Puppet Arts
“Senior brothers, I still lack the experience to know what Peach Blossom Grotto is like. What kind of place is it, exactly?”
The senior brother I had asked to make the yellow paper for me answered at once.
“Looks like our Junior Brother Neung hasn’t heard the terrifying stories about Peach Blossom Grotto yet. It’s a dangerous place, one where several lives are lost every year. Why don’t you tell Senior Uncle Jeong you can’t go, now that there’s still time? No matter what, preserving your life comes first.”
The way he had once treated me like a servant rather than a junior disciple of his sect had changed considerably by now. It meant the duel I had just fought before him had left a deep impression on him.
But this time, another senior brother beside him shook his head and cut in.
“I see it differently. It’s not as though you’d be going alone, is it? You’d be with Senior Uncle Jeong, a Foundation Establishment cultivator. If anything, this is a good chance to broaden your horizons. Besides, Peach Blossom Grotto itself was originally created long ago by a senior of our sect so that lower-realm cultivators could use it as a training ground.”
“That was before it was left unattended for too long and the protective formation fell apart. These days, it’s nothing more than a den of fiends. What are Qi Refining cultivators like us supposed to do in a place where even great fiends on par with Foundation Establishment cultivators appear without warning? The fact that none of our brothers here have ever gone there should tell you enough, shouldn’t it? Senior Uncle Jeong is taking Junior Brother Neung along only because he intends to use him as bait to draw out the big fiends,”
As I listened to the two of them, I found myself agreeing with the latter opinion.
“I think so too. I doubt I’d be able to help Senior Uncle Jeong much in a place like that. I’d probably only end up serving as bait to lure in a great fiend.”
The senior brother who had sided with me nodded at once and pressed on.
“Exactly! Why do we walk the path of immortality to begin with? Isn’t it all for longevity? And yet you’d go somewhere where you could so easily lose your life? Tell Senior Uncle Jeong right now that you can’t go to Peach Blossom Grotto. We have to survive, whatever it takes!”
But I shook my head at that.
“Though I am not going because I want to, I have made a promise. How could I break it?”
At last, the other side of him emerged—the true intent behind all his concern for me.
“Hah. And yet isn’t life the first priority? If it comes to that, I’ll go with you to our Shadow Talisman Department’s vice-department head. If we say I need to help you clean up this ruined storeroom, the vice-department head will step in.”
He had not been worrying about my life at all. He had simply been thinking of using my hands when it came time to clean up the mess. As expected, it was a cultivator’s response through and through—one that put self-interest above everything else.
Of course, the fact that he was trying to use me now presented me with another opportunity.
“I’ll take care of this ruined storeroom. I may not be able to rebuild it alone, but cleaning up the rubble should be within my abilities.”
The other man, having achieved his original purpose, stepped back with a dry cough.
“Ahem. If Junior Brother Neung insists, then I suppose there’s nothing to be done. In any case, this storeroom did end up smashed because of the duel between you and Senior Uncle Jeong, so it’s not as though you bear no responsibility. Still, don’t forget this: I opposed your going to Peach Blossom Grotto to the very end.”
After that, he left with the other onlookers in short order. What remained before me was nothing but the shattered storeroom.
In truth, there were all sorts of scattered materials rolling among the broken wooden splinters as well, but not a single person in the Shadow Talisman Department seemed to care about the low-grade supplies here.
They naturally assumed that this, too, would be covered by Senior Uncle Jeong’s contribution points. Perhaps that was why, even before leaving, some of the onlookers casually picked up a few items and took them away.
Thanks to that, I was now free to take any suitable materials I found without concern, but the only thing I cared about at the moment was the wooden pillar of Ghost Wood, which had been grown for well over a hundred years.
I immediately went to find the pillar lying inside the storeroom. Despite all the hardship it had suffered, it was in surprisingly decent condition. Its long years had left it rich in spiritual qi, and that qi seemed to have protected the wood from serious damage.
Still, it was not completely unscathed. The surface was covered in fine scratches, and the lower part of the pillar had snapped off entirely and collapsed, but making a puppet did not require an enormous amount of wood. This was enough for me.
Just as I was about to try to fit the pillar, which was taller than I was, into the storage pouch, I suddenly felt a cold aura rising from the stone slab beneath the broken wood.
Finding it odd, I examined the slab more closely, and the faint lines left upon it revealed that some sort of formation had been inscribed there.
In that moment, one thought flashed through my mind.
Why had a hundred-year-old Ghost Wood been made into the storeroom’s pillar?
The reason wood aged over a hundred years was used as a puppet-making material was that once it reached that age, it became something that possessed a trace of spiritual qi in its own right.
Moreover, Ghost Wood itself—wood marked with patterns like a demon’s face—already held spiritual qi, so once it reached a hundred years or more, it naturally became a much more useful cultivation material than ordinary wood.
And yet to use something that valuable not as a magical implement or tool, but merely as a pillar for a storeroom—that had to mean there was some other reason. This stone slab exuding such an unsettling aura was likely tied to that reason.
So I began to examine the slab at once using spiritual sense, the perception cultivators employed.
As my spiritual energy, stretched long like an insect’s antennae, slowly probed the slab, the slab in turn seemed to sense my energy and began to release an even stronger yin aura.
Whoooosh—
The yin aura it exhaled was so powerful that frost settled over the area around the slab in an instant.
As a result, a thin layer of ice even formed over the hand I had pressed against it.
Still, I paid it no mind and continued my search with even greater persistence. Following the flow of the formation carved into the slab, I pushed my spiritual sense deeper inside.
Then, at some point, I heard something like a faint voice.
