Chapter 492 - 450: Blade Battle Puppet and an Old Acquaintance

Chapter 492: Chapter 450: Blade Battle Puppet and an Old Acquaintance

"Elder?"

The man asked cautiously.

"Let’s go."

Chu Mu waved his hand, stepped into the passage cleared by the crowd, and vanished from sight in a single stride.

Seeing this, the several Foundation Establishment Cultivators in his entourage hurriedly followed, striding quickly into the Merit Hall.

Only then was the deathly silence outside the Merit Hall finally broken, and the clamor resumed.

"That Elder just now... he didn’t seem like a local Cultivator from our Vast Sea, did he?"

"You could say he’s one of ours. Have you really never heard of Master Chixia Chu?"

"He’s a master of both Pill and Artifact refining. The True Understanding Pavilion was founded by him..."

"You know that Tier Four Soldier Puppet that was destroyed by a Great Demon? The Chen Family struggled with it for ages and couldn’t fix it. But then they invited Elder Chu, and he had it repaired in just a few months..."

"Just the other day, I saw that very same Tier Four Soldier Puppet in the northern sea region..."

Amid the noisy chatter, the focus of the Cultivators’ conversation shifted to the recently departed Chu Mu.

Chu Mu was unaware of the commotion outside.

He was now seated on the second floor of the Merit Hall. Several graceful maids of the Qi Cultivation Realm waited on him, and top-grade Spirit Wine and Spirit Fruits had already been served.

The Foundation Establishment man responsible for his reception stood respectfully to the side.

Chu Mu held a blank Jade Scroll, inscribing the names of a wide variety of Spiritual Materials into it. In just a few breaths, he tossed the Jade Scroll, along with a Merit Token, to the waiting Foundation Establishment man.

"Please wait a moment, Elder."

The man cupped his fists, bowed, and respectfully withdrew.

Chu Mu took a wine cup from a nearby maid and had a small sip. As he set the cup down, his fingers twitched, and another Jade Scroll appeared in his hand.

He pondered for a moment before extending his Divine Sense into the Jade Scroll.

The Jade Scroll didn’t contain much information, only the embryonic form of an idea.

The inspiration for it came from the Tier Four Soldier Puppet on Celestial Secret Island, and the foundation supporting the concept was his own incredibly profound Sword Intent Domain.

After his Sword Intent Domain appeared, the phantom sharpness of his Sword Intent no longer needed a specific vessel to be contained. Anything and everything could serve as a carrier for his Sword Intent.

The Wooden Sword he had given to Chang Hongyi was one such experiment with this new aspect of his Sword Intent.

The result was a great success. An ordinary piece of Spirit Wood, merely by carrying a sliver of his Sword Intent’s sharpness, possessed enough Mighty Power to injure a Golden Core Cultivator!

Although it could only unleash its Mighty Power once before the Wooden Sword disintegrated, and the Sword Intent’s sharpness it carried would slowly dissipate over time.

But it was undeniable that this change made the applications of his Sword Intent far more versatile.

Just like his current idea...

The Blade Battle Puppet!

Within the Jade Scroll, an image swirled into view, revealing a War Puppet about seven feet tall.

The War Puppet was humanoid with a slender build, its entire body clad in dark Armor. With two blades strapped to its back, it resembled a dark warrior.

It was similar to a Guard Puppet he had once refined, but it possessed a much more murderous aura.

According to his design, this War Puppet would use Tier Three Nine Nether Cold Iron as its main material, Spatial Attribute Spiritual Materials as its core, and be supplemented with numerous sharp, Gold Attribute Spiritual Materials. This would create an unconventional purity, one that prioritized sheer sharpness above all potential for growth.

Finally, it would be smelted with Sword Intent to permanently imbue the War Puppet with its sharpness. Its twin blades would cut with a piercing, cold ferocity capable of slicing through anything.

Furthermore, its Spatial Attribute would allow the War Puppet to merge with the void, granting it extreme Concealment.

Leveraging this void-concealment characteristic, it could become a void assassin—appearing and disappearing like a phantom, emanating a chilling, omnipresent killing intent.

If it were inside his Sword Intent Domain, under the Domain’s unique control, the Blade Battle Puppet would become like his own avatar. He would be the Sword Intent Battle Puppet, and the Sword Intent Battle Puppet could also be him.

Moreover, with this War Puppet’s unconventional purity, it could even serve as a passable substitute for a Sword Intent Lifebound Treasure.

It was a perfect design.

The only problem was that the design was incredibly resource-intensive.

The Spatial Attribute Spiritual Materials were the easy part. Back when he broke through the Sealing Demon Array, he had collected a huge amount of Spiritual Materials that had been eroded by spatial fluctuations near the Spatial Rift between the Demon Realm and the Secret Realm. He had a small mountain of them piled up in his Storage Ring.

As for the Nine Nether Cold Iron and the many other Spiritual Materials, he currently possessed only a small fraction of what was needed.

The rest were all on that list. Tens of thousands of Merit Points would probably be spent on this single Blade Battle Puppet, and even that might not be enough.

And that was just for the most basic Spiritual Materials.

For the War Puppet’s required Divine Soul Core, he would also need to find a Tier Three Divine Soul.

This War Puppet was also quite special. It wasn’t a traditional Puppet that used Spirit Stones as its primary energy source for Attacks. Instead, it was smelted with Sword Intent, making it something of a semi-Lifebound Treasure.

The difference was that this Sword Intent Battle Puppet’s potential for growth was derived from Sword Intent. The stronger the Sword Intent, the stronger the War Puppet would become.

If the Sword Intent was damaged, the Puppet would be damaged as well. But if the Puppet was damaged, it couldn’t affect his Sword Intent Divine Soul.

It was, in a sense, a one-sided semi-Lifebound Treasure.

Therefore, the most crucial aspect of this War Puppet’s Divine Soul Core was the compatibility and harmony between the Divine Soul and the Sword Intent.

The highest-quality Divine Soul for the Blade Battle Puppet, according to his ideal scenario, would be to kill a True Cultivator of Sword Intent and seize their Divine Soul.

’But that’s obviously impossible.’

In all his years on the Path to Immortality, he had traveled far and wide, but aside from that Sword Dao Nascent Soul father-and-son pair, he had seen precious few True Cultivators of a Mental Realm.

Now that he was in the Vast Sea Cultivation Immortal World, where bloodlines were the dominant path, it was even more impossible.