Chapter 1241: The Appreciation of A Major Character
Translator: Lordbluefire
“I don’t mind fighting too, but if I damage these puppets, Teacher Ji, you can’t put the blame on me!”
Sun Mo stated the unpleasant things first.
“These are the masterpieces of Ancestor Wen!”
Ji Han rolled his eyes.
“Is it Wen Xuchang, Secondary Saint Wen?”
Lu Guodong respectfully asked. This secondary saint had died fifty years ago and was publicly proclaimed to be the strongest in terms of the study of puppetry.
“That’s right!” Ji Han revealed. “The puppets he created can be termed as art!”
“No matter how perfect the puppets are, they are just a type of combat tool. They need to be maintained well and cared for!”
Sun Mo’s gaze swept past these puppets. “For a puppet, its control zone is the most important place. If its programming is overwritten, others would be able to control it.”
“The plates surrounding its central control zone have been reinforced, and it’s impossible to breach it easily. But even so, as long as there’s combat, there would be damage, so it’s necessary to change its power component, as well as frequently replace joints that are damaged easily. I can simply target these parts.”
“All puppeteers know this basic concept!”
Ji Han rebutted.
“Alright then!”
Sun Mo shrugged. He lifted his hand and shot out beams of spiritwave light.
Woosh~ Woosh~ Woosh~
The light slammed into the joints of the battle puppet.
The battle puppet charged forward.
Sun Mo’s body swayed left and right. A moment later, another eight clones appeared, bewildering the sight of the puppet. Sun Mo’s real body leaped into the air and climbed up to the back of the puppet.
Sun Mo waved his blade.
A Sword Breaking the Sky, Azure Sky Rend!
Swish~
The wooden blade shone with dazzling light and pierced into the puppet’s neck.
Hu!
Sun Mo drew in a breath intensely before spitting it out.
Divine Dragon Firebreath!
Boom!
A thick pillar of flames erupted forth from Sun Mo’s mouth and engulfed the battle puppet. An instant later, it was burned to the extent that its metallic body glowed red.
“Damn!”
Some of the spectating great teachers shivered from fright. What cultivation art was that? How could he breathe fire? Wasn’t the temperature a little too high?
If this was to strike a human, that person would immediately turn into ashes.
Yet, Ji Han started. This seemed to resemble a move from the Great Desolation Dragon Subduing Scripture.
However, Sun Mo wasn’t a student from the Dragon Subduing Academy. He wasn’t qualified to learn it!
After Sun Mo finished spitting out flames, he aimed another slash at the battle puppet’s neck.
Flame Explosion!
Rumble!
Sparks flew everywhere and the battle puppet was engulfed by flames once again.
Pak!
Sun Mo landed on the ground and slashed upward with his blade.
Prairie Blazing Fire Spear Technique!
Sparks akin to scattered fireflies directly exploded like ignited warheads.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The powerful impact caused the sturdy metallic body of the puppet to tremble violently.
Everyone covered their faces and backed away, evading the heatwaves.
“This divine art is impressive!”
“I initially thought that it was the Great Desolation Dragon Subduing Scripture, but it’s actually a type of spear art!”
“Awesome!”
The audience mumbled to each other and watched the fight in high spirits. Sun Mo’s combat strength truly made him invincible among his peers.
Sun Mo slashed out with his blade!
One Sword Summons Frost, Freezing the Nine Provinces!
Swish~!
Icicles started growing out of the puppet’s body at a speed visible to the naked eyes and eventually caused it to be covered by a thick layer of ice.
Divine Dragon Bullet!
Bang!
Sun Mo punched out heavily at the back-neck area of the puppet, and the armored plating finally blasted apart due to the expansion and contraction because of heat and cold, in addition to a heavy impact. The internal components were now revealed.
The battle puppet turned and retaliated.
Sun Mo stood on the tip of his toes and borrowed the force of his blade to evade. As he lengthened the distance between him and the puppet, he simultaneously clapped his palms together before spreading them out.
A platinum-colored ball of light immediately appeared between his palms.
