
But such an existence already met Lu Ping’an’s needs; it was both a "Magic Plant" and a "Human-like figure."
Lu Ping’an snapped his fingers, activating the "Fictitious Assets," and the human-like figure briefly transformed into a "person."
[Fictitious Assets (Mid-Level Golden): A shell company is still a company, fictitious life is still life... Granting an ’existence’ certain assets, before the exhaustion of these assets, it will become a temporary living thing.]
"I... I am..."
The overly fast-paced materials, having no historical accumulation, caused the faceless human-like figure to lack self-cognition.
"You are a ’Soldier.’"
The plain words, following the naming by the Greedy Craftsman, provided it the basics as a warrior.
It abruptly stood up at attention.
"Puppet control. Complete imitation."
Puppet Masters naturally had the skills to train puppets. Ordinary lower levels used the Tamer series abilities, either through direct contact or puppet strings, specifically controlling its movements.
For easier control, most would choose to break down the actions into fixed movements like "forward slash," "frontal assault," "retreat and counterattack."
Honestly, even with advanced puppets that had some self-control abilities, the fighting power’s subtle origin still lay in their overly stiff and rigid movements.
The better-learned the puppet, the more fixed its movements became, therefore high-level Puppet Masters generally used invisible puppet strings (replaceable with other materials, including life materials) for direct control to enhance power... but this, in turn, reduced the number of puppets they could control.
These problems limited the combat capabilities of Puppet Masters. If their Talent Abilities did not fit well or they aimed to turn into combat-oriented Craftsmen, usually no one would choose this demanding and high-cost profession.
However, Life system combined with Puppet Master was somewhat different.
Only Rule-level and above Life system could continually turn "Magic Plants" into "live puppets," allowing them to possess long-term life activity.
"Advance, retreat, military boxing..."
Lu Ping’an demonstrated various movements, under the "Puppet control. Complete imitation (Silver Lower)" ability, and the new puppet also began to perform exactly the same actions.
Teaching an "infant" to move, imitation was the simplest and most effective method.
Normally, at Lu Ping’an’s level, a Puppet Master would be specifically hired to "substitute teach," but now, in order to quickly produce results, he simply did it himself.
After briefly testing it and not finding any obvious flaws in the puppet, Lu Ping’an was ready to move on to the next step.
"Make a wish, turn yourself into something extraordinary."
As a master at exploiting bugs, Lu Ping’an was quite outrageous. The fictitious life in front of him was still life and could naturally be altered by the Wishing Pool to modify its life form.
— End of Chapter 1502 —