The stone puppet lumbered towards her, the arm that she broke limped to the side. Although the stone was cracked, it was held together by the bronze and silver veins.

As it charged at her, she moved forward to attack but suddenly missed!

"What?!

"

To her surprise, the puppet turned after it left its room and walked down the stairs, ignoring her. As she watched it leave, she found that every room on the sixth floor had the same puppets descending to the lower floors. Each one went to their own rooms, grabbing the tools inside.

In a matter of minutes, they gathered in the halls and created a square formation. Each one equipped with watering cans and little shovels, ready for the day's work

Ming Yue watched from the second floor with amazement.

With all of them together, she counted a 12 by 12 square for a total of 144 of these puppets. She noticed some words painted on the backs of all of them.

"Chuangxin Garden? The Garden of Innovation?

"

Reading it to herself, She began to speculate many things about this place. Although this place and the others were known as

"Pavilions

", it seemed that they seemed more like research stations. With strange apparatuses made from glass and steel, furthermore the books she had taken from the cottage were filled with all sorts of notes pertaining to botany. It was possible that the garden was lead by one person and this person lived here. With the number of puppets she saw, it really was believable. Just one person and their army of puppets, the thought of it was terrifying.

With the Ren Hua Battlefield being a former great empire, it would be scary to imagine their strength in the current times. If such a person could control hundreds of human puppets, who knew what kind of experts existed back then. Ming Yue couldn't help but respect this person as she watched the puppets prostrate in front of the hall. As for what, Ming Yue had noticed that the front of the hall had a banner that unfurled just now. It revealed the words

"Chuangxin

" written in bold green letters.

A minute passed and then they proceeded to exit the mansion and work in the garden. Even though they were puppets, they worked with skill, harvesting and maintaining the garden. Some carried baskets on their backs.

Despite being out in the open, the puppets did not care for her. Even the one who she had broken did not care for her. In fact, its arm had been fixed though she did not know when or how it happened.

She noticed a small group of puppets that went off in different directions toward the fifth zone, carrying their shovels and watering cans.

"Strange, where are they going? They couldn't possibly be going off to hunt

", she thought.

Judging by the strength of the first puppet she examined, the combined power of all of them was equal to that of a powerful Rank 5 beast. This was only a group of ten and yet they walked into the fifth zone.

Was there some sort of secret to them?

Were they just going out to gather herbs?

Even if it was, they still risked battle with the other denizens of the Ninth Flower Garden.

Ming Yue took another look at the puppets working tirelessly before tailing one of the groups.

As she followed, the puppets continued to go deeper and deeper into the garden. Strangely enough, she saw nothing in their journey. There were no beasts, not even a sound from them. Hours passed and there was still no sign. There were even times where they stopped to gather and the things they took were of a quality similar to the Immortal Siren Flower. Despite all that they had in their baskets, it seemed that no creature dared to approach them. Strangely enough, she could hear the sound of a beating heart, the same one from the mansion.

Knowing that the puppets seemed to ignore her, she walked up to them and looked at them, trying to see what exactly was going on. Then she saw something that she had never seen before.

"The-their chest! It's open!

"

She looked in shock as the chest of the ten puppets showed a void to which an emerald light shimmered at the end. Despite this change, she felt unbothered by the light. There was no energy or force that acted upon her. Though, she could hear a beating heart coming from these voids.

Ming Yue looked in amazement at the empty void. She tried to see what it was that produced that green light but it was too bright for her to make out what it was. Fortunately, now she knew what caused the puppets to move around the garden freely. It must be repelling any oncoming beasts.

For a second, she thought about breaking one of the puppets and taking that source but decided against it. It would be rash of her to take it so forcefully. Chances were, this void could be a portal to another location, probably somewhere in the mansion.

When the day ended and the sun set, that was when the puppets returned to the mansion. All that they collected went to the garden which had been cleaned up considerably. The puppets were quite efficient and finished in a span of an hour.

Then night came, they returned to their rooms and slept. As for Ming Yue, she had yet to sleep. Instead, she went back to the mansion to explore.

If there were six floors above ground, then was there something below?

She entered the main hall, finding that the banner was gone. With the lights off and the glass roof, the light of the moon shined in. Under that light she searched around, looking for something like stairs that descended. However, even after searching the entirety of the main hall, she found nothing of the sort.

No stairs, no switch, no lever, there were no signs of a lower floor.

"Was that it?

" she thought,

"This place is just a storeroom for puppets? That can't be it.

"

She looked around, scouring every inch of the place. She even went as far as to look through the upper floors, despite knowing that all there was were garden tool and puppets.

Even with her efforts, she could not find any secrets of this mansion.

With the moon directly above her, she left the mansion with disappointment and returned to the cottage. She lit up several candles and sat down with the desk in front of her. With all of the books she found, she never took the time to examine the rest of the cottage.

The shelf that once held all of those research books had only one or two books left. Both of which were novels that spoke of treachery and espionage. The workbench that sat next to the desk carried the same tools as those she found in the past three pavilions.

Other than these two objects, everything else was quite ordinary except for one thing.

"The desk...

", she gazed at it.

Sure, it was fancy but that was it. Touching the wooden surface, it was cold but smooth and the design might've been simple but it was meticulously made. The dimensions made it a prefect fit to place by the workbench and allowed a smooth transition between testing and writing. There was a cabinet under the desk that carried ink and brushes as well as other writing supplies.

Ming Yue looked around fervently but found nothing in that cabinet that had treasures.

Then she spotted it.

Atop the desk was a small jade container that would be used to contain the ink. This jade piece was intricate and engraved with the image of flowers and fruits. It was a fitting part of the desk and had every reason being there. Yet, Ming Yue could not stop but think there was something strange about this ink container.

Giving it a closer look, Ming Yue saw something. It was too small for her to see and she reached out to grab it.

"What?!

"

Grasping it in her hands, she pulled it up only to find that it seemed to be stuck to the desk!