Chapter 104: Investigating Unlike Ning Zhuo

The Ning family head was quite curious about Unlike Ning Zhuo, who had suddenly emerged, and after checking many pieces of information at this moment, he said with some relief, "So Unlike Ning Zhuo, this child, had already shown his mechanism talent."

The first piece of information said: Unlike Ning Zhuo's mother, Meng Yao, was a mechanism cultivator. Although she passed away very early, she left Unlike Ning Zhuo many books on mechanism arts. Unlike Ning Zhuo cherished these books as his mother's relics and often slept holding them. Gradually growing up, he was influenced by these books.

Ning Zhuo showed a strong interest in mechanism arts during his childhood. He often went in and out of the Charity Garden to watch Li Leifeng's puppet show.

Charity Garden is an orphanage in the Fire Persimmon Immortal City, funded by the City Lord's Mansion and various wealthy families in the city.

This is a national policy of the Nandou Kingdom.

Li Leifeng is the director of the Charity Garden; he possesses a thunder spirit root and is also a mechanism cultivator. The mechanism tower he constructed can draw thunder and lightning from the outside world and turn it into power to maintain the operation of the mechanism tower without consuming any spiritual power. When facing the enemy, the mechanism tower stores electricity and will burst out streaks of lightning, like a whip chain, locking the enemy and constantly electrocuting and roasting them.

"Li Lao's puppet show is indeed a masterpiece." Seeing this, the Ning family head 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 toys he often played with were One-Wheel, Two-Legs-Crossed, and Three-Hairs.

By the time he entered the family academy, he was most interested in mechanism arts, studying hard 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 each subject gradually improved, and he gradually ranked in the upper-middle class in the academy.

The Ning family valued talismans, and Unlike Ning Zhuo's uncle and aunt naturally didn't want him to walk into the evil path and ruin his future, so they disciplined him strictly; just the smashed mechanism toys alone filled three big baskets.

But although Unlike Ning Zhuo was suppressed on the surface, he still seized every opportunity to study mechanism arts in secret. He would even take the initiative to go to some mechanism workshops to work as a child laborer, even without wages. For him, being able to come into contact with mechanism creations was a happy thing.

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

At the age of fifteen, a mechanical parrot made by Unlike 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 Unlike Ning Zhuo, who had been slightly expected by some elders, performed poorly in the family exam.

"He was too nervous!" The Ning family head read the jade slip and sighed.

What was in the jade slip was the specific situation of the family exam for Unlike Ning Zhuo's batch.

"Yes," Ning Xiaoren agreed, "At that time, the puppet strings accidentally got tangled, and Unlike Ning Zhuo didn't see it. By the time he had to make a move, the strings were tangled, leaving Unlike Ning Zhuo with no room to perform."

"If I were the invigilating elder, I would definitely accommodate him once and let Unlike Ning Zhuo re-examine."

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

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

"Please invite him in." The Ning family head nodded.

Feng Jiqing was a middle-aged man with squinting eyes, long green hair, and a tall, thin figure, with a windmill-like blade wheel on his back.

Feng Jiqing had a wind spirit root and also had mechanism attainments. Although he was not an orthodox mechanism 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 young guest.

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

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

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

The father and son of the Ning family did not want to leak the fact that Unlike Ning Zhuo was the inventor of the mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey too quickly.

On one hand, Ning Xiaoren still wanted to pretend to be ignorant, forge his own image, and let Unlike 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 did not want to offend Fei Si because of this.

As the immortal official who actually handled the most daily affairs of the Fire Persimmon Xiancheng, he had great power and was not to be trifled with.

The concealment of the two caused some misunderstandings for Feng Jiqing, and he 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, and without changing his expression, he began to test the two mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkeys.

One of these two mechanical monkeys was exquisitely made with solid materials, which was the previous version. The other was crudely made and had been damaged a lot, which was a special revision by Unlike 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 lung of the cloud whale. This way, the array arranged can store living things; the current one 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 thing 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 never mentioned the scarcity of the cloud whale's empty lung.

"The material used for the mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey's body is not bad." One of the biggest highlights was covered up by Feng Jiqing in one stroke.

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

"The rolling pellet in the monkey's brain is the part I think is the brightest in this mechanism design."

Feng Jiqing quickly praised it and immediately turned.

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

"If there was no such drawback, the sales of the mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey would increase several times, or even more than ten times."

"This design is flawed." Feng Jiqing concluded with one sentence.

The Ning family head and Ning Xiaoren looked at each other; the former didn't speak, and the latter pursued, "Can such mechanism attainments of the designer be considered strong?"

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

The father and son were not involved in this, and they had always been high-level figures of the family, busy with heavy affairs all day or fighting with each other, so it was difficult to grasp the mechanical Fire-Exploding Monkey.

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

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

It was fine in the ancient times, there were not many Foundation Establishment cultivators. Families were generally weaker than sects, and cultivation countries were extremely rare; in the first half of the long river of history, they were almost a flash in the pan.

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

Feng Jiqing pondered, "Chen Cha has operated the Flying Disc Workshop for so many years before he finally managed to come up with such a mechanism creation."

"It can be considered rare."

"This mechanism creation has ingenuity, but not much. Even if it sells hot now, the fire persimmon picking business next year will definitely be bleak, and the use is narrow."

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

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

The Ning family head 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 Unlike Ning Zhuo, who is only at the Qi Refining stage."

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

At the same time.

Charity 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 burst with golden light, and he launched a certain investigation spell to observe the surroundings.

"So that's how it is. The electric cause flows in the courtyard here, and there is an invisible thunder 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, it was like a small thunder explosion, blowing away a layer of soil, revealing the bricks inside. The runes on the bricks made people easily dazzled at a glance.

Such bricks were laid underground every small distance, not forming an array at all.

It was precisely because it did not form an array that Zhu Xuanji found it difficult to grasp and had no way to be vigilant. Since entering the Fire Persimmon Xiancheng, this was the first time he had been called out for his whereabouts.

"So it's Master 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 Xiancheng, 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 Foundation Establishment stage, but his attitude toward a Golden Core like Zhu Xuanji was very casual.

Zhu Xuanji did not feel that he had been offended in the slightest. He came to the old man's side with a smile: "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 me, Divine Catcher Zhu, you 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: "I have lived for such a long time, and I have seen many things. Divine Catcher Zhu, just investigate as you please."

Zhu Xuanji cupped his hands: "Offended." ===== CHAPTER 105 =====