Inside a well concealed valley, there was a waterfall. In front of the waterfall, there was a young boy wearing black robes. On the robes, on one side, there was the hidden Dragon Academy Insignia and on the other side of the chest, there was the letter’s Ji. This young man was Curo. “Seems like the entrance to the Legacy Area is hidden behind this waterfall.”

As he murmured that to himself, he sized up the gigantic waterfall in front of him. He used his Qi sense to inspect it several times but every time, he came up with nothing. If h didn’t have the map and book on hand, he would have thought he came to the wrong place. After examining the map once more, he grit his teeth and flew through the waterfall. When he arrived on the other side, what greeted him wasn’t a stone wall but rather a huge cave.

Seeing this cave, Curo smiled as before, his Qi sense had told him that there was only a wall here. As he cautiously lowered himself to the ground, he glanced around in vigilance. In his hand, there was the Guan Dao Halberd, ready to attack or parry on a moments notice. As he walked deeper into the cave, eh was surprised to discover that on the walls, there were several fist sized glowing stones that lit up the entire cave. After half and hour of cautious walking towards the interior of the cave, he met gigantic gates.

However, what made Curo frown was that these gates were covered in Restrictive and Protective Formations and unless he managed to solve them, he would not be able to proceed. “So this is the first test set up by Chen Cang.” As he thought that to himself, he sat down cross legged as he studied the various Formations in front of him. A day trickled by, then two as he stared at the Formations with now bloodshot eyes.

His fingers were lightly moving on his knees, in a strange rhythm. Suddenly, he smiled as his eyes turned to one specific location on the door and he jumped up. His finger was covered in a milky white glow and when he pressed that finger onto that specific spot on the gate, all the restrictions vanished. The gate slowly flung open and Curo hurriedly flew in.

When the gate closed behind him, he was greeted by two legions of puppets. They were divided so that each legion occupied one side of the cave and left on long corridor for Curo to traverse. What made Curo’s mind tingle was that each and every one of these puppets was at least a Saint Realm Puppet. In the beginning, Curo had been afraid that the next test would be to either find these puppets weaknesses or to fight them but seeing as none of them moved, he relaxed slightly.

However, he still held his vigilance. Curo sat down cross legged to cultivate. For the past two days, his mind had been working overtime and his mental strength was currently exhausted.

***

On a starry island, there were several humanoid figures standing in front of a giant screen. One of them, that had short red hair and muscular build, said, “His understanding of Formations is quite good. In the past countless years, there have been several hundreds of people that had managed to arrive at the gate but none of them had managed to get past it. Not only were their comprehensions of Formations severely lacking, they lacked the brute strength required to blast away all of the Formations in one go and pass the gates.” The other seven figures nodded their heads.

The red haired man then threw a glance towards a slender man that was in the back of the room. He then asked, “Sweeper, how do you evaluate this person?” All of the gazes turned towards the slender man in the back and the man with refined features gave a smile and said, “He will succeed.” Hearing this, the eight were shocked but before they could ask anything, the man continued with an absent gaze, “Before Master passed away, he told me this: “Countless years from now, a young man with pitch black hair, azure blue eyes and a GuanDao halberd will arrive at the gates. He will need only a few days to pass the first test, a week to pass the second and one hour to pass the last.””

He then turned his gaze towards the screen and continued, “After Master failed the Heavenly Tribulation, he locked all of you in this Starry Island while I was by his side when he went to visit the Heavenly Seer. When the Heavenly Seer gave this reading to him, Master was extremely happy that his Legacy wouldn’t fall to ruin and into worthy hands.”

He then closed his eyes and said one last piece, “So, look at him taking these Trials. This person will be our new Master.” Hearing this, the eight exchanged a glance in bewilderment. However, their eyes were glued to the screen. The slender man then opened his eyes by a slight margin and thought to himself, “Although, Master told me to follow you, if I don’t accept you, then you can only dream about subjugating me.”

With that thought, he closed his eyes once again.

***

When Curo reopened his eyes, he let out a deep breath. He had been in meditation for an entire day to recover his mental strength. However, to his surprise, he had made advancements in his Soul Force. He gave a smile and mumbled to himself, “Seems like these Trials also serve as a tempering ground.”

With that, he stood up and with a resolute expression walked to the end of the long corridor filled with thousands of Saint Realm Puppets at either side of him. When he reached the end, he stood before an altar. On the altar, there was a single jade slip. When Curo was glancing around, looking for any instructions on what to do, he suddenly saw a slender figure lean on one of the pillars. Curo immediately gripped the GuanDao Halberd in his hands as his face turned grim. He could not see through the cultivation of this person.

The slender young man only opened his mouth and said in an indifferent tone, “The second Trial is to bind every single Puppet down there. In the jade slip, the Art Master created and used to dominate the Myriad Races Realm is recorded. You have three days to study the jade slip and get started on binding all of these Puppets.” Hearing this, Curo was startled as he glanced at the jade slip. However, just as he wanted to ask the slender figure something, he was already gone. Seeing this, Curo could only sigh as he looked towards the jade slip. When he picked it up, he sent in a strand of his Qi.

Instantly, information entered his head. He sat down cross legged, with his eyes closed as he started looking through it and comprehending it. Days passed, one, then two, soon when the third day was closing in, Curo opened his eyes and a flash passed through them. He stood up with a solemn face and walked towards the nearest Puppet that stood in the rows. He opened his palm and an intricate symbol appeared on it, hovering above his palm.

