Chapter 602 - 248: Overhearing Red Moon Dew, Arriving at Tingtao Sea

Chapter 602: Chapter 248: Overhearing Red Moon Dew, Arriving at Tingtao Sea

"My good sir, that’s where you’re wrong!"

The storyteller snapped his folding fan shut and tapped it against his palm. "Spiritual Artifacts may be powerful, but true skill lies in wielding them with mastery."

"However, since we’re on the subject of the wonders of Spiritual Artifacts..."

He deliberately dragged out his words. "Do you all know what was truly the most breathtaking thing in this tournament? It had to be the one known as the Eight Great Vajras from Thousand Mechanism Valley!"

At the mention of a new story, the surrounding clamor instantly died down. Even the cultivator who had just been heckling perked up his ears.

"Now, the title ’Eight Great Vajras’ is a curious one. At first, you’d think it refers to eight people."

"But you’d be mistaken. It actually refers to the Thousand Mechanism Chief Seat, who carries a full eight Vajra Puppets with them."

"And these Vajra Puppets are no small matter. They are complete with all Five Elements and endowed with the Three Talents."

"No matter who they face in Magical Combat, there’s always one puppet that can strike at their opponent’s critical weakness!"

Someone in the crowd, hearing this for the first time, gasped.

"Old man, don’t try to fool us!" a clear female voice called out from a private room on the second floor. "If they’re truly that powerful, why did they only make it to the semi-finals?"

But the storyteller just smiled, raising a hand to delicately twirl his mustache. "An excellent question! And what do you suppose happened?"

"As it happened, on the day of the semifinals, the Eight Great Vajras ran into a real monster."

As he spoke, he lifted the cup of Cloud Mist Tea from the table, blowing on the surface before taking a slow, deliberate sip.

A cultivator in the audience immediately tossed a Spirit Stone onto the stage. "Come on, old man, tell us! Who was this monster?"

Many other cultivators joined in, urging him to continue.

With a sweep of his wide sleeve, the storyteller gathered the dozen or so Spirit Stones that had been thrown his way, his demeanor suddenly becoming much more business-like.

He promptly set down his teacup. "He is the one and only Direct Disciple of the current True Monarch Lv Shuang, the former Sect Leader of the Cloud Sea Sword Pavilion. His Dharma Name is Heavenly Sword True Man."

"He possesses a Lifebound Flying Sword, and its origins are even more extraordinary."

"It was forged from a Curious Stone left by an Extraterrestrial Meteorite. It belongs to none of the Five Elements and cannot be defined by the Three Talents, which is precisely why it couldn’t be countered by the Thousand Mechanism Puppets."

Most in the crowd were astounded by this revelation.

Yet, someone else in the crowd demanded, "Even if it’s hard to counter, why not just have all eight puppets swarm him? It’s not like that Heavenly Sword True Man has three heads and six arms. Could he really fight one against eight?"

Hearing this, many people nodded and chimed in with the same question.

"Ah, my friend, you’ve hit on the very heart of the matter!"

With a sharp SWISH, the storyteller unfurled his fan again. Miraculously, it now displayed an ink and water painting of a puppet.

"Thousand Mechanism Valley has an exclusive secret art called the Divine-Splitting Technique. It specializes in transforming one’s Divine Sense into fine threads to meticulously control a puppet’s every single move."

As he spoke, his fingertips danced, tracing a web of fine, white threads in the air to demonstrate.

Then, his tone shifted. "Unfortunately, the cultivator known as the Eight Great Vajras is still young. At present, they can only control three puppets simultaneously."

"Furthermore, Sword Cultivators are masters of offense. He shattered the Protective Profound Light in an instant, leaving no time for a drawn-out battle with the puppets. And so, they were regrettably defeated."

Xiao Chen had heard of this as well.

The path of puppetry had two main schools of thought: one that relied purely on numbers to win, like Qiu Fanghui, and one that focused on meticulous craftsmanship and quality over quantity.

’To be honest, he’d never quite understood the second approach.’

’If you’re going down the path of puppetry, you should obviously play to the strength of numbers.’

’But hearing today that this was a secret art of the Thousand Mechanism Valley, he figured there must be something special to it after all.’

’In the future, if I ever run into a Nascent Soul True Monarch from Thousand Mechanism Valley, I’ll have to pay special attention to their puppets.’

"Hmph, Eight Great Vajras? All hype and no substance, I say!"

The same cultivator from before piped up again, his voice loud and critical. "They’re just relying on their sect, having elders help build their puppets."

"A single one of those puppets is worth hundreds of thousands of Spirit Stones. Who could possibly afford to build that on their own?"

"Frankly, both them and that Thunderbolt Spear guy are just relying on external objects. That’s not real skill."

His arrogance and disdain for everyone else immediately drew the ire of the surrounding cultivators.

Someone immediately challenged him, "You look down on this one, you scorn that one... so why don’t you tell us who you think was the most skilled in the tournament?"

Others immediately chimed in. "Yeah, that’s right! You tell us who has real skill!"

Xiao Chen looked over curiously. The man was wearing an unbuttoned black vest that exposed his chest, and a pair of tightly-cinched linen pants.

Listening to the questions from the crowd, he raised a fist the size of a sandbag.

He jerked a thumb toward his own chin. "The most skilled of all, of course, was..."

"...the Head Disciple of the Celestial Spirit Sect and the runner-up of this tournament—Master Kaiyue!"

’Well, I’ll be,’ Xiao Chen thought. ’I really thought he was going to say himself.’

The crowd was not pleased. "That’s hilarious! Your Celestial Spirit Sect only got second place because of a lucky draw, wasn’t it?"

"If you’d run into Heavenly Sword True Man earlier, you would’ve been knocked out just as fast!"

Xiao Chen had now pieced it all together. The Cloud Sea Sword Pavilion had taken first place in the tournament.

Thousand Mechanism Valley and the Mojie Sect placed third and fourth, respectively.

Which meant the Cangming Immortal Sect had come in dead last, in fifth place.

After that, no one in the Spiritual Communication Pavilion was willing to concede a point, and soon they were all shouting and threatening to come to blows.

Xiao Chen had no interest in these squabbles, so he turned and left to continue gathering his Spiritual Materials.

The Moshi Market was quite large, and it was filled with a complete assortment of shops.

He spent the afternoon visiting seven shops in a row and had successfully collected most of the common Spiritual Materials he needed.

"When you add it all up, this Magic Altar really isn’t cheap," Xiao Chen murmured.

He sighed, carefully sorting and putting away the 119 different Spiritual Objects he had just acquired.

These supplementary materials alone had cost him a staggering eight hundred ninety-three thousand Spirit Stones.

At this rate, he calculated, the final cost would certainly surpass one million.