Chapter 80: Go Dig in the Dirt!

“The loss is so significant…” Zheng Yichen muttered as he looked at the Soul in his hand, now less than half its original size. The Purification didn’t just eliminate the Negative Energy; it definitely took some Soul Power with it too. After all, the two were too closely linked. Zheng Yichen’s rough handling surely caused extra loss.

Still, free from the stain of Negative Energy, the quality of the remaining Soul had greatly increased. The amount just couldn’t meet Zheng Yichen’s needs, though. With further effort, he could ‘refine’ it even more. Thinking this, Zheng Yichen glanced at the Souls stored in Frostmourne… Huh? Why were there so many more Souls now? Could a war be happening somewhere?

He scratched his head. This world wasn’t peaceful. Wars happened often—like one small country fighting another today, or one nation clobbering another. The scale varied from a few hundred people to several thousand, even tens of thousands.

Just imagine, if this sword appeared on such a battlefield, how many Souls could it harvest directly?

He extracted another portion of Souls from it, then dismissed the summoned Frostmourne. Although Souls were accumulating inside, they hadn’t reached a massive amount yet. Taking too many at once would weaken the sword’s power.

After spending more time kneading his “meatball,” Zheng Yichen stared at the final product in his palm. After multiple refinements, this compressed Soul Ball’s color was nearly a translucent white. Of course, some greyish tinge remained that he couldn’t remove no matter what.

This was his current limit. To squeeze out more of the Negative Energy contained within, Zheng Yichen felt he would need more than twice his current power.

“Hey, this should be enough anyway.” Zheng Yichen scratched his head with an oddly strange expression. Using so many Souls at once now seemed pretty messed up when he thought back on it… Tch, whatever. They weren’t conscious Souls anyway; they’d become Wraiths. It’s fine to use them… I did release that one conscious soul, after all.

This compressed and refined Soul… Zheng Yichen estimated it could probably make five to eight Intelligence Cores for Alchemical Puppets. Or maybe he could make a set of Rose Maidens?

He rubbed the tip of his nose. Well, that could wait until he found higher-quality Souls later. The one in his hand, even after compression and refining, was only of medium quality at best. It still had a way to go before reaching high quality.

Using such average ‘material’ would be a bit of a waste of a good ‘idea.’ Good ideas should be saved for the most suitable materials or conditions.

“Hmm… Mass-produced Alchemical Puppets… Yes! That’s it!” Alchemical Puppets—aside from things like Flesh Golems, clay golems, granite, or iron lumps—the puppets made from Alchemy and Engineering could basically be understood as Otherworld robots.

And among Human Form robots, what could be more classic than the T-series Terminator? Although making a bunch of big burly men didn’t quite match his aesthetic, he didn’t have a better reference choice at the moment. He definitely couldn’t make a batch based on his own image either. That would feel even weirder. Seeing mechanical puppets that looked exactly like his pre-transmigration self moving around daily… that would be hard to accept.

So, Alchemical Puppets with his own likeness were better reserved for his own personal use.

Regarding Alchemical Puppet creation, preparing the core was the most important part, but other aspects still required careful attention. For example… the Alchemical Puppet’s design.

Zheng Yichen had looked up and recorded Blueprints from the Library. However, knowledge in this Otherworld differed from his previous world. Because of the extremely convenient power called Magic, many structural aspects of the Blueprints seemed a bit… contradictory. At least, that’s how it looked to Zheng Yichen.

This was also based on Magic, that very convenient power! How convenient? Making a skeleton move—wasn’t that convenient enough? Using scientific power, who knows how many extra parts you’d have to load onto it. Even more convenient was that it wasn’t limited to skeletons. You could carve a doll and use Magic to temporarily ‘animate’ it.

Precisely because of this, many parts of this world’s Engineering Blueprints didn’t seem precise. But the reason they could be kept secret was that the secrecy involved the core system of Magic. The structures on the Blueprints, while simple, only functioned properly when paired with the relevant Magic.

In short, Zheng Yichen found such Blueprints completely unacceptable. They relied way too much on the power of Mana. With just a bit of improvement, the same amount of Mana Capacity could produce much greater effects. All it would cost him was some modification time. So, why settle for a worse option when you could have better?

Since a major overhaul was needed, the skeleton was the first thing to improve. After all, the skeleton was the main framework of an Alchemical Puppet and the biggest limiting factor for its range of motion. Since he was making a Human Form, of course he had to base it on a human skeleton, but it couldn’t be exactly the same.

Take the head, for instance. The maximum a human could turn was about ninety degrees left or right. A full one hundred eighty degrees… very few people could do that… and those who could would probably scare people to death on certain occasions.

An Alchemical Puppet could remove that limitation, aiding in quick observation of the surroundings. Additionally, the rotation range of arms, wrists, and the like could all be adjusted to achieve more efficient use of the limbs.

This design was different from the hasty Mechanical Dragon. Zheng Yichen spent a full two days Magical Modifying and perfecting the original Blueprint. As long as the framework was solid, minor flaws could be ignored under the power of Magic. Besides, Zheng Yichen was striving for perfection now and had already reached a point where he couldn’t improve it further given his current abilities.

Once made, these Alchemical Puppets could handle some combat while also performing more delicate work—the latter being what Zheng Yichen needed most right now. He needed some ‘assistants’ capable of assembly line work. If the Alchemical Puppets were too clumsy, they’d be pointless. At least, before Zheng Yichen’s modifications, the Alchemical Puppets from the Blueprint would basically look like small Giants… With fingers like radishes, what delicate work could you expect from them?

Work, work… Go dig in the dirt and plant sweet potatoes!

With some personal bias, Zheng Yichen first made an Alchemical Puppet based on his own image, thoroughly modifying and perfecting the simple, old-style Alchemical Puppet he used to have.

“Feels pretty good…” He tried controlling this Alchemical Puppet, which didn’t have its Disguise Skin yet. Its agility far exceeded the previous one, and the power it could exert was several times greater. This was already a leap forward in improvement. This would do for now.