Chapter 194: Master of Puppets

"Kid, you're not bad, I really admire your bravery and how you beat old Shu. But you'll need a few years to be able to match me, so why not give up and spare us both some precious time?" the man said.

"Thank you for your kind offer," I said as I clasped my hands, "But I always admired people who used puppets, so this is an opportunity I wouldn't want to miss."

"Very well then, admire all you want! Kill!" the old man said as the massive puppet once again stood behind him, and the other two with swords charged me as fast as they could.

Instead of running away, I moved forward dashing with a wicked smirk on my face as my eyes began analyzing the puppets using divine sense.

'No defensive measure, only offensive power, several mechanical arrays, there is a self-destruct option. But it seems that the whole mechanism is crude and can be overwritten. Good thing I had those ready!" I slapped my hand on my side bag and pulled a special talisman.

I then slapped one hand on the other with the talisman in between, then extracted the imprint within it using my own Qi.

The first puppet's sword went cleaving towards my head, to which I ducked as I twisted around myself then rose up with my hand pulling out the talisman's essence and inscription. With a single slap to the puppet's face, I jumped up from the second puppet's sword, and while In the air, once again slapped on the talisman's face and extracted the symbols again then slapped them on the second puppet's head.

Not stopping for a single moment I charged the puppet master who frowned at the sudden 'slowness' of the response of his assault puppets.

The massive defensive Puppet held up both of its fists and flung them down at me aiming to crush me in place.

"Golden Scripture, Doppelganger!" I chanted and immediately, three identical copies of me manifested. Me who was in the middle jumped back while the other two jumped away from the incoming fists. Yet the moment the fists crashed into the ground, the two other copies jumped forward to the fists and they too slapped the same inscriptions on the puppet's fists, while I jumped towards the puppet's forehead and slapped the last inscription I had on me on its head. I jumped backward and into the middle of the arena, and then called back the copies that fused back into me.

Leaving me all alone standing and grinning.

"Seems like your acrobatic acts were good for the audience to watch, but don't think that those explosive inscriptions are enough to bring down my puppets." The man said.

"Oh, who said I wanted to destroy such good material. Puppets," I said as I pointed at the man, "Beat him up."

Not a moment later the puppets that were slow and had slow responsiveness to their master, jerked their eyes turned red, (courtesy of me, because why not, it's just a single inscription to make their eyes red, and it's scary for the user to have their own puppets turn against them, so why not increase the fear with some style).

The master was stunned to see the massive puppet that he used to protect himself actually daring to punch at him," Stop!" he shouted.

But the puppet didn't even care and swung its fist at the old man.

He immediately pulled a shield token that grew into a massive wall-like shield. But the giant puppet easily uprooted the shield from the ground and slammed the shield into his former master causing him to tumble on the ground and be thrown off the arena. But sadly, he didn't touch the ground as he easily teleported up.

The two offensive puppets' turn was now up, as I said, "Chase him down," and they flew towards their master with swords at the ready.

'Dang, it must really suck to have your own puppets after your life, well your fault for not creating better defensive mechanisms.'

"HOW ARE YOU ABLE TO CONTROL MY OWN PUPPETS WITHOUT REFINING THEM!" the cultivator shouted as he dodged as best as he could.

But seems like relying too much on his puppets caused his own agility and acrobatic skills to fall behind as many sword cuts were now appearing on his face.

"Damnation! Enable Self-destruct!" the puppet master said. But the Self-Destruct mechanism never worked.

"Oh, you can't blow them up, you lost all control. But on the other hand, I can," I said and had one of the puppets that were too close to him explode.

The detonation of a good puppet like that pained me a little, but the pain the owner received was double that. Especially since it was both physical as the explosion was strong enough to knock him straight into the ground and disqualify him, and secondly because he lost one of his puppets.

Ruggedly standing up, he pointed at me, and was about to say something, then sighed and had his hand rest defeatedly at his side.

"Can I ask you how you did that?" the puppet master said.

"Oh, easy, think about it like this, people refine the material to become their own, I take control of the very inscription that makes the puppet act. So you can own the steel, but without the thing that makes the puppet function then the puppet isn't technically yours."

The puppet master nodded to me and said, "I admit defeat, not the combat, but in knowledge, you're a really strange man. I wish you progress swiftly."

"Aren't you gonna take your puppets?" I said as I disabled the inscriptions and had them dissipate. 

"Thank you, though as one defeated my property should belong to you," he said.

"Thank you kindly, but I have my own puppets." I smiled at the man who nodded back at me and absorbed his puppets back into his inventory.

Once again, another resounding victory followed by even higher cheers.

As I walked down, Meng Hao looked at me, with half a frown "You're really full of surprises. I can't wait to battle you.'

'With that Main Character Aura seeping out of you, I'd rather we never end up fighting… I'll get murdered.'

"So do I, meng Hao, I wish you good luck in your next battle," I said and went back to my simple humble spot in the random field on the ground.