Martial World (Web Novel)
chapter-137

…

…

…

Wooden Puppet Lane was built into the face of a mountain. There were altogether 12 caves, and each could be opened by themselves. These caves were created by Xiantian masters cutting through the mountain themselves; one could still see glaring sword marks.

Wood Puppet Lane was filled with wooden puppets; the deeper one went, the more formidable these puppets would be, and the more there were.

These wooden puppets were from one of the seven inheritances of the Seven Profound Valleys, the masterpieces of the Puppet Faction. The Puppet Faction was a very mysterious faction within the Seven Profound Valleys. Sky Fortune Kingdom’s Seven Profound Martial House did not have any of these factions’ cultivation methods or secret techniques, so they had never had much exposure to it.

Seeing the crowds of wooden puppets increase, Lin Ming did not hurry to attack. He hadn’t even taken out the Penetrating Rainbow spear. After he had reached a location with more than 20 puppets, Lin Ming rushed in, unarmed.

Cha! A wooden puppet aimed a club at Lin Ming. The weapons that these wooden puppets all used were completely made of wood, such as wooden clubs, or wooden sabers. A wooden weapon may not have seemed like a very dangerous weapon, but even so, if one was pounded by a wooden club or saber, they would still be dealt a crushing blow and vomit blood from a severe wound.

Lin Ming watched as a wooden club came at him and waited until it was just in front of him. He closed his eyes and gently pushed with his toes. His body flickered backwards half a step, and as a result, the descending club that would have smashed Lin Ming’s nose was just avoided with not too much or too little distance.

Whiz! Another wooden puppet cut towards Lin Ming’s waist with a wooden saber. This time, Lin Ming leapt into the air. His body floated in the air, and because of inertia, he floated backwards. Another wooden puppet cut towards Lin Ming’s waist from behind, and this attack didn’t seem as if it could be evaded. But then Lin Ming gently waved his sleeves, and his body became like a leaf that was blown away by a gently breeze. It seemed as if he completely violated the rules of physics, and he appeared two feet to the side, dodging that hidden saber by just a hair’s width once more.

Swish swish swish! The wooden puppet continuously attacked Lin Ming, but Lin Ming did not counter. Instead, he dodged the attacks from the wooden puppets as if here was taking a leisurely stroll through a park.

There were more than 20 puppets, but only 7 or 8 were able to attack Lin Ming at the same time. But, these 7 or 8 puppets had very scary attacks. Their moves and combinations interwove with each other, and there almost wasn’t an angle to dodge.

However, Lin Ming was able to mysteriously avoid all these attacks. It was as if the puppets did not have a weapon in their hands, but instead a fan. Lin Ming was like a light feather; each time the wooden puppets brandished their weapons at him, the wind of the passing weapons would blow him away!

This was the concept of wind that Lin Ming had comprehended!

A waving fan would never be able to touch a floating feather, and like this, a wooden puppet’s weapon would never be able to each touch even the hem of Lin Ming’s robe!

“Wonderful!”

“Very good!”

“Come again!”

Lin Ming wholly immersed himself in the depths of the concept of wind; this was the first time that he had applied the ‘Golden Roc Shattering the Void’ movement ability to actual combat!

“These fellows are just a bit too weak!”

As Lin Ming thought this, his body rose like a Roc, rising several dozens of feet before he landed on a cliff and flew towards to depths of Wooden Puppet Lane!

………………….

At this time, outside of Wooden Puppet Lane, the deacon senior apprentice brother was still in shock, as he stared unblinking at the true essence stones in the heart of the major killing array.

Every array formation had an array heart. This was often where the array was supplied with energy from.

The puppets of Wooden Puppet Lane were able to self-repair and regenerate, but this regeneration required the consumption of true essence stones in order to power it. There were some abnormal individuals, like Ling Sen and Ta Ku, who would cause a quick consumption of true essence stones after entering Wood Puppet Lane. Sometimes, just looking at this wasteful sight made the deacon senior apprentice brother’s heart hurt deeply.

But Lin Ming had already gone in for such a long time, yet he had only consumed a small number of true essence stones. Obviously Lin Ming was struggling in dealing with these wooden puppets, and had only managed to take down a few.

Realizing this, the deacon senior apprentice brother let out a soft sigh of relief, “Fortunately, Junior Apprentice Brother Lin isn’t that abnormal. Indeed, it seems that he still isn’t able to challenge the eleventh level of difficulty of Wood Puppet Lane in such a short time!”

“Junior Apprentice Brother Lin is just too impatient. His strength isn’t high enough yet for him to jump straight to the eleventh level of difficulty. But in this Wood Puppet Lane killing array, if the difficulty is too high, one could be easily injured, or might even die!”

“I estimate that another half incense stick of time will pass before Junior Apprentice Brother Lin decides that he cannot last in there any longer, and comes out to change the difficulty to the tenth level…”

The deacon senior apprentice brother picked up the array disk, and waited for Lin Ming to come out and ask him to change the difficulty. But after waiting half an hour, there was no news of his exit.

“What do I do?” The deacon was a bit confused. The array heart was still only consuming true essence at a very slow speed; he even suspected that Lin Ming had encounter some troubles inside and been killed by the wooden puppets.

“What’s going on? Is it possible that Junior Apprentice Brother Lin is hiding in some corner of Wood Puppet Lane? Was that the reason that he had opened the eleventh level of difficulty?”

