Chapter 43: Transmission Puppet

“Don’t worry,” Patelocke said. “Leave that problem to me. First help me keep those guys at bay for a bit.”

“No problem!” Su Chen replied.

He lifted his left hand, and sparks began to fly as a massive flaming phoenix began to take shape. It crashed into the tunnel walls, the explosion of energy converting into waves of flames that enveloped the swarms of bugs.

At the same time, Patelocke’s spectral image surfaced from the blade, pointing his illusory finger at Su Chen. “Focus all of your consciousness power and follow my instructions!”

A strand of will entered Su Chen’s body from Patelocke.

An instant later, Su Chen’s consciousness power began to move along with Patelocke’s will, combining and rapidly taking on a specific shape.

Very quickly, a brand new consciousness-type Origin Skill came under Su Chen’s control.

Su Chen very quickly figured out what kind of Origin Skill it was.

Heart Walls!

Heart Walls relied on consciousness energy to form a consciousness barrier that defended a person’s heart.

Su Chen had relied on pure consciousness energy to fight his opponents in the past, basically relying on his ability to outlast his opponent. As such, it placed quite a burden on his consciousness.

The Heart Walls were different, however. The defensive capabilities of his consciousness had greatly increased, meaning that he would have to expend far less consciousness energy.

Su Chen quickly drank another vial of Spirit Sobering Medicine, replenishing his consciousness energy, and found that it was now much easier for him to defend himself against the swarms of bugs.

Finally, Su Chen could afford to place all his attention on attacking. Flaming Phoenix after Flaming Phoenix took flight and slammed into the tunnel walls, burning the bugs to a crisp as they shrieked bitterly.

After the fire had burned for an unknown period of time, Su Chen finally found that his hearing had calmed down. The piercing, shrill shrieks had disappeared, and no bugs could be seen crawling out of the walls. The large wave of bugs had all been burned to a crisp.

The tunnel was lined with charred bug corpses that smelled something fierce, making people instinctively want to vomit.

Su Chen forcefully repressed the desire to throw up and picked up a few intact corpses and put them into his Origin Ring.

“Thanks, Patelocke. I was lucky to have you with me this time,” Su Chen said.

“You’re welcome. Actually, this was an opportunity I had been waiting for for a long time. Without the current situation, you wouldn’t have allowed me to control your body, right?” Patelocke asked.

“Is this the reason you never told me about such an Origin Skill even long after you had invented it? You were waiting for an opportunity the entire time? What exactly were you after?” Su Chen asked.

“You know what I want - a complete body. However, I need to make adequate preparations for that to happen. For instance, I need to get a feel for what it’s like to take over someone’s body.”

Su Chen understood. “So you wanted to use the opportunity to sense what changes might occur once you took control of my body?”

“It’d be more accurate to say that I wanted to sense how your body would try and defend itself. Even though you voluntarily handed over your body for me to control, it still rejected me, and quite strongly at that. I have no way of determining whether that’s unique to you or not, but if you give me a puppet that has its own freedom, I can begin to perform some research on this matter,” Patelocke replied.

“Oh, I understand what you mean. So you’re tired of being a spectator and a teacher, and now you want your own research lab?”

“I am the best assistant you could choose, better than Iron Cliff and Death’s Shadow.”

“I can’t argue with that.” Su Chen nodded. “Fine, then I will agree to search for a puppet for you in the future.”

“You don’t need to search. There’s one just nearby,” Patelocke said.

“What did you say?” Su Chen was stunned. “What did you discover?”

“Yes,” Patelocke replied. “Don’t think that I was trying to keep you in the dark. I only just noticed what kind of place we are in.”

Upon hearing Patelocke’s words, Su Chen’s eyes lit up. “So you’re saying that this place is linked to the ancient Arcanists?”

“No, even further back than that,” Patelocke replied. “It’s related to the Origin Beasts.”

“What did you say?” Su Chen was stunned.

“This is the burial grounds of an Origin Beast.”

Patelocke and Su Chen slowly walked through the mysterious, abstruse tunnels.

As he talked with Patelocke, Su Chen slowly began to understand that an Origin Beast had been buried right underneath Flat Sky City.

This Origin Beast was called the Gold-Devouring Ape.

As its name implied, the Gold-Devouring Ape survived by eating metals. The metallic content of its body was very high, and its skin in particular was actually completely made out of sturdy, hard metal.

If that Origin Beast were still alive, there was probably no human who would be able to break through its defenses even if it just stood there and allowed them to attack.

The Gold-Devouring Ape’s death was quite dramatic.

After the environment began to change, it entered into deep hibernation and burrowed under the ground as if it had died. Over time, people began to forget about its existence.

As the months and years flew by, the Arcana Kingdom surged to power.

They mounted offensives all over the continent, expanding their territory, seizing loot, and increasing their own strength.

From time to time, however, they would wind up kicking an iron block.

1500 years before Patelocke’s death, something like that had happened.

An large group of esteemed Arcana Masters came to the southern reaches of the continent and discovered a special kind of metal at a place called Hurricane Plateau.

