Chapter 104

The Ning family patriarch was already quite curious about the suddenly emerging Ning Zhuo, and after checking a lot of information at this moment, he said with some relief, "So Ning Zhuo, this child, had already revealed his mechanical talent early on."

The first piece of information said: Ning Zhuo's mother, Meng Yaoyin, was a mechanical cultivator. Although she passed away very early, she left many books on mechanical arts to Ning Zhuo. Ning Zhuo treated these books as his mother's relics and cherished them very much, often hugging these books to sleep when he was a child. As he grew up, he was influenced by these books.

During his childhood, Ning Zhuo began to show a strong interest in mechanical arts. He often went in and out of the Ciyou Garden to watch Li Leifeng's puppet shows.

Ciyou Garden was an orphanage in the Fire Persimmon Immortal City, which accommodated homeless children and was jointly funded by the City Lord's Mansion and various wealthy families in the city.

This was a national policy of the South Bean Kingdom.

Li Leifeng was the director of Ciyou Garden; he possessed a thunder spirit root and was also a mechanical cultivator. The mechanical tower he constructed could absorb external thunder and lightning, turning it into power to maintain the operation of the mechanical tower, without consuming any spiritual power. When facing enemies, the mechanical tower would store electricity and burst out with streaks of lightning, like a whip chain, locking the enemy and constantly electrocuting and roasting them.

"Old Li's puppet show is indeed a masterpiece." Seeing this, the Ning family patriarch sighed sincerely.

He had watched many of Li Leifeng's puppet shows and was amazed!

Perhaps influenced by Li Leifeng, Ning Zhuo liked puppets and such toys since he was a child. The dolls he often played with were Yilun, Erlangtui, and Sanmao.

After he entered the family academy, he was most interested in mechanical arts, studying diligently and asking questions, which led to him being unable to take care of himself, and his performance in other subjects became worse and worse.

It wasn't until after he was ten years old that his performance in various subjects gradually improved, and he gradually ranked in the upper-middle level in the academy.

The Ning family valued talismans, so Ning Zhuo's uncle and aunt naturally didn't want him to go astray and ruin his future, so they disciplined him strictly; just the mechanical dolls they smashed totaled three big baskets.

But although Ning Zhuo was contained on the surface, he still seized every opportunity to study mechanical arts in private. He even took the initiative to run to some mechanical workshops to work as a child laborer, even without wages. For him, being able to come into contact with mechanical creations was a happy thing.

Perhaps because of persistence and love, Ning Zhuo's mechanical arts had been growing.

When he was fifteen, a mechanical parrot made by Ning Zhuo had already exceeded the level of all his classmates and was accidentally seen by an elder in the academy, who praised him on the spot.

But Ning Zhuo, who had been slightly expected by some elders, performed poorly in the family exam.

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

The jade slip contained the specific situation of the family exam for Ning Zhuo's batch.

"Yes," Ning Xiaoren agreed, "At that time, the pull string accidentally knotted, but Ning Zhuo didn't see it. By the time he had to make a move, the pull strings were entangled, leaving Ning Zhuo with no room to perform."

"If I were the proctoring elder, I would definitely accommodate him once and let Ning Zhuo retake the exam."

The Ning family patriarch shook his head, "The proctoring elder made no mistakes. According to the rules, the examinee should check more before the exam. If this happened, Ning Zhuo should be responsible."

While the father and son were discussing, an attendant came to report: Feng Jiqing had arrived.

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

Feng Jiqing was a middle-aged man with squinty eyes, long green hair, a tall and thin figure, and a wind-mill-like knife wheel on his back.

Feng Jiqing had a wind spirit root and had mechanical attainments. Although he was not an orthodox mechanical cultivator, the mechanical wind falcons he made and controlled were as fast as lightning and attacked like a gale, very sharp.

The Ning family had never stopped absorbing external talent after failing to recruit the Chuitiao Guest.

Until recently, the Ning family kept increasing its efforts and finally recruited Feng Jiqing. He was the greatest achievement of the Ning family in recruiting external talent so far.

"Patriarch, Young Patriarch." Feng Jiqing cupped his hands and saluted, his back straight. He was at the peak of Foundation Establishment, knew the market for mechanical cultivators well, relied on his own value, and had an average attitude toward the two high-level figures of the Ning family.

Young patriarch Ning Xiaoren smiled, "Master Feng, inviting you this time is to have you identify these two Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkeys and evaluate what kind of mechanical attainments the person who created and made them has."

The father and son of the Ning family patriarch and young patriarch didn't want to leak the fact that Ning Zhuo was the inventor of the Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey too quickly.

On one hand, Ning Xiaoren still wanted to rely on pretending to be ignorant, forging his own image, and making Ning Zhuo feel his "full sincerity."

On the other hand, the matter of the Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey involved Fei Si. Leaking it out would make things difficult for Fei Si. The Ning family didn't want to offend Fei Si because of this.

As the immortal official who actually handled the most daily affairs of the Fire Persimmon Immortal City, he had great power and was not easy to provoke.

The concealment of the two caused some misunderstandings for Feng Jiqing, who couldn't help but guess: "Could it be that the Ning family wants to hire Chen Cha with a lot of money?"

Feng Jiqing naturally didn't want this to happen, so he began to test the two Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkeys calmly.

