Mysteries of Immortal Puppet Master

“Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit, Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit…” Ning Zhuo called repeatedly, but there was no response.

“Has it already left?” Ning Zhuo’s tone was filled with disappointment.

He still had a pile of questions he hadn’t had time to ask.

“It seems that the state of the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit is really bad.”

In the small room, only Ning Zhuo and his puppet remained.

This was the reward room Ning Zhuo had reached after passing through the Buddhist path.

The information on the Foundation Establishment method had already been transmitted into his mind when he opened the door.

On the wall in front of Ning Zhuo hung many waist tokens.

This was another part of the reward, which he hadn’t claimed yet.

He looked at these waist tokens, his gaze somewhat scattered.

He was still preoccupied with his earlier conversation with the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit.

This conversation had given him a great deal—Ning Zhuo had finally found a way to become the Palace Master of the Lava Immortal Palace.

That was to participate in the palace exam and emerge as the champion, ultimately ascending the throne.

As for the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit pledging itself to him in advance, Ning Zhuo could understand that as well.

After all, the reason the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit gave was indeed quite convincing.

Another major gain for Ning Zhuo was that he now understood the enemy situation.

Just like the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit, after Ning Zhuo had glimpsed the general state of his opponents, he too felt an immense pressure.

His main competitors were all True Disciple Golden Core disciples from super sects.

Among them, Zhu Xuanji was from the royal family of Southern Dou, undoubtedly the most formidable rival.

Although Meng Chong was only at the Qi Refining stage, the Meng family behind him was also an enormous force. Their influence in the Southern Dou Kingdom far surpassed that of super sects like the No-Void Sect, the Soul-Devouring Sect, or the Taiqing Palace.

And Meng Chong’s grandfather was Meng Kui, a Nascent Soul stage cultivator and the current Lord of Huoshi Immortal City, possessing an absolute advantage on his home turf.

“If it weren’t for my Buddha Heart Demon Seal and my mastery of the divine ability ‘Life Hanging by a Thread,’ I wouldn’t even have a place at the table.”

Ning Zhuo sighed bitterly in his heart.

The more he thought about it, the more the pressure mounted.

Although Ning Zhuo had mentally prepared for this, when he truly faced the pressure, he realized that personally experiencing it was completely different from imagining it.

His competitors for the position of Lava Immortal Palace Master stood like towering mountains.

In front of them, Ning Zhuo, who was merely at the Qi Refining stage, was as insignificant as an ant.

How could he possibly cross these mountains?

“My mind is getting a bit chaotic,” Ning Zhuo closed his eyes.

Moments later, he slowly opened them, and the once-distracted look in his eyes had regained its firmness.

The Lava Immortal Palace was a treasure left behind by a great power at the Void Refining level.

When Ning Zhuo decided to participate in this competition, it was already destined: he would face an enormous, nearly overwhelming pressure.

There was no turning back now.

The only thing he could do now was to summon all his courage and face the challenge head-on!

“I now have the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit as an insider, and I know a lot about my opponents.”

“Can I suppress and deal with these competitors the same way I dealt with Meng Chong and the others before?”

Ning Zhuo couldn’t help but wonder.

Since entering the Immortal Palace, he had relied on his exceptional skills, years of accumulation, and a huge first-mover advantage to firmly control the overall situation of this path to the Lava Immortal Palace.

Despite frequent accidents, Ning Zhuo had risked his life several times to stabilize the situation, ultimately making it to this point.

His gains were extremely significant.

“At this point, Meng Chong can be set aside for now; Zhu Xuanji is the main threat.”

“What exactly is the Mechanical Demon General? How did it get lost in the first place?”

“If Zhu Xuanji finds it, can he secure a second-rank position?”

Ning Zhuo was puzzled.

He lacked a comprehensive understanding of the positions and ranks in the Lava Immortal Palace.

“Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit, Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit…” Ning Zhuo called out again.

In the main hall, the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit pretended not to hear.