These Arcana Masters were primarily involved in the research of puppets, and this kind of metal was perfect for helping them develop extremely strong puppets. As such, they made the decision to settle here and began to set up mines.

They were extremely happy to mine away.

However, this ecstasy soon gave way to great sorrow.

“I assume that the mine they were digging at was actually the Gold-Devouring Ape’s outer skin layer,” Su Chen said.

“Yes. Not only was that mine the Gold-Devouring Ape’s skin, but if my guess is right, the Starsilver Gold and Moonstone veins most likely came from the Gold-Devouring Ape’s flesh and bones. All of the ore veins in this area are actually the Gold-Devouring Ape itself,” Patelocke sighed. “Those ignorant homologs of mine only thought about mining but not what kind of beast they were provoking. Eventually, as they dug deeper and deeper, the Gold-Devouring Ape finally awoke. You should be able to imagine the outcome......”

Su Chen nodded. “Yes, I can imagine it. I was just curious, but since that’s the case, why has news not spread yet? And how did the Gold-Devouring Ape die anyways?”

“Because of puppets,” Patelocke said. “Even though the Arcana Masters were slaughtered by the Gold-Devouring Ape, the puppets they left behind became extremely useful.”

“The puppets killed the Gold-Devouring Ape?”

“No, don’t misunderstand. No one can really kill an Origin Beast but themselves. The puppets merely survived......”

The Arcana Kingdom had produced countless incredible inventions throughout the years, and puppets were one of them.

In that period of time, Arcana Technique Puppets became the main focus of some of the Arcana Masters, and all kinds of different puppets began to emerge. There was quite a healthy variety available.

The puppets left behind by the Arcana Masters slaughtered by the Gold-Devouring Ape possessed a very unique attribute.

Unique did not necessarily mean powerful.

“Transmission puppets? You’re telling me that a transmission puppet was able to survive under these kinds of circumstances?” Su Chen said with shock.

If some other kind of puppet had survived, Su Chen probably wouldn’t have been so surprised. However, Patelocke had specifically mentioned that they were transmission puppets!

Patelocke chuckled, “Don’t look down on transmission puppets. During the Arcana Kingdom’s reign, transmission puppets were some of the most well-researched puppets available. At the height of the Arcana Kingdom’s rule, we believed that we could invent anything to meet our needs. We wanted to be able to fly into the sky and dig deep into the ground, ignore all spatial barriers, and communicate and deliver without restrictions. Before we could deliver over long distances, we first needed to be able to communicate so that the world would be at our fingertips, not so far away as before.”

“Alright, stop being so sentimental. Just tell me what exactly happened, okay?”

“The Arcana Race created powerful transmission techniques so that the communication distances of these puppets far outstretched anything you have available to you today. This made it so that the Arcana Kingdom possessed incredible investigation abilities. If they wanted to better understand this world without taking too many risks, then they could just send these transmission puppets to do everything for them.”

Su Chen understood. “There are many extremely dangerous places in this world.”

“That’s right. This is when we need the powerful survivability of the puppets and their ability to adapt. Those Arcana Masters possessed such a transmission puppet,” Patelocke said. “This puppet survived and spread the news far and wide, which was how we found out.”

“A transmission puppet managed to survive? How did it survive?”

There was no way the puppet’s survivability was greater than the Origin Beast’s.

Then how had it managed to survive?

“It took off all of the metal components it had. The Gold-Devouring Ape only eats metal and only attacks what harms it. After the transmission puppet took off the metal components, it was no longer a target of the Gold-Devouring Ape, and it allowed the puppet to survive. The Gold-Devouring Ape fell back into hibernation once the Arcana Masters who had awoken him had been dealt with. The puppet was thus also brought into the ground as a result, and began to send information from below ground.”

So it would even operate like that? Su Chen was stunned.

“It’s probably because of a command left behind by one of the Arcana Masters,” Patelocke surmised.

“So how did the Gold-Devouring Ape die?”

“It did of old age, perhaps because of its awakening this time. There are a few Origin Beasts that never wake up again after falling into hibernation. Of course, we found out about this because of the transmission puppet.”

“So that transmission puppet was in use that entire time?” Su Chen asked in shock.

“Yes, that puppet managed to survive for 182 years. After losing its metallic components, it was unable to move, which greatly decreased its energy consumption. Its only responsibility was to send out information about its surroundings from time to time, until finally it sent some information that the Gold-Devouring Ape was in the process of dying and would pass on at most three thousand years later. That was also the last piece of information it sent us,” Patelocke said.

“So how did it know that the Gold-Devouring Ape was in the process of dying?” Su Chen asked with some curiosity.

If the Arcana Masters hadn’t discovered the Gold-Devouring Ape’s existence when they were mining, how could a transmission puppet have found out?

“Who knows?” Patelocke shrugged. “There are always a few secrets that only those who were present and witnessed it happen would know. I do know, however, that there is a puppet that has remained intact next to the corpse of an Origin Beast all these years. It’s a genuine Ancient Arcana Technique Puppet.”