These two mechanical monkeys, one was made with exquisite workmanship and solid materials, which was the previous version. The other was crudely made and had been damaged a lot, which was a special modification by Ning Zhuo later.

After testing, Feng Jiqing said, "The main material of the monkey skin is fire-velvet rat skin, woven with traditional spiritual power embroidery. Traditional craftsmanship, no need to mention."

"Using sky gold as the skeleton is a must, because to arrange the storage array, sky gold is usually the best option."

"But if it were me, I would go a step further and choose the empty lungs of a cloud whale. By doing this, the arranged array can store living things, unlike the current one which can only store dead things."

"The Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey was designed to pick fire persimmons. Although fire persimmons can be seen as fire essence to some extent, they are essentially life, the fruit of the fire persimmon tree. Placing them in a living storage array space is more suitable for them, allowing them to ensure better taste."

Feng Jiqing only talked about the advantages of his own plan and didn't mention the scarcity of cloud whale empty lungs at all.

"The muscle material of the Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey is not bad." One of the biggest highlights was glossed over by Feng Jiqing.

"There are many arrays in the palms, and the way they are matched is relatively new, quite good." When Feng Jiqing couldn't help but praise, he would try to lower the praise words.

"The wandering pellets in the monkey's brain are the part I think is the brightest in this mechanical design."

Feng Jiqing quickly praised it and immediately turned the corner.

"However, although this material selection saves a lot of costs, it cannot be used without Foundation Establishment, which greatly limits the number of buyers."

"If there wasn't this drawback, the sales of the Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey would have increased several times, or even more than ten times."

"This design has flaws." Feng Jiqing concluded with one sentence.

The Ning family patriarch and Ning Xiaoren looked at each other; the former didn't speak, and the latter pursued, "Is such mechanical attainment of the designer considered strong?"

Among the hundred arts of cultivation, mechanical arts are at the bottom.

The father and son didn't get involved in this, and because they had always been high-level family members, they were either entangled in heavy affairs or fighting each other, so they couldn't grasp the Mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey.

In fact, let alone mechanical arts, even a brand new pill formula, they found it difficult to evaluate its quality.

They were not alchemists, nor did they specialize in mechanical arts.

It was fine in ancient times, when there weren't many Foundation Establishment cultivators. Families were generally weaker than sects, and cultivation kingdoms were extremely rare; in the first half of the long river of history, they were almost fleeting.

But cultivation has developed to this day, and the hundred arts of cultivation have become profound. For most cultivators, crossing a profession is like crossing a mountain.

Feng Jiqing pondered, "Chen Cha has operated the Flying Disc Workshop for so many years, and only then managed to squeeze out such a mechanical creation."

"It can be considered rare."

"This mechanical creation has ingenuity, but not much. Even if it sells well now, next year's fire persimmon picking business will definitely be bleak, and the usage is narrow."

"Overall, this mechanical creation is considered medium, slightly above average."

"As for the person who made the machine, I won't evaluate it much."

The Ning family patriarch and Ning Xiaoren looked at each other again.

The former thought: "Feng Jiqing is a Foundation Establishment cultivator, and a medium rating is a huge compliment for Ning Zhuo, who is only at the Qi Refining stage."

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

At the same time.

Ciyou Garden.

Zhu Xuanji hid his figure and entered the garden.

An old man was basking in the sun in the garden, suddenly frowned, and looked at the invisible Zhu Xuanji: "Who is it?!"

Zhu Xuanji was stunned, then revealed his figure.

He pinched the finger formula, his eyes glowed with gold, and he launched a certain investigation spell to observe the surroundings.

"So that's it. There is electricity flowing in this courtyard, and there is an invisible thunder and lightning potential difference. As long as I step in, the potential difference is formed before and after, and I will be sensed by you."

Zhu Xuanji praised while stomping his feet.

Under his feet, small thunder exploded, blowing away a layer of soil, revealing the bricks inside. The runes on the bricks made people easily dazzled at a glance.

This kind of brick was laid every short distance under the ground, and it didn't form an array at all.

It was precisely because it didn't form an array that it made Zhu Xuanji difficult to grasp and unable to be vigilant. Since entering the Fire Persimmon Immortal City, this was the first time he had been called out for his whereabouts.

"So it's Lord Zhu Xuanji, please sit." The old man still lay on the chair, not moving at all.

Zhu Xuanji had already appeared in public in the Fire Persimmon Immortal City, and this matter was known to the whole city.

Strangely, the old man was only at the Foundation Establishment stage, and only at the early stage of Foundation Establishment, but his attitude toward a Jin Dan like Zhu Xuanji was very casual.

Zhu Xuanji didn't feel the slightest offense; he came to the old man's side with a smile: "Old Senior Li Leifeng, I have long heard of your great name, and I came here specifically to see you."

The old man Li Leifeng snorted coldly: "To see this old man, you, Divine Catcher Zhu, are too late."

"Saying it's to see me, actually it's to verify whether I am that shadow demon cultivator?"

Zhu Xuanji smiled awkwardly.

Li Leifeng sighed: "This old man has lived for a long time and has seen many things. Lord Zhu, feel free to investigate."

Zhu Xuanji cupped his hands: "Offense."