Chapter 120: The Master I've Long Awaited?
An unstable space-time environment?
It existed only in that red zone. If you traveled vertically down through it for billions of kilometers, you'd no longer feel the chaotic spatial currents.
The dangers lurking beneath the blood-red region weren't naturally formed—they were artificial.
To be honest, the ancient god world had survived till now precisely because of its bizarre origin.
The top brass of the Virtual Universe Company could never figure out why the supercontinent they shattered had re-formed into this shape in such a short span of cosmic time.
Why did countless puppets reappear in the countless shattered temples, looking like ruins?
The entire layout felt just like... an examination hall.
Yes—an exam hall. That was exactly the impression it gave.
Plus, after killing that Universe Master, they hadn't found what they were looking for. So the reshaped ancient god world ended up in its current state.
Arrival at the floating continent
After a dive lasting over three months, a floating continent spanning tens of millions of kilometers finally came into view.
Jiang Zhe and his spaceship were taken into Oriana's internal world.
He would witness the scenery of this continent through Oriana's perspective. The intensity of the coming battles was far beyond what a mere Universe-level warrior like him could participate in.
According to the records in the Ancient God Blood Crystal, this continent was lush and vibrant. But in reality, it was a kingdom of puppets.
Anything you saw—animals, plants, rocks, mountains, rivers—could be a puppet. Once awakened, even the weakest of them could unleash power ten times that of an ordinary Sector Lord.
Blood-flesh puppets, plant puppets, metal puppets, energy puppets... their varieties were countless.
The first confrontation
Oriana broke through the clouds and landed in an ancient mountainous forest.
As she descended, the air pressure from her landing snapped nearby branches. Her brass boots crushed the rotting leaves below.
The commotion startled a massive bear. Its back was three meters tall, and it charged at Oriana, roaring.
With fur, fat, fangs, and a howl—it looked no different from an ordinary bear.
But both Jiang Zhe and Oriana knew this was merely a blood-flesh puppet.
Inside Oriana's internal world, Jiang Zhe shared her senses and remarked,
"No wonder that Universe Master turned to the mechanical race and the insect race.
These ancient god puppets seem like a combination of the two—
pieced together like machines, yet still living creatures with considerable intelligence."
Outside, Oriana moved.
She vanished, reappearing on the giant bear's back.
A punch from her shattered its spine, and her cold hand plunged into its chest, pulling out a heart-like metal puppet core.
The bear immediately lost all life. Its huge body flew forward by inertia, smashing through a dozen ancient trees before crashing into a small mountain and disappearing.
Oriana glanced at the "heart" in her hand. In the blink of an eye, she'd seen through it completely.
"This puppet core is made from G-grade metal. It can burst out with power equivalent to twenty times that of a Sector Lord, but there's nothing particularly special beyond that."
Jiang Zhe asked,
"What about that 'unknown substance'?"
"There's only a tiny amount of it, and its quality is low—I can absorb it easily."
Saying that, Oriana sent the puppet core into her internal world. Right before Jiang Zhe's eyes, she activated a secret innate technique that vaporized and decomposed it, turning it into nourishment to expand her internal world.
A few crimson threads were separated out and likewise vaporized.
These red threads were the so-called "unknown substance."
They all came from the puppet cores. Some merged into the blood pearls that made up the [Ancient God Blood Crystal]. Those of lower quality were simply digested by Oriana.
Jiang Zhe was very curious. Ever since entering this ancient god world, everything he encountered seemed tied to "blood." Just what was this haunting substance?
Exploring the God King Temples
"Anna, ignore these puppets for now. Let's go check out one of the God King Temples."
Soon, master and servant identified their location on the map recorded in the blood crystal, determined a direction, and headed for the nearest God King Temple.
A frustrating discovery
In front of a majestic temple towering over ten thousand meters high, like a mountain itself, Oriana sent in a clone to scout first.
If the clone was discovered and killed by awakened King-level puppets, they would flee immediately.
They hoped to repeat the trick that had worked so many times before—using "blood pearls" to conceal their aura, avoid triggering alarms, and try to steal the King-level puppet cores.
If they succeeded, it would be an unimaginable windfall.
Jiang Zhe and Oriana shared the clone's perspective as it explored the temple.
It encountered almost no obstacles and soon reached the main hall. The empty, dilapidated sight left them both stunned.
"Where the hell is my giant King-level puppet?"
"Where's my treasure at the Sovereign level?"
They were so disappointed they practically cried out from the soul. They watched the clone turn the entire hall upside down.
"Anna, have it drop the disguise and trigger the alarm."
Oriana did as ordered, forcing the blood membrane covering the clone's chest core to recede. The blood-red runes across its body also faded rapidly.
Their alien aura was fully exposed.
Instantly, as if poking a hornet's nest, dormant puppets across the temple awakened.
Multiple powerful auras, at the Sector Lord and Undying levels, surged over to eliminate the intruder.
The clone, with its mere peak Sector Lord strength at 1x genetic level, had no hope of escaping. It was obliterated by overwhelming attacks.
Oriana wasn't distressed. Even though her current genetic level had dropped to 87x, she could recover by devouring more treasures.
"Did you feel anything unusual?"
"No, Master. There weren't any King-level puppets. The strongest just now could only unleash about 100x Sector Lord power."
"Come on—let's try another God King Temple."
Everywhere empty
In quick succession, they explored six more temples.
