Martial Peak

As Xiao Xiao’s owner, Yang Kai could naturally feel his irritability and anxiety, and if he could, he would definitely not refuse Xiao Xiao’s request.

However, Yang Kai knew next to nothing about Stone Puppets and had no idea what had gone wrong at this moment, causing the second Stone Puppet to not only fail to break out of its shell but also lose its vitality.

Even if he wanted to help, there was nothing he could do.

The master and servant were connected, so Xiao Xiao was aware of Yang Kai’s helplessness, causing the light in his eyes to gradually dim.

Sniffling lightly, Xiao Xiao was like an aggrieved child.

After a long time, Xiao Xiao gently placed the stone embryo in front of Yang Kai, treating it extremely carefully, as if he was afraid that acting roughly would cause damage to the stone embryo.

Immediately after, Xiao Xiao rushed to the edge of the cliff that was ten thousand metres high and began banging his chest with his hands, making a drum-like sound, his small body quickly growing bigger, in the blink of an eye becoming a stone giant several tens of metres high.

Like a huge gorilla standing on the top of the peak, straightening up his rickety waist, Xiao Xiao turned his face towards the Heavens.

A long cry, like a billowing dragon roar, came from his mouth.

This howl spread across the sky, containing unimaginable force that stirred up the sea of ​​clouds around the peak.

This howl was filled with indelible pain and sorrow.

Drops of some kind of crystal-clear jade slipped from Xiao Xiao’s eyes and fell to the ground, clinking as they hit the hard earth.

Xiao Xiao wept!

Yang Kai never imagined there would come a day when he would witness a Stone Puppet crying. He could not imagine just how significant this second Stone Puppet’s stone embryo was to Xiao Xiao, but from the sadness the latter showed now, it was obvious just how depressed and lonely he felt.

It was as if he was the only one of his kind in this world, destined to be alone for his entire life.

Yang Kai watched this for a moment before his expression changed suddenly and he swiftly moved to the stone embryo, stretched out his hand, and cut open his wrist with one of his Golden Blood Threads.

A long, bone-deep wound instantly appeared and Yang Kai’s golden blood began leaking out drop by drop onto the stone embryo.

[It should not be like this!] Xiao Xiao’s birth had gone extremely smoothly, but Yang Kai had also been quite stunned and confused at that time. It was Xiao Xiao who had merged with the Blood Essence Stone inside the Black Book Space and then broke out of the shell easily almost entirely on his own.

[Why is the second time so different?] Even at this moment, the life fluctuations inside the stone embryo had disappeared.

Regardless of why, this was one of Xiao Xiao’s own kind, and regarding its birth, Xiao Xiao obviously had a thousand times more expectations than Yang Kai himself.

Yang Kai did not believe that a creature with such strong vitality could really just die like this.

He had to try everything, then leave the rest to fate!

With a dripping sound, drop after drop of pure Golden Blood fell onto the stone embryo.

There was an unimaginable amount of vitality contained in Yang Kai’s Golden Blood, and when Xiao Xiao was born, Yang Kai had only needed to give it one drop to form a connection between them.

But now, Yang Kai did not concern himself about costs.

Perceiving Yang Kai’s movements, Xiao Xiao immediately turned around and ran over, squatting in front of Yang Kai, looking at him with gratitude, often glancing over at the stone embryo, a mixture of anxiety and anticipation filling his face.

As time passed, the stone embryo was completely dyed golden, but to Yang Kai’s disappointment, his Golden Blood did not seem to play any role as the stone embryo showed no signs of absorbing it.

This saddened him.

Xiao Xiao was also as anxious as an ant on a hot wok, fidgeting about unceasingly.

Suddenly, a faint pulse came from the stone embryo. Yang Kai’s eyes narrowed slightly when he felt this, not certain if it were just his imagination, but after carefully using his Divine Sense to investigate, he couldn’t help smiling joyfully.

There was a weak fluctuation coming from the stone embryo.

A fluctuation of life!

Like a single spark setting fire to an entire prairie, this extremely weak fluctuation, which seemed like it would be snuffed out at any time, rapidly began to strengthen and the stone embryo began to absorb the pure Golden Blood dripping on its surface.

*Dong dong…*

A heartbeat-like sound echoed against from the top of the peak, signifying the rhythm of life.

Yang Kai grinned and the sadness in the Stone Puppet’s eyes disappeared, replaced with tension and worry.

*Dong dong…*

The heartbeat grew louder and the interval between each beat grew shorter and shorter. Life fluctuations once again spread from the stone embryo and the faded light patterns glowed brightly once more. However, different from before, instead of a pure blood-red colour, there was now a tinge of golden light mixed into this radiant halo, giving it a more mysterious and profound appearance.

Each of the elaborate patterns on the surface of the stone embryo flashed as if they had a life of their own.

Yang Kai was surprised when he saw this. When Xiao Xiao was born, nothing like this had happened, making him wonder just what differences there were between this second Stone Puppet and Xiao Xiao.

Three days passed by.

Yang Kai had already stopped dripping Golden Blood onto the stone embryo, and after absorbing twenty or thirty drops of pure Golden Blood, the stone embryo regained its original brilliance.

At this moment, Yang Kai and Xiao Xiao were both waiting anxiously next to each other.

A soft cracking sound suddenly rang out, causing Yang Kai’s expression to lift as he quickly stared at the stone embryo.

With just a glance, Yang Kai could not help becoming overjoyed as he saw a small crack appear on the stone embryo.