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit dared not continue communicating with Ning Zhuo.

It had observed many times and knew very well: Ning Zhuo was not an ordinary sixteen-year-old boy!

He was extremely shrewd and had a deep mind.

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit had witnessed Ning Zhuo toy with the four major forces of Huoshi Immortal City like they were pawns.

In its view: Ning Zhuo’s fortune and combat power were both excellent, but his most outstanding qualities were his cunning and strategy.

“He’s just a little monster.”

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit had long made up its mind to minimize its interaction with Ning Zhuo as much as possible.

The more it spoke, the more flaws it would expose.

It might accidentally say something that would allow Ning Zhuo to see through its disguise.

After calling for a while without a response from the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit, Ning Zhuo sighed in disappointment.

He really wanted to stop Zhu Xuanji, but how could he do that?

Zhu Xuanji was a Golden Core stage cultivator with excellent investigative abilities.

But instead of continuing his investigations, he had focused his time and energy on the Lava Immortal Palace.

This was a good thing for Ning Zhuo.

Now, should Ning Zhuo deliberately provoke such a person?

Just thinking about it gave Ning Zhuo a headache.

When facing Qi Refining stage cultivators like Zheng Jian, Zhou Zhenshen, and Meng Chong, Ning Zhuo could barely control the situation through his accumulation and methods.

But when facing a Golden Core stage existence, he immediately felt his own insignificance.

“I am still too weak.”

“Although I am at the peak of the ninth layer of Qi Refining, this level of cultivation still needs to be purified and refined.”

“Ultimately, I’m just at the Qi Refining stage. Even if I advance to the Foundation Establishment stage, there will still be a huge gap between me and the Golden Core stage.”

“Fortunately, I now have the Foundation Establishment method. After I return, I will study it carefully and strive to establish my foundation as soon as possible to shorten the gap with my opponents.”

Ning Zhuo had passed the Buddhist checkpoint and obtained the Foundation Establishment method.

It was time for him to start preparing for Foundation Establishment.

At the age of sixteen, he was already beginning to establish his foundation! This was an enormous achievement.

It had been less than a year since he left the Immortal Palace, changed his cultivation method, and started anew.

His speed of cultivation was simply astonishing, like a firecracker shooting straight up into the sky.

Of course, Ning Zhuo could not have achieved this by relying solely on the rewards and resources of the Lava Immortal Palace.

He had leveraged the Lava Immortal Palace to manipulate several other major cultivation families.

Ning Zhuo had obtained a vast amount of resources from them, allowing him to reach this point step by step.

Now, not only had he reached the peak of the ninth layer of Qi Refining, but he also had a large number of subordinates, controlled the black market, and had many sources of income.

His rise had been so rapid and powerful that he should have attracted attention, envy, and suppression from others.

But the recruitment order, along with the Lava Immortal Palace and the foreign cultivators, had become the main focus of people’s attention.

Ning Zhuo had been overlooked.

This had indirectly created a good environment for his rise.

Unable to find any solutions, Ning Zhuo had no choice but to select his reward for clearing the challenge.

Each identity waist token represented a specific position in the Lava Immortal Palace.

Ning Zhuo casually picked up a waist token. As soon as he took it, a stream of information was transmitted into his mind.

This was the token of the Discard Room’s master.

In the Lava Immortal Palace, there was a massive Discard Room filled with a large number of waste materials and junk.

These waste materials often required specific methods for proper disposal and could not be casually discarded.

Moreover, during the disposal process, they could be melted down and remade or recycled.

The Discard Room managed these things.

Of course, Ning Zhuo wouldn’t choose this position. He put the token back.

After careful selection, he finally chose the highest-ranking token—a master token for the medical hall.

Once he made his choice, the Medical Hall Master token automatically recognized him as its owner, instantly making him the Medical Hall Master of the Lava Immortal Palace.

This was a second-rank position!

