The Science of Cultivation

The wooden puppet’s behavior didn’t change despite being encircled by three people now. It continued to do a straightforward charge to its closest target, Long Yi. As a result, it ran head-first into a Terra Moon Slash, but the wooden chassis surprisingly came out on top with the collision with the earthen Qi art. The hardened stone of Long Yi’s attack shattered into little fragments and the puppet continued its charge.

It swung its arm down and locked it against Long Yi’s green broadsword. Before either party could make any headways, Li Lang and Wei Ping closed in from its blind spots, forming a triangular formation around their foe.

The wooden puppet didn’t respond to the two ambushes, allowing a spear and claws to land on its body. Li Lang cloaked his weapon with his Primordial Star Fire, but it quickly fizzled out when it made contact with the puppet. A thin layer of purple smoke could be seen for a moment while Wei Ping’s attack didn’t fare any better.

Both strikes barely penetrated its defenses, leaving a shallow wound behind. Before they could back away and retry, the puppet swung its other arm in a full circle. It was such an unnatural movement it caught the three human cultivators off-guard. Their robes were torn apart as they leaped back to make some distance.

Shit, my poison isn’t effective against inanimate opponents like this one, while my fire is presumably too low level. I really need to expand my toolbox to be able to handle different types of opponents.

Realizing his lack of offensive capabilities in this fight, Li Lang made a quick tactical decision.

“Let me hold it off! You two try to damage it!”

His two companions just nodded as he threw himself back into the fight. The three of them continued with this triangular encirclement. With them being more aware of their opponent’s capabilities, the fight slowed them as they made use of their numbers to accrue damage to the puppet’s body.

They got into a rhythm, allowing Wei Ping and Long Yi’s technique to come into the spotlight. The largest man among the trio had hyper-focused on one technique. It allowed him to punch above his weight now. He could freely shape his Terra Moon Slash to the point it couldn’t even be called a slash sometimes.

The puppet had approximately the strength of a mid-stage Foundation Establishment cultivator, but not even that could allow it to remain unharmed after taking on a sharp spike of hardened stone.

As for Wei Ping, his mastery of the Lingering Impact Technique rapidly increased every second. He quickly learned that using it normally didn’t do enough damage, so he began delaying the activation of his first few attacks. He then tried to time multiple strikes to explode at the same time. The first few attempts failed, but his success rate climbed up the longer the battle went on.

After only a dozen exchanges, the culminating Lingering Impact Technique showed a devastating effect, ripping off a chunk of wood from the chassis.