Chapter 163: Puppet Mastery (2)

"Ah, a lonely grave a thousand miles away, with nowhere to confide this desolation..." Ye Lang sighed. Although the phrase did not seem entirely appropriate, it still managed to convey a fitting sense of desolation.

"What should we do now?" Cold Blood Five looked at the "giant" Cold Blood Thirteen and frowned.

"It's fine. Just let me finish studying his diary first, and I think I'll be back to normal soon," Ye Lang said indifferently. To him, shrinking was child's play; he had experienced much more drastic transformations than this.

"You still expect to recover? What if you never do?" Cold Blood Five asked. Her words seemed a bit more numerous than usual at this moment.

"Then so be it, what's the big deal?" Ye Lang replied casually. He felt that such a situation was quite fun, and if certain things were inconvenient, he could just have someone else do them for him.

"You really never take anything to heart!" Cold Blood Five frowned with a hint of helplessness. It seemed that relying on Ye Lang to come up with a solution was quite hopeless; she would be better off figuring something out herself.

Come to think of it, why did she expect him to find a way? Could he even do it?

Cold Blood Five suddenly realized this and shook her head, feeling foolish for placing her hopes on a goofy guy.

With that thought, Cold Blood Five stopped paying attention to Ye Lang, sat down to rest on the side, and prepared to go out later to find help, believing that the Cold Blood Group would be able to figure something out.

As for Ye Lang, he was currently reading Cold Blood Thirteen's diary. He quickly flipped through the pages, memorized the contents, and then curled up on the diary to study it in detail.

After reading Cold Blood Thirteen's diary, Ye Lang was certain of one thing: his guess was correct. Cold Blood Thirteen did indeed practice that kind of alchemy, and it was also this alchemy that had sent him to the grave.

And this alchemy was the most miraculous kind within the craft—puppetry!

Puppetry, as the name implies, is the art of creating puppets. The puppets created not only serve multiple functions, but their power is also immensely formidable.

According to legend, in the primordial era, there were once four great alchemical puppet giants, all possessing the ability to shatter the heavens and destroy the earth, capable of easily leveling a city and holding off hundreds of thousands of troops alone.

Although this was merely a legend, it still illustrated one point: alchemical puppets possessed terrifying might.

However, crafting puppets required more than just knowing how to make them; one also needed to gather materials, build various devices, and finally assemble them into a complete puppet.

This process, he believed, could not be completed in a day or two—no, perhaps not even in a year or two.

Moreover, within the art of puppetry, some devices had already been lost to time. Lacking the technology for these core devices, it was extremely difficult to ever complete a full puppet.

Therefore, alchemists who studied puppetry always hoped that one day they might discover these alchemical devices in ancient ruins. Even if they could not reverse-engineer them, they could use these devices to forge a new puppet.

Of course, the best-case scenario would be unearthing a completely intact puppet... And according to Cold Blood Thirteen's diary, Ye Lang knew he was fortunate enough to have gathered a complete set of puppet components; the device he had been constructing in Ye City was just one part of it.

Back then, fearing discovery, he had chosen to build that device in Ye City. Later, due to the emergence of the Ye family, he had no choice but to relocate his base, though fortunately, he had already completed it by then.

However, because the materials and alchemical arrays used in this device could not be stored in spatial storage items, he had had no choice but to hire mercenaries to handle them.

As for why he did not build it here, the alchemical diary stated that the device required an environment like Ye City's. One of the materials had to be processed at its place of origin, or else it would lose its necessary functions.

Although Ye City was not the only place of origin, back then it was the most suitable location, and no one there would pay attention to Cold Blood Thirteen's existence.

Now, Ye Lang intended to completely dismantle this alchemical device for study. He was not afraid of losing these parts; if there could only ever be one puppet, then he might as well not have it at all.

Mastering the technology within was the ultimate outcome.

Before that, however, Ye Lang needed to read the books in Cold Blood Thirteen's ring to gain an even firmer grasp and a thorough understanding. Only, Ye Lang had not anticipated that there was still another matter to deal with right now.

"Ah...!"

Suddenly, Cold Blood Five shrieked, ran over to Ye Lang, and hid behind his back. Her movements mirrored those of an ordinary, frightened young girl—a sight rarely seen in Cold Blood Five.

"What?!" Ye Lang hadn't paid attention to this; he only wanted to know what Cold Blood Five was afraid of.

"There's a bug!!" Cold Blood Five pointed over there and said.

"What's so scary about a bug?" Ye Lang didn't treat Cold Blood Five like a cold-blooded assassin, but he didn't view her as a normal girl either; he had once watched Cold Blood Five casually sweep away swarms of insects without batting an eye.

"But it's huge..." Cold Blood Five said, looking a bit embarrassed. "And it's disgusting..."

"Just how big can it be? Oh crap, it really is huge..." Ye Lang didn't react at first, but upon seeing the bug, he briefly thought he had encountered a monster before quickly realizing the truth—"That's just because we've shrunk. Pretend they are demonic beasts and kill them. Word is they're edible. The protein content is very high..."

These bugs were actually maggots on the corpse. Because Ye Lang and Cold Blood Five had shrunk, the bugs appeared massive to them.

"Go die! If you want to eat them, you eat them!!" Cold Blood Five had recovered a shred of normalcy. She was quite used to these bugs, but their sudden gigantism made her uncomfortable, and she hadn't expected that the disgusting nature of these bugs would increase exponentially with their size.

"I just said they're edible, that doesn't mean I'm going to eat them. I have no interest in that! Hurry up and wipe out these bugs, don't disturb me," Ye Lang said casually, assuming Cold Blood Five wouldn't actually be afraid of such things.

"No way, you figure out a way to deal with them!!" Unexpectedly, Cold Blood Five refused to budge. If anyone else were to witness this, their jaws would likely drop.

"Deal with what? If Cold Blood Thirteen's body is still here, there are bound to be more, and even larger ones. I don't even know how these flies got in here..." Ye Lang said, showing no intention of taking action.

After a moment of thought, Cold Blood Five grabbed Ye Lang and pulled him along: "Then let's get out of here quickly!"

"Wait, wait, where are we going? I still have things here to deal with!" Ye Lang struggled.

"Deal with what? Let's go outside first and call someone to handle it. You can come back and play here for as long as you want later, okay?" Cold Blood Five began to coax Ye Lang. She wanted to leave this disgusting place, and she was now starting to notice that the air here smelled truly unpleasant.