Chen Ping cleared a patch of open ground in the center of the courtyard.

Dozens of ironwood blocks were stacked nearby. His tools—engraving knives, Beast Soul Stones, copper wire—were arranged with surgical precision.

He took a deep breath, picked up the Puppetry Primer, and flipped to the schematic for the Tier 1 Low-grade Wooden Bird.

He chose the bird for a reason. Its structure was simple, yet a flying scout would be invaluable for reconnaissance.

Step One: Fabrication.

According to the blueprint, he needed to carve the wings, torso, head, neck, and tail as separate modules.

Chen Ping didn’t own a specialized cutting Dharma Artifact. He had to rely on a fine iron engraving knife, gingerly whittling away at the material. The ironwood lived up to its name; it was as hard as cold steel. Progress was agonizingly slow, and sweat soon soaked through his robes.

It took two full days just to hack out the rough shapes. The edges were jagged, the surfaces pitted.

Step Two: Carving and Polishing.

This was a test of patience.

He had to carve microscopic channels inside the wood for Qi to flow through. He had to shape complex mortise and tenon joints for the connections. Finally, he had to polish the inner surfaces to mirror smoothness to minimize resistance.

For a Mortal, this would be impossible. For a cultivator, Qi made it manageable, but hardly easy.

Chen Ping worked with total focus.

While carving the Qi channels, a single slip—cutting too deep or too shallow—ruined the entire piece. He scrapped component after component. Polishing was even worse, a mind-numbing grind that devoured hours.

This single step cost him three days and a third of his material stock. But finally, he had a set of parts that barely met the standard.

Step Three: Assembly.

He used fine copper wire to reinforce the high-stress points on the torso and wings, then linked the joints with flexible beast sinew.

This phase was smoother. By afternoon, a crude, stiff-looking wooden skeleton stood before him. It was ugly, but structurally sound.

Step Four: The Inscriptions.

This was the soul of the craft. It was also where disaster usually struck.

The Puppetry Primer demanded a complex array of inscriptions to give the bird “life”:

Spirit Gathering Mark (Torso): To pull energy from the Spirit Stone.

Soul Control Mark (Core): To link with the Beast Soul Stone.

Flowing Wind Mark (Wings): To reduce weight and boost speed.

Wind Blade Mark (Wingtips): To cast the Wind Blade Art.

Sharp Metal Mark (Beak): To enhance piercing power.

Stability Mark (Legs): For safe landings.

Chen Ping picked up his finest knife. He held his breath, condensed his mana at the tip of the blade, and began to cut.

The lines had to be perfect. The Qi output had to be absolutely stable. Depth, curvature, flow—one mistake, and the energy would destabilize.

He started with the Spirit Gathering Mark on the torso.

He was one-third of the way through when his Qi wavered. The knife slipped. The line distorted.

Pfft.

A soft sound, and the wood blackened instantly. Scrapped.

He tried again.

The Flowing Wind Mark on the wing. He was almost done, but on the final connecting stroke, his mana lagged by a fraction of a second. The light flashed and died.

Failure.

Attempt three. Attempt four.

Every failure burned money. Every mistake wasted time.

The pile of ruined ironwood grew.

Chen Ping grit his teeth. He cut new wood. He carved new channels. He polished. He picked up the knife again.

He did not stop. He was a man of obsession; until the deed was done, he would not rest. Even when he meditated to recover his empty Qi, his mind was racing, analyzing the failures.

He lost track of time.

Three months vanished.

Chen Ping let out a long, heavy sigh.

He had lost count. A hundred failures? Two hundred?

The pile of scrap was a small mountain. His stock of Beast Soul Stones was critically low. The four hundred Spirit Stones worth of materials had evaporated long ago.

To keep going, he had fired up his alchemy furnace a dozen times, selling pills in the black market just to burn the profits on more wood and stone.

Nearly a thousand Spirit Stones, incinerated. All for a pile of trash.

The atmosphere in the hut was suffocating.

Chen Ping sat on the floor, exhausted. He stared at his last set of barely-passable components and his final Beast Soul Stone.

Despair clawed at his throat.

He picked up the Puppetry Primer and glared at the inscription pages.

“Where is the problem?” he muttered.

Technique? No. After two hundred failures, his hand was steady as rock.

Qi Control? He was at the seventh layer of Qi Condensation. It wasn’t profound, but it was enough for basic crafting.

Materials? Was the ironwood flawed? The souls impure?

His eyes darted across the schematic.

Spirit Gathering. Soul Control. Flowing Wind. Wind Blade. Sharp Metal. Stability.

Six different inscriptions. Six different energy flows cramming into a tiny wooden frame. They had to coexist perfectly, layered without interference.

It was like trying to paint six masterpieces on a single sheet of rice paper without the ink bleeding.

A thought struck him.

It started small, then expanded until it filled his brain.

Is it too much?

Was the complexity killing the function? Were the inscriptions fighting each other, dragging the whole system down?

He wanted everything, and so he got nothing.

“Greed chokes the eater,” Chen Ping said, slapping his forehead.

He realized the flaw wasn’t in his hand, but in the design.

“The author of this book… was he showing off? Does a Tier 1 Low-grade puppet, a prototype, really need Wind Blades and Sharp Metal beaks?”

He thought back to his alchemy.

When he first started refining Qi Gathering Pills, he followed the manual blindly. The results were mediocre. It was only when he adapted the process to his own Fire Control and instincts that his Success Rate soared.

Books were guides, not laws.

Practice yields truth.

A bold idea formed in Chen Ping’s mind:

Simplify.

He would butcher the schematic. He would strip away the flashy, useless combat functions and leave only the absolute core.

He didn’t need a weapon. He needed a bird that could fly.