And so, Huang Xiaolong stayed in Du Xin and Deng Guangliang's mansion and started cultivating.
For the time being, Huang Xiaolong was in no rush to take over and control the Sky Magi Sect. At times like these, it was never a good idea to rush, even if he wanted to. Otherwise, it would only make matters worse, causing him to fall flat on his face instead.
Huang Xiaolong needed to first restore his spiritual force after branding the soul marks on Du Xin and Deng Guangliang, it had consumed most of his spiritual force.
Seven days passed quickly.
Over the last seven days, everything went on as usual within the mansion.
Due to the stern warning from Huang Xiaolong on the first day, none of the servants dared to speak of him to outsiders or have hushed discussions amongst themselves. Thus, Huang Xiaolong's arrival escaped the attention of Chen Xiaotian and Geng Ken of the Sky Magi Sect.
This gave Huang Xiaolong time to cultivate the Ancient Puppetry Technique and Soul Mandate in peace.
Seven daysㅡit was enough for Huang Xiaolong to fully recover from his overdrawn spiritual force, and it even became stronger, which made Huang Xiaolong notice a crucial point. Cultivating to restore spiritual force after exhaustion actually helped his spiritual force to grow faster.
This discovery made Huang Xiaolong elated.
With his spiritual force abundant again, Huang Xiaolong entered the third layer of the Linglong Treasure Pagoda and approached the sacrificial altar. On the altar, the nineteen supreme looking giant puppets still remained seated in the same meditative pose.
Although Huang Xiaolong had reached the first level of the Ancient Puppetry Technique, giving him the ability to brand other living beings with a soul mark, he had yet to try manipulating any one of these nineteen giant puppets.
Now that Huang Xiaolong aimed to take over the Sky Magi Sect, it highly increased his chances if he succeeded in controlling these giant puppets as his aides.
Walking up to the sacrificial altar, Huang Xiaolong looked at the puppet in the front row that was the furthest away from him, on the left corner.
According to the ancient Linglong Tribe's writings on the sacrificial altar, one must follow a specific order if they wished to activate and control these puppets. That puppet on the edge of the front row was the first one.
Coming to a stop in front of the first puppet, Huang Xiaolong ran the Ancient Puppetry Art. His sea of consciousness shook as he gathered spiritual force, sending out invisible waves of energy in the form of an imprint that aimed at the giant puppet from the center of its brows, penetrating straight into its 'mind.'
When Huang Xiaolong's soul mark entered the puppet's mind, he was horrified at the absorption force that emerged from inside the puppet. Huang Xiaolong felt his spiritual force being drained, devoured at rapid speed and out of his control.
"This is…?!" Huang Xiaolong paled considerably.
At this rate, his spiritual force was going to be emptied out in less than two minutes. If that happened, Huang Xiaolong would be reduced to an idiot!
Huang Xiaolong ran the Ancient Puppetry Art again, planning to terminate the connection between him and the puppet forcefully, but subsequently, Huang Xiaolong found out he actually couldn't withdraw or cut the connection using violent force!
"This… why is it like this!"
Just as Huang Xiaolong contemplated if he should strike the giant puppet away, the strong suction whirlpool vanished all of a sudden. For Huang Xiaolong, it felt like he had just gone through an arduous battle for his life. His body swayed, falling to his butt on the altar, heavily gasping for air.
Huang Xiaolong wiped his forehead and cold sweat trickled down his fingers.
Damn, that was close! Huang Xiaolong thought to himself.
While Huang Xiaolong was trying to calm down, the first puppet's eyes snapped open, two brilliant green lights shone from their depths. Next, the giant puppet slowly got up. Even so, its every action shook the large sacrificial altar.
When these giant puppets were in a sitting posture, Huang Xiaolong had roughly estimated their height to be more than three meters, but when the first giant puppet rose to full height in front of him, it far exceeded Huang Xiaolong's imagination!
The giant puppet's height was close to four meters, with a body twice as big as an average human warrior, akin to a small hill.
