Late that night, Dyon sat up cross-legged at the head of the large bed, not having bothering to find clothes.

Dyon smiled at Ri laying naked beside him, laying her head on his lap. Dyon gently stroked her hair before focusing on the task at hand, holding a ring in his hand and projecting his mind into it.

‘The stone puppets are at the first celestial level right now, but that’s not good enough…’

Dyon was painfully aware that he didn’t have the ability to bring the stone puppets back to their peak, but he had to do something.

From his understanding, puppets had two main facets to them, in terms of the arrays. The first dealt with their power source, while the second dealt with special abilities outside of weapons.

In terms of the first aspect, it referred to what would basically be the puppets energy cultivation. Some of the best puppets had the ability to replenish themselves using pseudo-cultivation techniques that pretty much amounted to energy collecting arrays.

As for their special abilities, this often had to do with the wills or intents they could wield. This heavily relied on the abilities of the crafter, making a puppet creation inextricably linked to the skill of its creator. The best of crafters could even infuse their puppets with daos of their own… but that was a level Dyon couldn’t even fathom.

‘It’s impossible for me to repair the daos of these puppets. I wouldn’t even be able to infuse an intent to them unless I wanted to pay a heavy price. But, since they still have a power level at the Celestial Stage, would they have access to a rudimentary domain?’

Dyon quickly analyzed the puppets using his master’s memories.

In terms of energy cultivation, there were varying types of energy one needed to learn to sense in order to step into the next level. After mastering the ability to sense that energy, you would only need to flood your meridians with said energy type.

For example, essence gathering, the step after meridian formation, required the mastering of essence energy. This was probably the most abundant energy form in the universe and what was found within common and profound stones.

The next form of energy was saint energy. However, to learn to sense this energy, stepping up at least one of your wills to the level of an intent was necessary.

After that was the energy that resided in the puppets right now: celestial energy. This energy type was reserved for those of the celestial stage and could only be grasped if you mastered what was called a rudimentary domain. This was also known as an aura.

Auras were called rudimentary domains because they were a step down from a true domain. Auras allowed you to project your will out into the world, essentially forming reality to your will… However, this was at a severely handicapped level as compared to a true domain. This cap includes range of effect as well as power.

This memory intrigued Dyon about the idea of true domains, but it seemed even Dyon’s master didn’t have much knowledge of them… which either meant they were rare even within the dao formation stage, or you needed to be at an even higher cultivation level in order to learn one.

Regardless, the mere fact the puppets had celestial energy might not necessarily mean that they had access to an aura…

‘A human might need to understand an aura in order to master celestial energy… But, a puppet only needs a puppet master to have an aura in order to inscribe a celestial energy gathering array…’

Dyon’s meaning was simple. A puppet didn’t need an aura. But, in order for a puppet master to inscribe an array with the ability to collect celestial energy, they themselves needed an aura.

Dyon pondered on this. ‘This means there are a few possibilities for why this puppet is at the first celestial level instead of being at the ninth…

‘The first possibility is that the celestial energy gathering array is damaged. As such, it can’t hold more energy than what’s required for the first level…

‘The second possibility is that the array is still damaged, but it does affect it’s ability to hold energy… rather, it’s lost the ability to actively gather energy.

‘The third possibility is that the array was still perfectly intact, but this universe has such a lack of celestial energy that it was impossible for the puppets to accumulate energy faster than they lost it…’

Dyon thought of many other possibilities, but, it seemed like these were the most likely.

In terms of energy stones, they started from the common level, before going to the profound, to saint, to celestial, before ending in dao stones. As such, since dead kings valley had had dao stones, how could it have not had celestial stones? .

This meant that if there was no issue with the array, Dyon could use the celestial stones in his possession to make up for this universe’s lack of celestial energy density. But, if there was a problem with the array… the puppets were doomed to continue dropping in level until Dyon mastered an aura.

‘I don’t have a god level constitution so my body matures much slower than them. Madeleine has already started energy cultivating, and Ri can start whenever she wants to now. But, I have to wait until I’m 21…’

Dyon was the most frustrated of anyone about this. In fact, he was confused about it at the beginning too. What exactly matured when you turned 21?

Over time, he had learned it was your meridians. Starting cultivation earlier, for those of lesser talent, was a viable choice. This was because they maintained enough plasticity in their thoughts to cultivate and gain understanding. This ‘plasticity’ could essentially be considered your talent for cultivating, understanding wills, intents, auras and so on. By starting earlier, they could take advantage of their prime cultivation years, however, this was with a trade off of weaker meridians… This meant that it was unlikely they’d open much more than 54 meridians.

However, those who were of higher talent didn’t have to worry about this loss in plasticity. Therefore, they could wait until their meridians fully matured before cultivating…

That being said, those with god level constitutions and faith seeds were different. Their powerful bodies matured their meridians much quicker than average, which gave them a competitive advantage.

Those who didn’t have such bodies, like Zaltarish and Dyon, had to wait until they were 21 to begin. The interesting part was that Thor had waited until he was 21 as well, despite having a faith seed… However, this was a special case. Because he was born to a lower branch, he didn’t find out he had a faith seed until it awakened itself.

‘If I want to energy cultivate faster, I need to find a way to forcefully mature my meridians…’

Dyon sighed. Because of his ancestry, he knew that even when his meridians matured, his energy cultivation talent would be lacking…

‘Now is not the time to worry about this. I’ll find a way. First, let’s see if I can increase the strength of these puppets.’

𝑖.𝘤ℴ𝘮