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As he grew older, he was gradually influenced by these books.

During his early childhood, Ning Zhuo began to show a strong interest in mechanism techniques. He frequently visited the Ci You Garden to watch Li Leifeng’s puppet shows.

Ci You Garden was an orphanage in Huoshi Immortal City that housed homeless children, jointly funded by the City Lord\'s Mansion and various wealthy families in the city.

This was a national policy of the Southern Dou Country.

Li Leifeng was the head of Ci You Garden. He possessed the Thunder Spiritual Root and was also a mechanism cultivator. The mechanism tower he constructed could absorb external lightning, converting it into power to maintain the operation of the mechanism tower, without consuming any spiritual power.

When faced with enemies, the mechanism tower would release stored electricity, emitting chains of lightning that bound and electrocuted the opponent continuously.

"Old Li\'s puppet shows are indeed a masterpiece!" Seeing this, the Ning family patriarch sighed sincerely.

He, too, had grown up watching Li Leifeng’s puppet shows.

Perhaps influenced by Li Leifeng, Ning Zhuo had loved puppets since childhood, especially enjoying such toys. The ones he often played with were named Wheel, Erlang Leg, and Mao. After entering the family school, he showed the most interest in mechanism techniques, studying diligently to the extent of neglecting everything else, causing his performance in other subjects to deteriorate.

It wasn’t until after he turned ten that his performance in various subjects gradually improved. Eventually, he ranked in the upper-middle tier in the school.

The Ning family valued talismans heavily, so Ning Zhuo\'s uncle and aunt naturally didn’t want him to tread the wrong path and ruin his future. They disciplined him strictly, smashing more than three large baskets of mechanism puppets.

Although Ning Zhuo seemed to be restrained on the surface, he continued to seize every opportunity to study mechanism techniques in secret.

He even took the initiative to work as a child laborer in some mechanism workshops, even without pay.

For him, simply being able to engage with mechanism creations was a joyful thing.

Perhaps due to his persistence and passion, Ning Zhuo\'s skills in mechanism techniques continued to improve.

At the age of fifteen, a mechanism parrot created by Ning Zhuo surpassed the level of all his peers. It was seen by an elder in the school, who praised it on the spot.

However, Ning Zhuo, who was originally slightly expected by some elders, performed poorly in the family’s major exam.

"He was too nervous!" The Ning family patriarch looked at the jade slip and sighed.

The jade slip contained the detailed circumstances of Ning Zhuo\'s family exam that year.

"Indeed!" Ning Xiaoren echoed, "At that time, the puppet string accidentally got tangled, and Ning Zhuo didn\'t notice it. When it came time to perform, the tangled string left Ning Zhuo with no room to showcase his skills."

"If I were the supervising elder, I would have allowed Ning Zhuo to retake the exam!"

The Ning family patriarch shook his head, "The supervising elder did not make any mistakes. According to the rules, examinees should conduct thorough checks before the exam. Since this happened, Ning Zhuo should take responsibility!"

As the father and son discussed, a servant came to report: "Feng Jiqing has arrived!"

"Invite him in!" The Ning family patriarch nodded.

Feng Jiqing, a middle-aged man with squinting eyes and long cyan hair, tall and thin, entered with a knife wheel resembling a windmill strapped to his back.

Feng Jiqing possessed the Wind Spiritual Root and had some skills in mechanisms. Although he wasn’t a formal mechanism cultivator, the mechanism wind falcon he created and controlled was as fast as lightning, striking with fierce winds, making it extremely sharp.

After failing to recruit the young puppet master, the Ning family hadn’t stopped trying to attract external talent.

Recently, the Ning family had significantly increased their efforts, finally managing to recruit Feng Jiqing, who was their most significant success in attracting external talent to date.

"Patriarch, Young Patriarch!" Feng Jiqing greeted with cupped hands, his posture upright. As a cultivator at the Foundation Establishment stage peak, he was well aware of the temperament of mechanism cultivators. Confident in his own worth, his attitude towards the two high-ranking members of the Ning family was merely cordial.

Young Patriarch Ning Xiaoren smiled, "Master Feng, we invited you today to have you evaluate these two Mechanism Explosive Monkeys and assess the skill level of their creator."

The Ning family patriarch and the young patriarch didn’t want to reveal too quickly that Ning Zhuo was the creator of the Mechanism Explosive Monkeys.

On one hand, Ning Xiaoren still wanted to pretend he was unaware, creating a false image to make Ning Zhuo feel his "sincere intentions."

On the other hand, the matter of the Mechanism Explosive Monkeys involved Fei Si.

If word got out, it would make things difficult for Fei Si.

The Ning family did not want to offend Fei Si because of this.

The latter, as the immortal official who actually handled most of the daily affairs of Huoshi Immortal City, wielded considerable power and was not someone to be trifled with.

Their concealment inadvertently caused some misunderstanding for Feng Jiqing.

He couldn’t help but speculate, "Could it be that the Ning family intends to hire Chen Cha with a heavy price?"

Feng Jiqing naturally didn’t want this to happen, so he began to inspect the two Mechanism Explosive Monkeys without showing any expression.

One of these Mechanism Monkeys was finely crafted and made from solid materials—this was the earlier version.

The other one was crudely made and significantly damaged—this was the modified version that Ning Zhuo had deliberately made afterward.