……………………………

At this moment, Lin Ming had already reached the deepest depths of Wood Puppet Lane. Here, the wooden puppets’ strength was at a much higher level, and they were also large. What was most peculiar though, was that the surface of their bodies was a strange dark red, as if they had been dyed in blood.

Facing so many more advanced puppets, Lin Ming felt an intense amount of pressure. As he dodged the wooden puppets’ intense attacks for a long time, he was beginning to gasp for breath even with the support of the ‘True Prima Chaos Formula’.

“Almost there!” Lin Ming had practiced his movement for almost an entire hour. He felt that this was enough, and thinking this, he turned his hand and extracted the Penetrating Rainbow spear from his spatial ring.

Holding the spear in both hands, Lin Ming’s eyes flashed with a cold light. The countless tiny units in his body began to synchronise their breathing to the same frequency, as his thick true essence began to shake like a mountain. In that moment, his imposing aura instantly erupted!

“Total Annihilation!”

Boom boom boom boom!

With the formidable strength of Altering Muscle’s cultivation level, combined with his fiercely vibrating true essence, there was an explosion of sounds in succession, as the Penetrating Rainbow spear swept out, and the puppets were all sent flying backwards!

“Oh! Not dead?”

Lin Ming found that besides the puppet that had borne the majority of his attack and shattered to pieces, the other puppets had only fallen to the ground, and were beginning to crawl back up.

“Good resilience!”

No one understood the terrifying destructive power of ‘Flow like Silk’ more than Lin Ming. Back when he was at the Viscera Training stage, a single strike from his spear was able to turn a thick stone column dozens of feet high into nothing more than crumbled rock. Now that his strength had increased even further, he might even be able to split apart a hall with just a few spear moves!

But now that he had struck at these wooden puppets, only one had died!

“The more resilient they are, the better. Today I will enjoy this fight!”

After officially stepping into the Altering Muscle stage, in addition to reaching the Large Success of ‘Golden Roc Shattering the Void’, Lin Ming really needed a battle to examine his own strength and also allow his body to adapt to the change in his true essence and physical strength.

Bang bang bang! Wooden puppets began to blow up one after another! The Penetrating Rainbow spear was like a purple black dragon that was churning in the ocean waves.

“Haha, fun!”

“Come on, more!”

Lin Ming flourished Penetrating Rainbow with grandeur. Each spear move was imbued with the ‘Flow like Silk’ concept, and every hit would cause a wooden puppet to explode into pieces!

In fact, what Lin Ming did now know was that when other martial artists entered Wood Puppet Lane, most could not even injure these puppets; they could only knock them down.

Even if it was Ling Sen, who had such an abnormally overwhelming combat strength, he could only cut apart a wooden puppet with his sword; he simply could not be like Lin Ming, whose every spear thrust would cause a wooden puppet to burst into fragments.

The wooden puppets could repair themselves, but this repair required the consumption of true essence stones as the energy source. If a wooden puppet was knocked down, it would only be slightly damaged, and be able to repair itself with very little energy. Even if they were cut apart by Ling Sen, it wouldn’t require too many true essence stones to repair.

But when Lin Ming had shattered them his spear, this was truly a tragedy. Not only did the repairs take time, but the consumption of true essence stones would be terrifying for a long time afterwards!

…………………………

Outside Wood Puppet Lane, the deacon senior apprentice brother was still waiting for Lin Ming to come out and lower the difficulty to the tenth level. As he casually glanced at the true essence stones in the array heart, the scene scared and dumbfounded him; he could only helplessly look on at the true essence stones’ energy levels plummeted!

The true essence stones began to change at a speed visible to the naked eye. Starting from its original lustrous crystal like appearance, it gradually turned a dull white, and then after some time, peng! It exploded!

The array would automatically replace it with a new true essence stone, but the result was still the same. In less than half an incense stick of time, another true essence stone exploded!

What… what was happening!?

Even if Ling Sen was here, the consumption rate would not be so high!

Was it Lin Ming? No… impossible!

Absolutely impossible!

The deacon senior apprentice brother looked at the true essence stone at the center of the array heart and constantly swallowed as he panicked. Although logic told him that it was impossible for Lin Ming to be so abnormal, the truth was already placed in front of him.

This… this, just what the hell is this?

The deacon senior apprentice brother cried in his heart. With so many true essence stones being suddenly consumed, he simply could not find a good explanation.

……………………….

“Mm? Where’d they all go?”

Lin Ming had been enjoying destroying all the wooden puppets, but now the originally threatening and aggressive wooden puppets had been reduced to just 2 or 3. They were just as dangerous as cats now, and the rest that still hadn’t shattered yet were missing arms and legs.

“This Wood Puppet Lane sucks, is this everything? It’s the eleventh level of difficulty!” Lin Ming was speechless. In his mind, this eleventh level of difficulty was unworthy of the name.

If the deacon senior apprentice brother knew Lin Ming’s thoughts, he probably would have wanted to smack his head against a wall and kill himself. The puppets of Wood Puppet Lane could repair themselves after they were destroyed, but Lin Ming had exploded them with his spear, and turned them completely into scattered pieces. This repair would just take a long time!

“Although I couldn’t fight to my heart’s content, I’ve about gotten a good grasp on my current strength. Right now I still might not be able to compare to Zhang Guanyu, but I should absolutely not have a problem entering the top ten of the Ten Thousand Killing Array rankings. First I’ll participate in this coming Ten Thousand Killing Array assessment, and take the Heavy Profound Soft Spear before planning my next move.”

Lin Ming put away his Penetrating Rainbow spear, and walked out of Wood Puppet Lane.