As it turns out, not all Artificial Saintesses and Brass Knights possess the construction talent of Luna and her Twelve Knights—honestly, after confirming this fact, Yu Sheng felt much more at ease.
Perhaps his relief was a bit too obvious, as Erin, walking beside him, soon gave him a suspicious look. The Puppet Lady mused briefly, "Even if this city is riddled with design flaws, it doesn’t change the fact that the houses you build look either like toilets or graves."
Yu Sheng maintained a stiff expression, "Well, at least I’m not at the bottom."
Erin: "...You really have high standards."
The fact that Erin turned into a big puppet didn’t make her any more graceful than when she was short.
As they spoke, the three of them had already crossed the outer city ring of Valhalla, approaching the central area where the magnificent Great Cathedral stood.
The grand Crystal Giant Tree stretched across the sky, its crystalline branches hanging down from high places, transforming into massive vine-like structures that twisted past nearby buildings. Crystal Clusters, scattered along the road, emitted a faint light, with tiny spatial rifts floating above the city.
Honestly, unless you looked closely, this place was quite spectacular.
Yu Sheng saw a group of young n and won gathered on a nearby street corner, seemingly discussing setting up a statue next to one of the crystalline vines dangling from above.
Grayish-white stones rose from the ground as if by magic, shaping into various forms driven by the adolescents’ imagination. It first beca a strangely proportioned human figure, then transford into an abstract sculpture of curved lines, followed by a mighty animal. Finally, after a mont of twisting in place, it beca the figure of Freyia—one wing large, the other small.
An unsuccessful creation, but clearly, the participants were happy.
In this Soul World where thoughts shape everything, unconfined "creation" seed to temporarily allow them to forget the scars left by the real world.
Yu Sheng thought it was wonderful.
"We’re planning to build a comrcial district here," Luna pointed to a spacious area beside the Great Cathedral, which had many unfinished structures. So buildings were re fras, and so had only façades standing by the street. "These are shops, and at the end is a plaza where we also want to place a fountain."
"Shops?" Erin turned her head in curiosity, "Do you really need shops here? There’s nothing in this wilderness. What are you going to sell?"
Luna smiled.
"Yes, there’s nothing here, but also everything," she said earnestly, "We discovered that each of us can ’create’ sothing special here—soone imagined colors that can be preserved long-term, soone made intricate sculptures from Crystal Clusters fallen from the Crystal Tree, and even one sister made the wild grass in the wilderness have incredible ’flavors.’
We know we don’t lack anything here—we don’t need to eat and will never feel hungry, we don’t need to drink and will never feel thirsty. We’re never cold or hot, and, if it weren’t for the habits carried over from our living days, we wouldn’t even need to sleep...
But if we get too accustod to these, perhaps one day, we’ll be no different from those wild grasses growing in disorder across the wilderness.
So we have to do things like the living and make this place lively..."
Erin seed to envision the scene Luna described, "Sounds wonderful... But co to think of it, this topic suddenly got so serious. I’m finding it hard to adjust."
Luna just smiled reservedly.
A girl with long black hair ca running from the street corner not far away. She cheerfully greeted Yu Sheng, pinned a small flower onto his clothes, and ran off delightedly.
Yu Sheng looked down to see it was just an ordinary pale flower from the Soul Wilderness, but upon closer inspection, the edges of the withered pale petals bore a subtle, almost imperceptible pink hue.
He felt amazed but quickly smiled.
Just then, Luna seed to receive so news. She tilted her ear slightly, listening to the winds in the wilderness, and then abruptly turned, "Master, there’s news from the Holy Hall station."
...
On Pasture Star, surrounded by warning towers and energy barriers, lies the "Holy Hall Area."
Originally a restricted zone under the Hidden Monastery’s control, it has now beco a base for Artificial Saintesses and the Knight Order, owned by the travel agency.
An Unreal Gate suddenly appeared on the open space before the Great Cathedral. The door opened, and Yu Sheng, with Erin and Luna, stepped out.
Yu Sheng let out a gentle breath, looking at the imposing, sacred appearance of the white building before him—the original Hidden Monastery Order symbols on the structure had been thoroughly erased, replaced by the triangular travel agency emblem painted on the walls flanking the Holy Hall doors.
At this point, it’s really impossible to say that this mysterious triangular symbol is actually a failed abstract fox head drawing.
Anyway, when soone asks now, Yu Sheng just explains that the triangle represents stability, symbolizing the enduring legacy of the travel agency.