“Take me out……”
Startled, I quickly withdrew my spiritual sense and looked at the slab once more.
The tools cultivators made were often bizarre beyond reason, so I began to think again about what exactly this object had been created for.
And then my eyes caught sight of the frost around it, slowly melting away. After studying it quietly, I finally understood what the slab was for……
“Cruel……”
In truth, even when I had not prodded it with spiritual sense, the slab had been steadily emitting a faint aura into the surroundings. That chill had been what allowed me to notice its presence in the first place.
Thinking about it now, the reason there would be such a cold object in a storeroom meant to preserve all kinds of materials was obvious.
They were using the slab’s chill to keep the stored materials from spoiling—wood, medicinal herbs, and the like. Covering the slab with the spiritually charged Ghost Wood pillar had been done because they wanted that cold aura to spread out gently. It was an idea only cultivators could have come up with, an application of immortal arts.
Of course, using a human soul was a little distasteful, but among the cultivators I had encountered so far, this would have been perfectly ordinary.
What was more, the puppet I intended to create would ultimately require an object containing a human soul anyway.
In fact, I had already been worrying about where to obtain such a thing, so perhaps this was, in its own way, fortunate.
At this point, no one would be paying any attention to this slab. That meant I could use it to make the puppet. By an unforeseen route, I had obtained both of the crucial materials needed to create one.
At this rate, I might even be able to try making the puppet tonight.
So I gathered up the few things I needed and hurried to finish clearing the ruined storeroom. Fortunately, the large wooden pillar also fit into Sangsu Jinmyeong’s storage pouch, so I was able to complete the cleanup without much trouble.
On top of that, I took the wood splinters I had gathered to one side and burned them away entirely with Fire Pellet Art, ensuring that no one would be able to tell I had taken the Ghost Wood pillar from here.
But just as I was nearly done burning the last of the splinters, the vice-department head of the Shadow Talisman Department, who had been difficult to see up until now, appeared.
Even if this had only been an ordinary storeroom without any especially valuable items, the department’s property had still been damaged, so as the one in charge, he had no choice but to come and inspect it.
“Tsk. At this point, it’ll have to be built from scratch. That’s what happens when people from nowhere like those Sangsu fellows get involved.”
He finished speaking, then gave me a sidelong glance and went on.
“Wouldn’t you agree?”
I had no reason to like the Sangsu people, of course, but instead of echoing his words, I gave a measured reply.
“If Senior Uncle Jeong were to use his contribution points to build a new storeroom, that would work out quite nicely too. Better yet, perhaps the materials inside it could be filled entirely with Senior Uncle Jeong’s contribution points as well.”
It was not that I particularly wanted to defend Senior Uncle Jeong.
I simply did not like speaking ill of someone behind their back.
Fortunately, the vice-department head did not frown at my answer. Instead, he nodded.
“Yes. That wouldn’t be a bad idea. These days, the amount of usable material has been strangely dwindling anyway, so this would give us a chance to refill everything from the ground up.”
He could hardly have been ignorant of the petty theft taking place all over Hyeondo Sect, not only in the Shadow Talisman Department. And yet he made no move to point it out, which meant the senior cultivators of Hyeondo Sect had no intention of making a serious issue of it.
It was an odd thing indeed: the strength of Hyeondo Sect was visibly leaking away through holes everyone could see, and yet no one seemed inclined to patch them. It was almost enough to make one think the senior cultivators of Hyeondo Sect were all secretly hoping the sect would collapse.
While I was lost in thought, the vice-department head had already set up a formation over the remaining materials, and he spoke to me again.
“You may go now.”
Now that the formation was already in place, there was nothing more for him to do here, so the fact that he was sending me off first was amusing.
Pretending otherwise while speaking offhandedly, he was obviously planning to quietly pocket some of the materials that were about to be replenished as well.
I swallowed a sigh at the state of Hyeondo Sect, as murky and filthy as a swamp of foul water, then bowed to him and took my leave.
◇◇◇◆◇◇◇
Puppet arts…… in the truest sense, they were techniques for creating dolls. Among them, Ghost Wood Human Illusion Method was the art of making a puppet from wood.
I had once seen corpse manipulation techniques that turned humans into jiangshi in the martial world, but contrary to what common folk believed, those techniques did not work on corpses at all. They were used on living people. One would reduce a person to a deathlike, near-motionless state, then temper the body with medicinal materials to control it.
But this Ghost Wood Human Illusion Method was, quite literally, a bizarre art that made wood move as though it were a living being. Naturally, such a thing was impossible through martial skill alone, which was why my interest had been deeply aroused.
So the moment I settled deep within the east room, I took out the materials I had brought and began creating the puppet at once.
“Dry wood becomes bones.
Green bark becomes flesh.
What my hands carve
Is a false body.”
Following the first verse of Ghost Wood Human Illusion Method, I began shaping the Ghost Wood, dense with yin energy. Within the hundred-year-old wood, the blue spiritual qi residing there began to glow faintly, as if asking me to give it a body of its own.
Whether this was an effect created by the method itself, or whether the luminous shape it formed happened to resemble the puppet I intended to make, all I had to do was guide the blade along that light.
Because of that, the hollow wooden body was completed far faster than I had expected. It was time to follow the second verse.
“You who have howled three times.
Soul of the dead.
Now you gain a shell.
And shall walk according to my will.”
As I recited the verse, whose words seemed to hold power in themselves, I placed the stone slab I had cleaned of the grime clinging to its surface into the wooden body. At once, a strange sound burst out.
“Ahhh~”
A human voice. The slab was straining to make itself heard, as though it wanted to announce that it, too, had once been a human being.