Ethereal Waves, Nature Manifestation!
Swish~
The ball of light blasted into the head of the puppet and started splitting into streams that entered its internal components area from the hole at the back of its neck.
Boom! Boom!
The main circuitry of the puppet was damaged and its movements immediately slowed.
Sun Mo did three back somersaults continuously and exited the tunnel. “Great Teacher Ji, how is it? Are you satisfied?”
“Enough! Enough!”
Ji Han hurried over to the battle puppet’s side and inspected its damage. He felt so much heartache that he wanted to die.
Why did this Sun Mo attack so heavily?
His original thought was to test out Sun Mo’s combat strength under the situation that the puppet wasn’t damaged. In the end, just after a single round, the puppet was almost destroyed.
“Great Teacher Sun, quickly move on and clear more levels. Don’t stop!”
Everyone urged.
All the examinees this year hadn’t reached this level yet, so they wanted to follow Sun Mo down to take a look.
The prisoners imprisoned there were all roughly at the 7-stars level. It was impossible for these people to re-educate them. They just wanted to take a look and broaden their horizons.
“If these puppets attacked together, their killing prowess would still be very strong!”
Sun Mo wanted to manufacture a group of battle puppets and use them to protect the Central Province Academy.
At the entrance leading to the sixth level, there was a sturdy stone door with a mysterious and complicated-looking starry sky spirit rune lock.
When the examinees saw this, all of them suddenly felt insipid and bored.
“This thing probably wouldn’t stump Teacher Sun, right?”
This type of spirit rune lock had a complicated design. If a grandmaster spirit runist wanted to unlock it, they had to spend one to two years. But as for Sun Mo, it posed no difficulty to him at all.
Sun Mo was very joyful.
Before Ji Han could say anything, Sun Mo already stood before the stone door and placed his palm on the spirit rune lock, infusing his spirit qi into it.
“Stop quickly, that thing will explode if you fail!”
Ji Han jumped in fright.
The great teachers imprisoned in the next level were all felons with great strength. In order to prevent them from escaping, the puzzle was intentionally made very difficult.
For example, this spirit rune lock was something that could only be unlocked once a day. Once the attempt failed, it would release a large amount of spirit qi and trigger an explosion.
And after that, if one still attempted to unlock it that day, they would trigger impactful explosions the moment they touched it.
“Retreat, quickly retreat!”
Ji Han urged. When he saw that no one was moving, he directly grabbed their arms and dragged them backward.
“Why are you in such a panic? Sun Mo is a great ancestor-level spirit runist!”
“You can say that he’s the number one spirit runist in the Nine Provinces!”
‘That’s right, even Bai Wenzhang has to consult him!”
The examinees were all very calm.
As expected, Sun Mo didn’t fail to live up to everyone’s expectations. Three minutes later, the spirit rune lock began to glow with a warm white light. The two sides of the stone door then opened.
“…”
Ji Han was dumbfounded. He would always be extremely careful and deeply afraid of making a mistake when he opened this door. In the end, Sun Mo solved this puzzle in a mere three minutes.
(Are you still a human?)
“Is there still one more level left?”
Sun Mo was preparing to settle everything in one shot.
“Don’t tell me saints are imprisoned down below?”
Pang Tong was impatient and urged everyone to be quicker. But after he walked tens of meters, Ji Han who came to his senses quickly rushed over.
“Wait a minute, we can’t head down anymore!”
Ji Lan stopped everyone.
“Why? We can’t possibly lose a piece of flesh just by taking a look, right?”
Pang Tong was unhappy.
“But you will die!”
Ji Han glared at Pang Tong as he spoke in a voice that allowed no explanation. He hurriedly chased them out. “Don’t you guys want to see a secondary saint? There’s one on this level!”
“What? Really?”
Everyone was shocked as they hurriedly asked. “Which cell?”
“You guys can look at him, but there’s a request. Do not speak with him!”
Ji Han warned.
The number of prisoners on the sixth level was fewer compared to the levels above. The cells were also sturdier, and it was impossible to open them with human strength. Moreover, the visibility here was extremely low.