After some inspection, Feng Jiqing said, "The primary material for the monkey’s skin is the hide of a Fire Fluff Mouse, woven with traditional spiritual power embroidery! Traditional craftsmanship, not worth mentioning."

"Using Celestial Gold for the skeleton is a must since setting up a storage formation requires it. Celestial Gold is typically the best option!"

"But if it were me, I would take it a step further and choose the Air Lungs of a Cloud Whale! This would allow the formation to store living creatures.

"Currently, this design can only store non-living objects!"

"The Mechanism Explosive Monkey was designed to pick Huoshi Fruits! Although in some ways, the Huoshi Fruit can be considered a Fire Essence, it is fundamentally a living thing—the fruit of the Huoshi tree. Placing them in a formation space that stores living creatures would be more suitable, ensuring they retain their best flavor!"

Feng Jiqing only mentioned the advantages of his own approach, without ever bringing up the rarity of Cloud Whale Air Lungs.

"The materials used for the Mechanism Explosive Monkey’s body are decent."

"One of its biggest highlights was overshadowed by Feng Jiqing’s remarks!"

"There are many formations in the palms, and their combinations are relatively innovative. Quite good!"

When Feng Jiqing had to praise, he would downplay his words as much as possible.

"The roaming pellets in the monkey’s brain are, in my opinion, the most brilliant part of this mechanism design."

After quickly praising it, Feng Jiqing immediately turned to criticism, "However, such material selection, although saving a lot of cost, cannot be used by anyone below the Foundation Establishment stage, severely limiting the number of buyers."

"If not for this flaw, the sales of Mechanism Explosive Monkeys could have multiplied several times, even by tenfold!"

"This design has its flaws."

Feng Jiqing concluded with a final remark.

The Ning family patriarch and Ning Xiaoren exchanged glances, the former staying silent while the latter pressed, "With such skills in mechanisms, is the designer considered strong?"

Among the myriad of cultivation arts, mechanism techniques were ranked the lowest!

Neither father nor son had delved into this field. Besides, being at the top of the family hierarchy, they were either constantly entangled in heavy affairs or engaged in intrigue, making it hard to grasp the intricacies of the Mechanism Explosive Monkeys.

In fact, it wasn’t just mechanism techniques; they couldn’t even evaluate the quality of a new pill formula.

They were neither alchemists nor specialized in mechanisms.

In ancient times, this was manageable; Foundation Establishment cultivators were scarce, and families were generally weaker than sects.

Cultivation had not yet overdeveloped, and during the first half of history, most were fleeting.

But cultivation had evolved to the present day, where the arts had become vast and profound. For most cultivators, switching fields was as daunting as crossing mountains.

Feng Jiqing pondered, "How many years has Chen Cha been running the Flying Disk Workshop, and only now managed to create such a mechanism construct?"

"It’s quite remarkable."

"This mechanism construct shows ingenuity, but not much. Even if it’s selling like hotcakes now, next year’s Huoshi picking business will surely slump; its uses are narrow."

"In summary, this mechanism construct is about average

, slightly above."

"As for the mechanism creator, I won’t comment further."

The Ning family patriarch and Ning Xiaoren exchanged glances again, the former thinking, "Feng Jiqing is a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and rating it as average is a huge compliment for Ning Zhuo, who is only at the Qi Refining stage."

The latter became even more determined to win over Ning Zhuo.

Meanwhile, at Ci You Garden.

Zhu Xuanji concealed his presence as he entered the garden.

An old man was sunbathing in the garden when he suddenly frowned and looked in the direction of the hidden Zhu Xuanji. "Who’s there?"

Zhu Xuanji was startled but then revealed himself.

He formed a hand seal, his eyes gleaming with golden light, and activated a detection spell to observe his surroundings.

"So that\'s it! There\'s a hidden electric current here in this small courtyard, creating an invisible difference in electric potential. As soon as I stepped in, the difference triggered your senses."

As Zhu Xuanji praised, he stomped his foot.

A small explosion of thunder erupted beneath his foot, blasting away a layer of soil to reveal the bricks underneath.

The runes on the bricks were so intricate that one could easily become dizzy just by glancing at them.

These bricks were laid underground at regular intervals, but not in a formation.

It was precisely because they didn’t form a complete formation that Zhu Xuanji found them hard to detect, unable to foresee their effects.

Since entering Huoshi Immortal City, this was the first time someone had spotted him.

"So it’s Lord Zhu Xuanji. Please, have a seat!"

The old man remained lying in his chair, motionless.

Zhu Xuanji had already appeared publicly in Huoshi Immortal City, and this was widely known throughout the city.

What was strange was that the old man was only in the Foundation Establishment stage, and at the early stage at that, yet he remained so casual in the presence of Zhu Xuanji, a Golden Core stage cultivator.

Zhu Xuanji didn’t feel offended in the slightest. He approached the old man with a smile, "Elder Li Leifeng, I’ve long heard of your great name and came specifically to meet you."

The old man, Li Leifeng, snorted coldly, "You’re too late to visit an old man like me, Detective Zhu."

"You say you came to visit, but in truth, you want to verify if I’m the shadow demon cultivator?"

Zhu Xuanji smiled awkwardly!

Li Leifeng sighed, "I’ve lived a long life and seen much. Lord Zhu, feel free to investigate."

Zhu Xuanji cupped his hands, "Forgive my offense."