Chapter 8: Visitor
Li Jiang was one of the seventy-three Sword Servants. Every day, he was responsible for handling Su Chen’s daily meals.
As per usual, Li Jiang awoke and began to prepare Su Chen’s breakfast, placing it on the breakfast table.
He was just about to carry it over when he found that Su Chen was already walking towards him, having left his room from the side door.
“Sect Master,” Li Jiang said respectfully.
“Mm,” Su Chen murmured in response. He sat at the table, picked up the bowl of porridge, and began to drink it down. Then, he said something strange: “So eating food will also increase how long it lasts, hm?”
Li jiang was totally caught off-guard by this sudden rhetorical question. He had no idea what Su Chen was saying and was just about to retreat when Su Chen said, “Go and call the others. I want to hear about the internal situation of the sect today.”
“Yes, sir.” Li Jiang left with his orders.
A moment later, Li Chongshan and the others arrived. They reported to him everything that had occurred since the sect was established.
Even though Su Chen spent most of his time in his room focused on his research, he would still try to catch up on the present situation of the sect, as well as mention a few needs. This was quite normal.
This time, however, for some reason, Li Jiang felt that Su Chen was a bit tamer than usual.
After everyone had chatted for a bit, Chu Yingwan finally could endure it no longer and said, “Sect Master, are you alright?”
“Oh? Why would I not be alright?” Su Chen chuckled.
“Sect Master doesn’t seem that energetic today,” Li Chongshan said.
Su Chen continued to laugh. “Is it just my energy levels that are different?”
“It seems......” Cheng Tianhai stared at Su Chen suspiciously. “How come it seems like you got weaker all of a sudden?”
Perhaps only Cheng Tianhai would utter something like that directly.
Su Chen didn’t mind. He asked with some curiosity, “So you can sense it too?”
Anyone else probably would have understood what Su Chen was hinting at, but Cheng Tianhai nodded his head with great sincerity. “Yes, your aura seems a bit weaker.”
Su Chen agreed. He rubbed his chin and said, “Yes, the aura is indeed a bit weaker. If there was some way to make up for this deficit, even if didn’t actually have any real effect, that would be fine.”
Li Chongshan and the others were stunned when they heard what he was saying. “Sect Master, what is going on?”
“Aiya, my energy levels are really quite low. I feel exhausted just from talking with you all,” Su Chen sighed as he looked down at his body. “I still extracted a bit too little blood and so I have no way of maintaining it for very long. Oh well; I might as well dissipate it for now.”
As he spoke, he stood up and waved his sleeves, disappearing immediately. All that remained was a long robe, which fluttered to the ground.
Everyone present was stunned. Shi Kaihuang quickly walked over and picked up the robe, finding drops of blood sprinkled on it.
He was the first one to react, and he chuckled, “It seems like this brat has created yet another fun invention.”
The rest seemed to come to their senses, as another Su Chen walked out from the same side door, this time with a much more imposing appearance. No traces of the earlier weakness could be seen.
“You developed a body-splitting technique?” Everyone was pleasantly surprised.
“It’s not really a body split. I just created a small human puppet, is all.” Su Chen walked over and sat down, explaining how he had created the puppet to everyone.
Upon hearing that Su Chen had developed something like that, everyone was both excited and mystified.
Cheng Tianhai said, “In other words, if I were to gather all the blood in my body and place it on that…… what was it called again? Origin Substance? Origin Substance, then you could create another one of me?”
Su Chen replied, “It won’t have your full strength - probably closer to half. However, though the body will be yours, the consciousness will belong to whoever created the puppet.”
“Oh……” Cheng Tianhai fell silent. This was a bit difficult for him to accept.
Chu Yingwan picked up the robe and asked, “Is it impossible to use Origin Energy to create these illusory clothes?”
Su Chen replied, “You can, and it won’t consume any additional energy from the puppet. The power of the puppet comes from the individual’s blood, which is very difficult to recover once it is consumed.
Once the human puppet ran out of power, it would disappear.
Su Chen had tried many different methods to deal with this problem, including using Origin Stones or even personally infusing it with Origin Energy, but the effects weren’t that great. The absorption of energy was proportional to the strength of the main body. In other words, if the puppet only had a tenth of the strength of the main body, it could only absorb up to one-tenth of the Origin Energy the main body could absorb.
On the other hand, the puppets were able to absorb 100% of the energy in foods with Origin Energy attributes.
The bowl of porridge from earlier had greatly increased the duration which Su Chen could maintain his shape for.
However, Su Chen could not possibly feed the human puppet with actually precious medicinal ingredients. It was much more worth it to give the human puppet a few more drops of his blood instead.
If the human puppet were to carry out some missions on the outside, however, and it had no way of replenishing its energy due to special conditions, it was possible to use such methods to prolong its existence.
What Su Chen had confirmed, however, was that no matter how much energy was replenished, it was impossible for the puppet to remain forever.
A puppet was a puppet and could not take the place of the main body. Its sole purpose for existence was to be used as a tool, not to become the same as the main body.
Even so, human puppets were extremely valuable.
“So what you mean is, as long as we store up some vials of blood and bring some of this Origin Substance with us, we will be able to use it if we run into danger to create a substitute which can not only fight for us but also assist in our escape and create confusion?” Li Chongshan quickly grasped the situation.
“That’s precisely the case,” Su Chen said.
The human puppet was useful either as an aide in battle or in escape.
Even though creating a puppet that possessed significant combat abilities and could last for a long time required lots of blood, these ingredients could be prepared ahead of time.
As long as they extracted some blood when nothing was really happening and built up a stockpile, they could even create an army of puppets if they had enough Origin Substance.