Not long after this crack appeared, more cracks began to form one after another, and soon the stone embryo was covered with dense, criss-crossing cracks, like a giant cobweb.

*Kacha…*

In the next moment, the stone embryo broke apart, revealing the life-form inside.

The second Stone Puppet!

Just like a chick breaking through its shell, it pushed its way out of the stone embryo with difficulty before glancing around at this new and unfamiliar world.

Its movements were awkward as it had just been born and it took it quite some time before it fully emerged from the stone embryo and sat on the ground.

However… instead of grey, it was actually a golden Stone Puppet, a fact that surprised Yang Kai quite a bit. This Stone Puppet’s body was completely golden in colour, possibly as a result of it absorbing so much of Yang Kai’s Golden Blood.

Just like when Xiao Xiao was born, after this golden Stone Puppet sat upright, the first thing it did was swallow all the fragments of the stone embryo into its belly at a speed so fast it didn’t even look like it was chewing.

After it finished its first meal, it simply sat there foolishly, motionless.

On the contrary, Xiao Xiao jumped up and down, his joy beyond any words.

Quickly, Xiao Xiao rushed up to its new companion, reached out, picked it up, placed it on his shoulders, and then began running around the mountain peak in frantic circles, over and over again, seemingly unaware of the meaning of fatigue.

Yang Kai failed to stifle his laughter as he watched this scene, but soon his brow slightly furrowed.

Stone Puppets naturally had low levels of sentience and intelligence, even Xiao Xiao was the same. Right now, Xiao Xiao was simply acting happily as a result of the safe birth of his companion, probably joyful he would have company in the future, but Yang Kai faintly felt something was wrong.

There seemed to be something amiss with this new golden Stone Puppet.

After some time, Yang Kai called out for Xiao Xiao to stop frolicking and put down the Stone Puppet.

Xiao Xiao always obeyed Yang Kai’s orders, so he complied immediately.

Yang Kai then began to perform a careful examination.

After a while, his brow furrowed further.

Sure enough, this golden Stone Puppet, although appearing much stronger than Xiao Xiao had when he had first been born, clearly had lower sentience than Xiao Xiao. In fact, saying this golden Stone Puppet’s intelligence was completely chaotic was not an exaggeration.

After Xiao Xiao put it down, it just stood there, far less active than Xiao Xiao.

Yang Kai tried to give it a few orders, but it did not respond at all.

[Incomplete sentience!] Yang Kai’s complexion sank.

Although the sentience of Stone Puppets wasn’t high, it still possessed full awareness of itself, but this golden Stone Puppet essentially had no sentience, possibly as a result of the strange circumstances of its birth.

The current golden Stone Puppet, although a living creature, was all but brain dead.

Realizing this, Yang Kai turned silent.

Fortunately, Xiao Xiao couldn’t perceive such matters, otherwise, Yang Kai didn’t know what kind of grief he would be showing now.

As Yang Kai was deep in thought, Xiao Xiao already opened his mouth and spat up several pieces of rare unrefined ore and eagerly offered them to his new friend.

Although the golden Stone Puppet didn’t have complete sentience, its instincts were apparently still intact, so it did not hesitate to accept these raw ores and began gnawing on them, crunching a few times before swallowing them into its stomach and then continuing to stand still.

Xiao Xiao didn’t seem to understand how he had offended this new companion of his, making it so indifferent to him, so after scratching his head in confusion, he could only take out a few more ores.

The latter did not reject, accepting everything it was given.

Looking at the golden Stone Puppet, Yang Kai sighed. Although this situation was better than when he first arrived, it was far from perfect. Even after giving his all, the end result was that this golden Stone Puppet was born without a conscience, giving Yang Kai a feeling of powerlessness.

After staring at it for a while though, Yang Kai’s expression changed and he suddenly remembered something, his brow furrowing and un-furrowing in rapid succession.

Soon, Yang Kai’s eyes lit up and he began studying the golden Stone Puppet carefully, a hint of excitement creeping onto his face as he did.

He suddenly remembered how he could make this golden Stone Puppet act on his own.

The golden Stone Puppet was unresponsive now because it had incomplete sentience, so if he could solve this problem, all other problems would be solved as well.

Yang Kai could not repair its incomplete sentience, but he could implant a different one!

This was the perfect situation to use his Soul Fission technique!

Soul Fission was a Divine Ability created by Great Demon God. On Tong Xuan Realm, Great Demon God was a legendary figure, the strongest cultivator to ever emerge.

Back in Nine Heavens Holy Land, when Yang Kai had first entered the Holy Tomb, he had managed to obtain a drop of Great Demon God’s original orthodox Golden Blood, and after refining it, comprehended this Divine Ability from Great Demon God.

Although he cultivated it at that time, Yang Kai had never found a suitable host body, so his Soul Clone had sat idle in his Knowledge Sea.

Later, after entering the Star Field and getting trapped on the floating continent, Yang Kai had been forced by Gui Zu to test his experimental Space Array, and instead of risking his true body, had opted to use his Soul Clone. After sending his Soul Clone into the unstable Space Array, it had been greatly damaged and almost destroyed, but after allowing it to recover for so many years, it had now been fully restored.

Not only that, but it was also many times stronger than before.

This Soul Clone was a very special existence because Yang Kai had cultivated it artificially, meaning it wasn’t tethered to his own Soul. Therefore, it wouldn’t bring any harm to him even if it were destroyed.