Without another word, he slapped out his palm and the symbol flew towards the Puppet. As it landed on the Puppets forehead, it sunk into the Puppet. A moment passed and light flew out from the Puppets eyes and Curo immediately felt a connection appear with the Puppet. With but a thought, the Puppet raised it’s hand and lowered it. After a few more tests, Curo nodded his head and sat down cross legged in front of the Puppet. He then spread out his arms wide and one symbol after another started condensing in the air surrounding him.

When over a hundred Symbols had appeared in the air surrounding Curo, his face was pale as sweat trickled down his forehead. With trembling hands, he opened his eyes and a determined look was in his eyes as he changed his hand sign and the symbols flew forward, each penetrating the foreheads of the over a hundred Puppets that were in front of Curo. One after another the Puppets eyes started producing beams of light one after another. Seeing this, Curo gave a smile and immediately closed his eyes to recover the Soul Force that the Symbols were produced from. These over a hundred Puppets all stood silently. From the jade slip Curo learned that the Puppets were classified into three categories. The first were categorized as “Shell Puppets”.

They were Puppets like the Sovereign Puppets that Jing Fang and the rest refined. You needed to be in full control of the Puppet for it to work. The next next stage were “Puppets”. They were Puppets that had some form of intelligence. By using your connection to the Puppet, you can give them simple commands like move forward, fight, defend and etc. They would follow them without any objection and would do their hardest to carry out the order.

The last classification was “Spiritual Puppets”. Those were the Peak of Puppets that had a will of their own and given enough time, they would also acquire extensive amounts of knowledge and expertise. The jade slip had also said that every Puppet had a sliver of a chance of producing ones Will over long enough of a time, however, only on in a billion had the slim chance of being able to accomplish such a feat. Even Chen Cang, the person known as the Puppet Prodigy, had only managed to produce nine such Puppets over the countless years he had been alive. Each of these Puppets had the strength equivalent to the Heavenly Sovereign Realm, however, they never tired, they never felt pain, they never retreated when the order was given. Although, they had a will of their own, they could not escape the constraints of following their Master’s order.

In the room, there were exactly two thousand Saint Realm Puppets. 200 were at the Heavenly Saint Realm, 600 were at the Earthly Saint realm and 1200 were at the Saint Realm. Curo had currently refined only a hundred of the Saint Realm. It took him half an hour of immersed meditation to recover the used Soul Force. When he felt that his Soul Force was recovered and had even advanced, he started producing new Symbols according to the method described in the jade slip. He did not have much time to waste here. If he were away for too long, there might be several complication and problems that would arise.

The biggest problem would be when the Nine Clans discovered it and would start pushing the Ji Clan. If he stayed away for too long, it wouldn’t be weird to come back to only ruins of the Clan. Thinking about this, he remembered what Long Heng had told him. He didn’t wish to come back and discover everyone he cared about to be dead. Yes, Jing Fang and Qing Zhao were still at Clan however, if the Nine Clans decided to go all out, even those two would b hard pressed to survive, much less look after the Ji Clan.

As he was pressed for time, he continued pushing himself to the limits. The cycle continued, as he condensed the most Symbols he could, he bound the Puppets in front of him and then quickly recovered, then repeated the action.

***

Seeing Curo brand the Puppets one after another, the red haired man frowned, “Why does it seem like he is rushing it? Between each branding, he spend only half an hour to recover his Soul Force before he continues. He doesn’t spend any time on pondering over the [Puppet Army Art].” The rest of the seven all nodded their heads. Collectively, they turned their gazes towards the slender man leaning on the wall.

When they saw him look at him with narrowed eyes, they saw that he was thinking of the same thing. However, as the slender man had not made a move, none of them made a move either. The slender man however thought to himself, “I wonder what makes him so hard pressed for time?”

***

In Curo’s office at the top of the Roaming Dragon Division, there were six people. Jin Zhao, Xie Li, Ji Long, Mo Zheng, Jing Fang and Qing Zhao. Ji Long said with a grim face, “Seems like they had obtained the information that Curo had left. Only a few days after he left, they have already surrounded the Ji City with all of their armies and over two hundred Saints stand at the helm.” Jing Fang and Qing Zhao nodded with grim faces as well.

It was unknown how they obtained the information but it seemed that someone had noticed that Curo had left and they immediately decided to lay siege to the City. What infuriated both Jing Fang and Qing Zhao was that neither of them could move a muscle. Once either of them made a move, the Nine Clans would use it to push for the Final War to start. Although, the Alliance of the Five Academies nearly doubled their number of Sovereigns and Saints, they were not half as unified as the Nine Clans were. If it came down to a fight, the Alliance was not the least bit confident in being able to fight the team work and cooperation of the Nine Clans. These Nine Clans had always been very close knit. The teamwork between the Sovereigns of the Clans were several times higher than the rag tag team of theirs. As much as they hated to admit it, they were currently inferior to the Nine Clans. Jin Zhao then asked with a grim face, “What are we going to do? If they succeed, not to mention us all dying, it would impact Head Ji’s Dao heart immensely. It would not be strange for him to fall into insanity.”

Hearing this, the already grim faces of the people in the room turned even grimmer. In the end, Ji Long was the most accepting as he sighed, “All we can do is wait for Curo to produce another miracle.” Hearing this, Jing Fang, Qing Zhao and Mo Zheng gave a bitter smile. Jin Zhao however gave a confused look as he didn’t understand what they were talking about. Mo Zheng then explained to both Xie Li and Jin Zhao, “In the past two years, Curo has produced one miracle after another. All we can hope in this hopeless situation is for Curo to produce another miracle like the times before.” Jin Zhao and Xie Li gave a bitter smile as the both of them understood what they meant.

The current situation was extremely grim for them and all they could hope for was for Curo to produce a miracle.