Erin (who in the real world has once again beco 66.6 centiters tall) placed one hand on Yu Sheng’s head and looked up at the main building of the Holy Hall: "To be honest, these priests do have an eye for architecture... if your glitchy buildings could have just taken a hint from this."
"Actually, they have, taken a hint," Luna said slowly, "but everyone has their, own understanding."
As the three talked, they passed through the gates of the Holy Hall, and upon entering the main building, a group of people was already waiting there for them.
There were two forr Black Spot scientists recomnded by Luo, several research assistants from the Special Service Bureau, and an Artificial Saintess as the guide.
"We have successfully activated a set of production equipnt in the main workshop," a tall Arglede Elf in a white researcher uniform said to Yu Sheng. He was one of the Black Spot scientists introduced by Luo. "However, we have only completed the assembly of the shell. Sothing went wrong during the activation process; you might want to check it out..."
The group walked through deep corridors of the Great Cathedral, and after passing a certain door, the architectural style on both sides shifted dramatically from pretentious priestly decor to cold scientific and production architecture.
The cold, silver-gray corridor led to the synthesis factory deep within the Holy Hall, and through observation windows along the corridor, one could see the lights of the production workshop.
But calling it a production workshop is misleading, as there wasn’t a traditional assembly line—this facility was primarily used to manufacture Artificial Saintesses, and considering their rarity, the "production" equipnt wasn’t very large in scale.
On the final assembly platform, Yu Sheng saw a "steel puppet" lying silently on the platform.
The structure was almost identical to Luna’s, with a tall and perfect chanical build, and a face ford by living tal that appeared cold and blank.
"The living tal technology used in this ch body cos from the Black Dot Group, and given that the production equipnt here is in good condition, the process of starting and tuning the equipnt was relatively smooth," the leading Black Spot scientist was explaining the situation to Yu Sheng, "We assembled one ch body using the inventory materials—but errors appeared as soon as we tried to awaken it."
Yu Sheng approached the slumbering "Artificial Saintess," glanced down for a few seconds, and casually said, "Errors are normal—the soul isn’t in place. No matter how you instruct the equipnt, this body won’t move."
The on-site technicians exchanged glances, and a scientist from the Special Service Bureau frowned and spoke: "We know about the ’soul’ issue with Artificial Saintesses, but theoretically, part of the pure chanical structure in this body should be operable..."
Yu Sheng thought about it: "That’s true. The operation of this elental unit largely relies on the chanical Soul..."
As he spoke, he was trying to organize his thoughts and figure out how to explain the esoteric technology created by those Hidden Monastery zealots to the scientists, but he stopped midway.
Because the scientists in front of him were already skillfully pulling out incense, talismans, and ritual candles from their lab coats.
Then the Black Spot scientist lit a brass incense burner with a copper chain in front of Yu Sheng, placed it on the assembly platform, and turned to the others: "Shall we start the ritual, folks?"
"Don’t we need a Spiritual Ability User to co and chant sothing?" another Special Service Bureau scientist holding a ritual candle frowned, "I think we need to be precise."
Yu Sheng couldn’t take it anymore and stepped forward: "Hold on, hold on, what are you doing—your initiative is impressive but you’re ssing up. Pack it all away; the Artificial Saintess is a piece of advanced precision technology, and this is all nonsense."
Then the group in white lab coats all turned their attention to him, and the Black Spot scientist holding the incense burner looked at Yu Sheng with bright eyes (for so reason, his eyes were shining): "You understand the activation technology of the Artificial Saintess?!"
Then he saw Yu Sheng open a small door nearby and pull out a marker, powdered spices, and various ritual essential oils stored in bottles and jars.
Black Spot Scientist: "..."
Yu Sheng began drawing an alchemy spiritual array for the Spirit Injection Ceremony on the assembly platform in front of the group, which was the only piece of mysticism he knew.
Erin jumped from his shoulder onto the platform, watching Yu Sheng draw while giving instructions on the side.
A scientist from the Special Service Bureau couldn’t hold back: "Is there really any difference between what you’re doing and what we did?"
The structure of the Spiritual Array was simple, and Yu Sheng quickly drew most of it. At this point, he raised his head slightly and said, "Of course there’s a difference; I have the core technology here."
As he spoke, he smoothly took those high-end-looking ritual candles from the Special Service Bureau scientist’s hand, placed them on the nodes of the alchemy array, and lifted his free hand: "Loo..."
Just as the technicians were about to question Yu Sheng about the "core technology," they saw a flash of illusion, and the Artificial Saintess dressed in a Star Maid outfit, standing nearby, sliced into Yu Sheng’s hand with a knife...
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