Luckily, everyone was a powerful high star-ranking great teacher, and their vision prowess was still passable. If ordinary people came in here, they would be no different from blind people.
Everyone continued walking through the damp passageway. A shrill cry of misery suddenly rang out and caused everyone to jump in fright.
“Rascal, I’m going to kill you!”
“Vile creature, I could tell from the first sight that you are not a human. Quickly revert to your true form and accept death!”
“After a long dream, 1,000 years have passed. The bitter river that’s human life is still flowing!”
The same voice rang out, but the words it spoke kept changing.
Everyone finally saw the secondary saint that was imprisoned. However, he had a head of disheveled hair and his gaze was muddy. He looked like a mad man.
“How did he become crazy?” Wu You asked.
“You shouldn’t ask such questions!” Ji Han rebutted.
The secondary saint’s ears moved as he heard the voices of outsiders. All of a sudden, he did a tiger lunge and slammed toward the cell’s gate, roaring at everyone. “What delicious fresh meat. I want to eat all of you!”
Seeing the drool flowing out of the Mad Secondary Saint’s mouth caused everyone to immediately lose interest. “Let us leave!”
The atmosphere here was very tense.
Half an hour later, everyone returned to the first level.
“Teacher Sun, there are two more great riddles. Do you want to go and try solving them now?”
Lu Guodong suggested.
“I’m not going!”
Sun Mo shook his head. “I want to hurry up and finish the mission so I can go home!”
After hearing that Sun Mo clearly had no inclination of solving the great riddles, everyone decided to disperse. Actually, they wanted to watch Sun Mo’s attempt at re-educating a prisoner, but such behavior would plant suspicions on them that they were trying to pilfer his technique. So, everyone was embarrassed to speak of it.
…
Finally, only Sun Mo remained.
He recalled the information he had read before and decided to head to the second level to start with a 4-stars first. Honestly speaking, he truly had no regard for the ‘salted fish’ on this level.
Not long later, Sun Mo found his target.
A middle-aged man whose hair had turned white cowered in the corner and faced the wall. It was unknown what he was mumbling under his breath.
“Liu Xiurong, how long have you been imprisoned here?” Sun Mo went straight to the point. “Do you want me to help you leave?”
“What do you want from me?”
Liu Xiurong turned his head. His eyes were malicious and terrifying, containing an intense killing qi.
“Just fight three rounds against me!”
Sun Mo tossed a piece of cake over.
Liu Xiurong didn’t pick it up. “Are you not afraid of me killing you?”
“Don’t overestimate yourself!”
Sun Mo saw the information about the herbal prescription this fellow owned. It was something passed down in his family and had a very good effect on cultivators at the Body Refinement Realm.
“Right!”
Liu Xiurong laughed malevolently. “It has been a very long time since I saw someone who came here to court death.”
“Let’s fix the time to be tomorrow. Remember to rest well till then!”
Sun Mo spoke.
…
“Bang!”
Ji Han pushed open the door leading to the prison warden’s office.
“Teacher, why did you allow Sun Mo to fight against Liu Xiurong?”
Ji Han was worried. “What if he dies here?”
“Our amazing Great Teacher Ji who has always been ruthless is now showing concern for an outsider?”
Hu Xingjiang teased.
“Eh!”
Ji Han felt somewhat embarrassed, but he still chose to admit it. “I only feel that it would be too much of a waste if someone like him dies.”
The vast majority of great teachers cherished talent.
“He has been imprisoned here for so long. It’s about time for him to witness the glory of the new rising star of the Nine Provinces, so his horizons can be broadened.”
Hu Xingjiang took off his glasses and kneaded his glabella.
“Teacher, do you think it is possible to pull Sun Mo into our camp?”
Ji Han felt that a person like Sun Mo was worthy of making friends with.
“What are our identities? We better not burden him.”
Hu Xingjiang sighed.. “Go. No matter what Sun Mo wants to do, just do your best to make things convenient for him!”