The main halls were all empty. Even when they deliberately exposed their aura twice, they still didn't trigger any King-level puppets.
Jiang Zhe seemed to understand.
"Anna, let's head to the continent's center and see the nine Saint King Temples. Maybe they'll be the same."
Sure enough, just as he suspected—
Empty!
All completely empty!
The grand temples housed only puppets that could unleash a few dozen or up to a hundred times Sector Lord power. Their cores were just G-grade metal.
For Jiang Zhe, these held little value.
Killing one offered far less gain than what he'd gotten in the red zone above.
"...The King-level and Sovereign-level puppets must have been taken by the Virtual Universe Company."
He paused, then gave the most reasonable explanation.
Which was indeed the truth.
108 King-level puppets, with cores made from the primary materials of heavy treasures, each was practically equivalent to a heavy treasure.
Nine Sovereign-level puppets used materials on par with supreme treasures.
The Virtual Universe Company left some G-grade items in this native world as charity. As for these cores that could be exchanged for heavy or supreme treasure points? They would never just leave them here to gather dust.
Collecting the inheritance
"Anna, looks like our cultivation mission is wrapping up.
No more unexpected windfalls—let's just head to the Ancient God Temple to claim the inheritance and then return to the Primal Secret Realm."
Oriana flew low toward the central Ancient God Temple.
The inheritance is incomplete
The once-majestic temple was now half-ruined, walls crumbled and overgrown.
Inside the wreckage and across hundreds of kilometers around, not a single puppet could be seen.
It felt almost sacred, inviolable.
Jiang Zhe emerged from Oriana's internal world, and together they stepped on shattered stones into the temple's main hall.
Ahead stood a moss-covered high-backed stone chair—their goal.
Holding the [Ancient God Blood Crystal], Jiang Zhe approached, scraped off the moss, found a fist-sized eye socket carving, and pressed the blood-colored gem into it.
The gem rotated, its crimson light growing ever brighter until it shot a beam straight into his forehead.
Jiang Zhe didn't dodge. He let it drill into his mind.
It was a torrent of information—part of the Ancient God clan's inheritance.
Closing his eyes, Jiang Zhe processed it like a computer, organizing the knowledge and sharing it with Oriana.
Seven hours later, Jiang Zhe finally opened his eyes.
Oriana had long finished organizing it. When their eyes met, each saw doubt in the other.
She tentatively asked,
"Master, what do you think of this 'Puppet Master Beginner Inheritance'?"
"Not great—lacking something crucial..."
Jiang Zhe clicked his tongue and began complaining.
"The only really worthwhile part is the puppet manufacturing methods, and those rune diagrams are pretty good.
But if I followed these instructions, the end product would be no different from the mechanical race's puppets."
"It's missing the most critical step!" Oriana hit the nail on the head.
"To put it in Earth's terms—it lacks the final stroke that brings the dragon to life. Without that, a puppet will forever be a lifeless machine, never gaining true intelligence."
"Yet the puppets we've seen along the way clearly aren't like that."
Jiang Zhe frowned.
"We'll need a higher-level Puppet Master inheritance."
"Maybe... If this issue can't be solved, this so-called inheritance will forever be hollow."
"So, we need higher-quality [Ancient God Blood Crystals]. They're the key to unlocking the next inheritance."
"Just like the 'unknown substance' we extracted from those puppet leader cores above—its quality was far higher than what we found in ordinary puppet cores."
Oriana followed his logic.
"Those temples numbered within 500 or even 300 likely had leaders at the Marquis level.
This continent should have had King-level and Sovereign-level puppets too.
The 'unknown substance' in their cores would have produced higher-grade blood crystals."
A deadlock
The two fell silent. The situation was stuck.
Because of the hostile space-time environment, it was almost impossible for them to reach the top 500 temples.
Unless Oriana became undying, or they acquired a space-time treasure she could fully control, like the Wings of Extermination.
"The Hunyuan Umbrella?"
It fit the requirements—but she couldn't fully control it.
Their strength simply wasn't enough, like an infant unable to lift a sword.
Jiang Zhe sighed.
"Either way, this cultivation mission is truly finished.
Our ultimate gains aren't satisfying, but it's time to leave."
The method of controlling puppets was similar to that of a soul master.
The puppet manufacturing method was incomplete, missing the vital step...
All in all, this "Puppet Master" inheritance felt almost worthless to Jiang Zhe.
"Let's report to Teacher Holy Spirit King. That way it's indirectly reported to the Virtual Universe Company too.
We'll probably still earn a decent amount of contribution points."
Oriana cautioned him in advance,
"Master, even if they put Marquis, King, or Sovereign-level puppet cores right in front of me, I probably couldn't extract the 'unknown substance.'
My innate technique [Lord of Matter] can currently only affect up to G-grade treasures."
"Yeah, I figured."
A sudden visitor
Jiang Zhe reached for the blood gem in the chair's eye socket.
Such a treasure, capable of boosting soul amplitude tenfold, couldn't just be left behind.
But before he could touch it, the gem suddenly spun backward at high speed. With a shrieking sound, it shattered. Countless tiny fragments formed a swirling vortex, growing until it was over two meters wide.
A vortex tunnel appeared before Jiang Zhe, leading to who knew where.
Then a cool female voice echoed in his ear—
"Would you be willing to come in and meet with me?
I've been waiting for you for so long, my friend, my collaborator...
or perhaps... my master?"
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