"Ah Feng greets Master!" After the puppet stood up, it moved closer to Huang Xiaolong and knelt before him in greeting.
Seeing that his first attempt in branding a soul mark into the puppet's mind was successful, Huang Xiaolong was greatly relieved.
"Ah Feng?" At this point, some memories entered Huang Xiaolong's consciousness, related to this particular puppet.
The first puppet's strength had reached early-Xiantian Sixth Order. However, because it was refined from an ancient giant tribe, its body defense and brute strength were entirely on another level. Therefore, even though it was only an early-Xiantian Sixth Order, this puppet was stronger than two late-Xiantian Sixth Orders like Du Xin and Deng Guangliang put together.
Huang Xiaolong's eyes lit up.
Nineteen supreme giant puppets. As the order moved towards the back, each puppet's strength was higher than the one before!
If the first supreme giant puppet was an early-Xiantian Sixth Order, then what about the second and the third one? What extent would their strength reach?
Huang Xiaolong's heart surged with anticipation.
"Get up." Huang Xiaolong ordered Ah Feng. Instead of rushing to control the second puppet, Huang Xiaolong sat down and started to restore his nearly depleted spiritual force.
Three days and three nights later, Huang Xiaolong returned to peak form. Once again, he noticed that his spiritual force had grown much stronger after recovering.
The entire time he was recuperating, the first giant puppet, Ah Feng, stood close to Huang Xiaolong, safeguarding him.
After his spiritual force had recovered, Huang Xiaolong came to stand before the second supreme giant puppet. The second puppet seemed to be a female but its appearance was just as intimidating as the first one… and just as huge.
Standing in front of the second giant puppet, Huang Xiaolong once again ran the Ancient Puppetry Art. His spiritual force gathered, transforming into a soul mark as the energy swirled, entering the female puppet's mind between the brows, just like with the first puppet.
The same strong suction force came from within the female puppet, but this time, having experienced it once, Huang Xiaolong did not panic.
Sometime later, the suction force disappeared just like it did before. However, the amount of spiritual force purloined by the second puppet exceeded the first.
Inferring the situation from this discovery, Huang Xiaolong surmised that, at most, he could control four giant puppets with his current level of spiritual force. Any more than that, his spiritual force would not be able to support if he tried controlling the fifth giant puppet as well.
Gaining the second puppet, Huang Xiaolong spent the next few days restoring his spiritual force, preparing to brand a soul mark into the third giant puppet. The process repeated with the fourth giant puppet and Huang Xiaolong stopped after that.
The first giant puppet was an early-Xiantian Sixth Order, the second puppet was mid-Xiantian Sixth Order, the third puppet a late-Xiantian Sixth Order, whereas the fourth giant puppet was peak late-Xiantian Sixth Order!
Though for the time being, Huang Xiaolong could only manage to control four giant puppets, it was sufficient for his goal.
Bringing these four giant puppets into play, Huang Xiaolong's plan of taking over the Sky Magi Sect had just become much smoother. Initially, going up against Chen Xiaotian and Geng Ken, he did not have a full grasp of defeating them. However, with these four giant puppets, those two were no longer an issue down the road.
With that, Huang Xiaolong exited the Linglong Treasure Pagoda.
As for the four giant puppets, Huang Xiaolong left them inside the pagoda, where he could easily summon them out from if the need arose.
Appearing out from the Linglong Treasure Pagoda, Huang Xiaolong called for Du Xin and Deng Guangliang, telling them to hold a banquet tomorrow evening and invite their three Junior Brothers.
"Yes, Young Lord!" Du Xin and Deng Guangliang answered respectfully, aware that Huang Xiaolong was prepared to make his move.
Huang Xiaolong's plan was to control Sky Magi Sect's Elders firsthand before dealing with Chen Xiaotian and Geng Ken at the end.
When both of them and the Sky Magi Sect Elders were under his control, the Sky Magi Sect would belong to Huang Xiaolong.