Ning Zhuo could now sense the entire medical hall and could oversee its normal operations.

Besides the Hall Master, the medical hall also had positions like medical officers and medicine boys.

As the Hall Master, Ning Zhuo had certain rights to appoint and dismiss these individuals.

In fact, the main reason Ning Zhuo had painstakingly nurt

ured the Ning family’s cultivators, especially his fellow students who had switched to the new cultivation method, was for this.

As long as these people reached a certain standard, Ning Zhuo could appoint them one by one to positions in the medical hall.

If Ning Zhuo was dissatisfied with them, he could dismiss them with a single thought.

Dismissal was much easier than appointment.

For appointments, the relevant cultivators had to meet the standards of the Lava Immortal Palace, but dismissals had no such requirements.

“Hmm?”

While holding the Medical Hall Master token, Ning Zhuo suddenly sensed that a new subordinate had been added under him.

Upon taking a closer look, he discovered that it was someone he was quite familiar with.

“Ning Xiaohui?”

“How did she become a medical officer in the medical hall?”

“How long has it been since she switched paths, and she’s already accumulated so many merits and contributions?”

Ning Zhuo’s eyes showed a thoughtful expression.

“Even considering the strong support of the Ning family’s main branch, her speed is still incredibly fast. This shows that Ning Xiaohui has been going through a tough time recently. She must have been madly completing tasks and accumulating merit and contributions.”

“What would happen if I just dismissed her from her position now?”

This thought flashed through Ning Zhuo’s mind.

In the Lava Immortal Palace.

Ning Xiaohui stepped into the Immortal Palace and arrived at the medical hall.

At this moment, her fists clenched, and her face was full of excitement and joy.

“Finally, I have finally been promoted to a medical officer in the medical hall!”

“I’ve finally achieved my goal.”

“This will be a brand-new starting point for me.”

“From now on, my efficiency in accumulating merit and contributions will far surpass that of others.”

“Hahaha!”

“My decision to switch paths and come here was absolutely the right one!”

“This is a whole new world, and with my status as a trial disciple, I have a far greater advantage than those Golden Core cultivators.”

“My efforts over this period were not in vain, and everything was worth it!”

Ning Xiaohui deeply felt that she had been greatly favored.

With her identity as a trial disciple, she was receiving treatment as one of the Lava Immortal Palace’s own people.

As for people like Zhu Xuanji, even though they were at the Golden Core stage, they were still considered outsiders.

For example, the position of medical officer in the medical hall was not something outsiders could select.

At this moment, Ning Xiaohui was in the medical hall, and thanks to her position as a medical officer, she had been assigned a mechanical crafting desk.

“Let me see if there are any new tasks to help me earn more contributions.”

When Ning Xiaohui looked closely, her eyes widened in shock.

“This is?!”

She saw a mechanical creation.

It was a mechanical creation that had left a deep impression on her.

The Golden-Blooded Battle Ape!

The Golden-Blooded Battle Ape, Dasheng, had blocked and tormented her many times.

It had repeatedly stopped Ning Xiaohui at the first three checkpoints, making her exploration of the Immortal Palace a humiliating experience, leaving her unable to hold her head high among the group of cultivators who switched paths.

And now, this former nightmare, the very thing that had tormented Ning Xiaohui, had become the subject of a repair task assigned to her.

Not long after, a transmission circle appeared in front of Ning Xiaohui, and after a moment of fluctuation, it delivered the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape to her.

When she saw the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape on the desk, her expression was extremely complicated.

Then, she revealed a fierce look.

Ning Xiaohui gazed at the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape, but in her mind, she saw Ning Zhuo. She gritted her teeth and said, “Good, this is just perfect!”

“I will fully repair you and restore you to your optimal state.”

“Then, you will become the biggest obstacle for those people, and I will make them suffer the pain they inflicted on me a hundredfold.”

The more Ning Xiaohui spoke, the more excited she became, her eyes gleaming with fervor.