However, Su Chen did not agree with this kind of tactic.
Origin Qi Scholars’ blood contained Origin Energy, and each drop was filled to the brim. Any losses would take time to cultivate back.
Constantly extracting blood could greatly increase their ability to prepare a powerful clone, but it would also mean that their main bodies would suffer from chronic weakness and fail to advance, resulting in their strength stagnating and not advancing.
In addition, this Duplication substance was like the Shadow Origin Substance - it was incredibly difficult to come by in this world.
Su Chen did not have a way of making this technique common. He could only create an Origin Conducting Tool and use it to slowly build up a stockpile.
Using these things as lifesaving tactics in dire straights was fine, but it was not actually worth trying to create an entire army of puppets.
The Duplication Conducting Tool became the Boundles Sect’s fifth reward. These rewards gradually began to accumulate, and as time would go on, Su Chen would invent even more creations, and the members of the sect would continue to make contributions. Eventually, these rewards would become the Boundless Sect’s abundant treasures.
As per usual, Su Chen sat in his room, performing his research.
The Death’s Shadow of a Youth walked in from outside.
“Master!” the Death’s Shadow knelt as he spoke.
“What’s the matter?” Su Chen continued to stare intently at the Thunder Spirit Totem, not even turning around.
“We have a guest.”
“Who is it?”
“Shi Mingfeng.
Upon hearing Shi Mingfeng’s name, Su Chen frowned, but he eventually raised his head.
Su Chen chuckled, “This guy is really quite fast at following a scent. Bring him to the guest entertainment area; I will meet him there.”
A brief moment later, Su Chen appeared at the guest entertainment area. Shi Mingfeng chuckled, “Congratulations, Sect Master Su! You are sure to raise a generation of outstanding talent!”
“Old Shi, why are you being so polite with me?”
Su Chen and Shi Mingfeng could be considered old friends. Even though this guy’s indecisiveness during the raid of the Demonic Emperor’s castle was a clear indication that he was very unreliable, at the very least he had not betrayed Su Chen. Su Chen was not the most ethical individual either, so he did not take it much to heart.
Shi Mingfeng sighed with relief in his heart upon seeing that Su Chen didn’t seem offended. He said, “I cannot be lacking in courtesy. After all, I came this time to make amends.”
“Make amends?” Su Chen was momentarily taken aback. “You mean……”
“Sun Mo,” Shi Mingfeng replied.
Upon hearing Sun Mo’s name, Su Chen understood a bit more.
After falling silent for a moment, Su Chen said, “I do in fact need an explanation about Sun Mo.”
Shi Mingfeng said, “It’s nothing, really. You know that since the Immortal Temple is a large organization, the relationships between individuals become quite complex. With so many people, some infighting and scheming is common. We see this on a country level, and the same is true for any large organization. The matter with Sun Mo is the most obvious evidence of this fact.”
Su Chen nodded. “I guessed as much.”
The matter with Sun Mo was basically a problem stemming from the Immortal Temple’s internal fighting. Su Chen might have been unclear about the reason, but he definitely knew what the source was.
The same went for his relationship with Ma Renze, Sang Zhen, and the others.
There really was no novelty under the sun, and having this matter be thoroughly explained was not that interesting anyways.
However, it was hard for Su Chen not to be a bit frustrated considering that these internal conflicts had managed to reach Su Chen.
As such, he said, “No matter what you say, this situation has made things very troublesome for me. Even though I managed to trip up Sun Mo and destroy his credibility, it wasn’t because of my evidence but because of my meritorious deeds. There are quite a few people who are probably guessing at the relationship I have with you, so it seems that our cooperation must end here.”
Su Chen mentioned cutting off their cooperation to avoid any rumors and further stimulating Long Sang Country, as well as because he now had his own members. There were many things that he would not need the Immortal Temple’s support for in the future.
As such, now was a perfect time to end their cooperation.
Shi Mingfeng hurriedly said, “Brother Su, don’t be in such a hurry and please listen to me. An Sili was the one who arranged all of this, and the Immortal Temple is very unhappy with his actions. We are already moving to deal with him.”
The Scarlet Hand An Sili was originally Ma Renze’s superior and an old enemy of Shi Mingfeng’s. Since Su Chen clearly stood on Shi Mingfeng’s side, he was naturally in opposition to An Sili. With him making trouble behind the scenes, Sun Mo’s reason for involvement became apparent.
Shi Mingfeng came all this way to find Su Chen in order to seek help in dealing with An Sili.
The Immortal Temple’s higher-ups were structured as such: the highest level of authority was the Council, made up of seven Godfathers. They were distributed evenly across the seven human countries, and each country’s Godfather had three Chairmen under him.
Scarlet Hand An Sili was one of those Chairmen. He was quite a high-status individual amongst the Immortal Temple.
It was very difficult to take any action against a person like this even if they made some kind of mistake.
This time, however, An Sili’s sending Sun Mo to make trouble for Su Chen had broken an unspoken rule.
After all, Su Chen’s current status and identity were not low, he had brought countless benefits to the Immortal Temple, and he could bring even more in the future.
Under these circumstances, An Sili was basically cutting down the organization’s own money tree, offending a large group of people - destroying a person’s path to wealth was almost as bad as killing their parents.
As such, many members of the Immortal Temple began to think of how to get rid of him.
However, An Sili had very deep roots in the Immortal Temple, and he had many friends and diehard followers. Dealing with him was not going to be easy. The most important issue was that, as soon as infighting broke out, the killing could grow more intense and the conflict could become a large-scale one. This was something none of the Immortal Temple’s higher-ups wanted to see.