Chapter 18 Mechanical Puppet Master

“So this is the conversion ritual...”

Suren earnestly felt the process that brought him extraordinary power. The feeling of continuous surging power being poured into his body made every pore feel relaxed.

The entire conversion ritual lasted about a quarter of an hour before the light of the hexagram alchemy array gradually dissipated. All the materials seemed to have been burned, turning into a pile of ashes devoid of spiritual energy.

“Success!”

Suren was overjoyed.

Because he could see his stats, he clearly saw the changes in his body after successfully "job changing."

All of his body's attributes had increased, including Strength, Perception, Constitution… roughly by 3-5 points each.

But the most exaggerated increases were in three attributes:

“Agility” went from 6 to 24!

“Technique” went from 8 to 35!

“Mental Strength” also went from 19 to 31!

A direct doubling in growth.

And on the skill panel, a new passive skill, [Multitasking], had appeared.

As if peeling away fragments of his soul, merging with that eerie puppet doll, Suren gained some new abilities that seemed to be ingrained in his bones.

The most direct change brought about by the increase in stats was that Suren felt his body was much stronger.

Especially those three significantly increased stats, which allowed him to clearly experience the "extraordinary feeling."

The change in Agility made him feel light as a swallow, with explosive nerve reaction speed.

The increase in Technique made him clearly feel more flexible. The nerve's ability to recruit muscles became extremely strong, allowing him to precisely control every skeletal muscle in his body.

Although the increase in Mental Strength didn't have any specific manifestation, it made Suren feel that his senses had become much clearer.

At this moment, Suren felt like "Superman."

He felt that he could now take on ten of his former selves in hand-to-hand combat!

…

Moreover, the most direct reflection of the stat increase was in the skills on the panel.

The two skills Suren had mastered, [Elementary Firearm Proficiency] and [Advanced Combat Basics], had directly become [Intermediate Firearm Proficiency 334/800] and [Elementary Combat Proficiency 99/300]!

“The increase in Technique can directly amplify the skills I’ve mastered?”

Suren found it slightly unexpected.

He was eager to experience the sensory difference brought about by the increase in skill level, so he drew the flintlock pistol from his waist, and immediately felt the difference.

At this moment, the flintlock pistol no longer felt like a tool, but an extension of his arm. It made him feel that if he were to shoot, he could easily hit the target with a casual aim.

It was an extremely smooth feeling of "no other way but practice makes perfect."

“This is Intermediate Firearm Proficiency? Raising it by one level is so amazing…”

Suren’s eyes sparkled.

Without reaching that height, one could never understand what the scenery at the top was like.

Things he couldn't understand before were now clear.

He even felt that with just a little more practice, he could master the highly technical [Arcane Art: Gun Kata].

But after a little thought, he understood.

The significant increase in Technique also allowed him to control various large and small muscle groups in his body to a subtle degree. With the strengthening of muscle control, whether it was combat techniques or firearm techniques, as long as it was a skill that used muscles, the proficiency would definitely increase significantly.

"Swish~"

The flintlock pistol spun in Suren’s hand, then was accurately holstered.

At this moment, he suddenly thought of something, and with both hands, lightning-fast, he drew two flintlock pistols simultaneously, pointing them at the door and window in the room respectively.

In that instant of trying, a new passive skill was automatically unlocked on the panel.

Suren looked at the changes on the panel and sighed in his heart, “Multitasking... tsk tsk, I even unlocked [Dual Wielding Proficiency]!”

This was a completely new and wonderful experience.

He could clearly feel the sensation of the left and right brains controlling the left and right hands respectively, aiming at two targets. The two thoughts in his brain were clearly divided, and could independently issue instructions to find targets, aim, and pull the trigger.

Although it was also firing two guns simultaneously, the essence was completely different.

One was that both hands "could use" them, the other was "proficiency"!

The increase in combat power was not just a little bit.

…

The inn was not a shooting range, so there were no conditions for live firing.

Suren put away the flintlock pistols.

Although the [Multitasking] skill was also very strong for gunner professions, it was actually an awakening of a directive ability of the "Weird Puppet Master" profession.

Suren turned his gaze back to the wooden box that previously contained the weird puppet, which had a "Weird Puppet Making Introduction" written on it.

The super high increase in Mental Strength and the [Multitasking] passive ability were obviously exclusive skills for puppet masters.

“The road is still long…”

Suren thought thoughtfully.

To become a qualified "Weird Puppet Master," he still had to learn a lot of things, such as… puppet making and maintenance.

The puppet making process was very complicated.

It involved carving, enchanting, and runes… each process required a lot of time to study.

For example, the most basic rune drawing.

Don't just look at drawing some crooked special symbols on the puppet, but the actual road to take was very long. It was like giving you a sketch, could you immediately copy it without a foundation? Subtle mistakes would lead to the failure of the rune puppet or a great discount in combat power.

“It seems that I have to go to the black market again sometime to buy some wood and try to make my own rune puppets…”

Suren was not afraid of difficulties, but rather enjoyed the process of learning new knowledge.

At this time, a novel idea suddenly popped into his mind: “Hey… the material of the weird puppet doesn't necessarily have to be spiritual wood!”

He thought of the scene when Pestoia controlled the puppet swarm to attack Baldy Ivan in the dilapidated underground manor.

At that time, Ivan, who had awakened the [Steel Bones] talent and had the [Adamantine Scale Armor] implant, killed his way in and out of the puppet swarm. Ordinary puppets with cold weapons couldn't hurt him at all.

A large part of the "Weird Puppet Master" profession's combat power was in the puppets.

And the puppet's own attack power was also the most important factor determining victory or defeat.

Wooden puppets were easily damaged, so… what about mechanical puppets using hot weapons?

Suren’s expression suddenly lit up when he thought of this.

The reason for using wooden puppets was for easy control. After all, the lighter the puppet, the greater the room for manipulation. Low-level puppet masters simply couldn't control too bulky puppets…

But it wasn't a thousand years ago!

Old Lingdun was an era of steampunk black technology.

Miniature steam boilers could provide enough power for bulky mechanical arms and exoskeletons, so why couldn't they provide power for mechanical puppets?

Thinking of this, Suren’s thoughts suddenly diverged.

As a transmigrator, he had no conservative concepts. Whether it was technology or extraordinary power, wasn’t it all for getting stronger?

Having seen all kinds of high-tech products in his previous life, many "design inspirations" emerged in his mind at this moment. Since this world didn't have an electronic control system, how about a "Puppet Gundam" or a "Puppet Transformer"?

Suren felt that he had opened the door to a new world, and he could already imagine the scene of controlling not a group of wooden puppets, but a group of combat mechs…

However, turning the ideas in his mind into reality was fraught with difficulties.

It was like turning the technology of making fireworks into a launch rocket. It looked similar in form, but the technical content was vastly different…

First of all, the mechanics were not flexible enough, and even with power units, the steel material was much heavier than wooden puppets.

Secondly, to create mechanical puppets, he needed to master very profound mechanical knowledge and puppet knowledge.

Of course, there was also alchemy, which was the foundation of all things.

There were too many things to learn for Suren, the transmigrator, and everything had to start from scratch.

The amount of knowledge required would probably take hundreds of years to learn.

But… he had the [Death Harvester]!

Suren felt that in the future, he would probably walk a new path completely different from the old-fashioned traditions, and that was – "Mechanical Weird Puppet Master"!