From the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape, she saw a glimmer of hope for revenge.

Ning Xiaohui focused all her energy and began examining the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape’s condition.

The Golden-Blooded Battle Ape had sustained numerous injuries, some of which were quite severe.

Ning Zhuo had recently used it to forcefully break through the final checkpoint of the Buddhist path, leaving it in terrible shape, with some of its wounds so large that its internal mechanical components were visible.

After observing for a while, Ning Xiaohui furrowed her brows deeply.

“The injuries to this Golden-Blooded Battle Ape are so severe that it’s becoming harder for it to fully unleash its true power.”

“Ning Zhuo must have taken advantage of this. No wonder he was able to defeat this mechanical creation.”

Ning Xiaohui didn’t understand much about the internal workings of the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape.

In fact, even Ning Zhuo himself didn’t fully grasp the intricacies of his mechanical creation.

“Even though I don’t understand its structure, and I don’t have its blueprint, that doesn’t stop me from treating it and repairing it.”

“My Celestial Ice Jade Hand is just that unreasonable, hahaha!”

Ning Xiaohui took out a bottle of pills, removed the stopper, and downed a dozen pills in one go.

She then sat cross-legged, madly refining the medicinal power on the spot, bringing herself to peak condition.

She fully activated her innate talent, freezing the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape inside a massive block of ice.

Ning Xiaohui pushed herself to the limit, channeling her talent with such intensity that blood slowly oozed from her seven orifices.

Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit: “…”

It silently grumbled: “Really, Ning Xiaohui, do you have to push yourself this hard?”

Although the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit fully understood the reasons behind Ning Xiaohui’s actions,

As a bystander, the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit also knew very well: the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape was Ning Zhuo’s mechanical creation, his most important lieutenant in controlling the Lava Immortal Palace’s trials, without a doubt.

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit couldn’t help but wonder: “If Ning Xiaohui finds out in the future that the Golden-Blooded Battle Ape she painstakingly repaired belongs to the person she hates the most, what will her reaction be?”

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit couldn’t imagine such a scenario and couldn’t help but feel a sense of anticipation.

At this moment, its expression changed.

Through the Lava Immortal Palace, its gaze pierced through layers of space and fixed on Zhu Xuanji.

Since obtaining the Mechanical Demon General, Zhu Xuanji had been focused on its repair work.

Currently, the severed left arm of the Mechanical Demon General had already been reattached.

To achieve this, Zhu Xuanji had worked day and night, busy to the point of exhaustion.

When the royal family’s response reached his hands, Zhu Xuanji was momentarily dazed before snapping back to reality.

Back then, in order to recover the true scriptures, Zhu Xuanji needed to investigate the little ape from the past.

So, he had specifically written to the royal family for help—he needed a portrait of the little ape once it had grown up.

Now, the royal family’s reply had arrived.

Zhu Xuanji unfolded the letter and saw that it was still encoded with the royal family’s unique encrypted script.

That wasn’t a problem.

In his mind, Zhu Xuanji quickly translated the encrypted text.

And then, the image of Yuan Dasheng in his adult and old age emerged in his mind.

“Yuan Dasheng?!” Zhu Xuanji froze instantly.

He stood there like a statue, completely motionless.

But in his mind, a storm was raging, his thoughts churning uncontrollably!

The Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit saw this scene and excitedly stood up, its four claws pressed firmly to the ground.

Although it couldn’t understand the contents of the royal family’s response, just seeing Zhu Xuanji’s drastic change in expression was enough for it to make some guesses.

“Find Ning Zhuo, find Ning Zhuo!”

“He is the real culprit, the mastermind behind it all.”

“Catch him, hurry and catch him.”

“Hahaha!”

Sensing that Zhu Xuanji was about to capture Ning Zhuo, the Dragon Turtle Fire Spirit was filled with excitement, its face brimming with joy.

It was incredibly eager, impatient to witness the scene that was about to unfold!

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