Am I the old man who's always by my apprentices' side?

Did you draw "Puppet Technique" in Chapter 165?
The formation was indeed very difficult to learn. Tang Xiaoyu and Ye Shuyun studied it together for several days, but still had no clue.

It wasn't that they couldn't understand them. Zhang Chengdao gave them three books in total: "True Records of Formations", "Elementary Spirit Formation Diagrams", and "Introduction to Formations". One book talked about the history of formation development, another covered almost all the basic formation diagrams, and the third was an extremely detailed introductory book.

Understanding something is one thing, but learning it is another.

The content of the formation is complex and varied, and there is a lot to memorize. Ye Shuyun even compiled a table based on the "table" that Xu Ying, the head of the sect, often used to handle affairs, to list some basic formulas and directions, so that he could barely avoid getting dizzy when reading the book.

Even so, the two found it extremely difficult to learn, and after a week, when Zhang Chengdao asked about their progress, they were both filled with shame.

Ye Shuyun said, "This disciple is ashamed to say that I have only learned the most basic defensive formation."

Tang Xiaoyu thought for a moment and gave Zhang Chengdao a glimmer of hope. She gestured and said, "I tried it with Huang Wu this morning. It can teleport you from here to the big lake, but the formation is only usable once and then it's useless. It has to be rearranged. But I still feel like I've found a clue!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Chengdao felt a surge of joy in his heart.

No wonder it's a gold card!
Although Tang Xiaoyu's gold card is quite strange, as he hasn't even been able to draw qi into his body despite his cultivation, it still has its merits.

I struggled to understand the formations even after studying them for ages, but this person mastered them in just a few days. Turns out, they're a professional!
When Tang Xiaoyu said "from here to the Great Lake," she was referring to the distance from the Academy to the Great Lake. The lake that Zhang Chengdao dug was called the Great Lake by everyone because it did not have an official name.

This distance isn't short; it's at least three miles. Many bus stops aren't even that far apart, but compared to the 1,500 miles from Baishi Mountain to Jingzhao Prefecture, it's still quite an exaggeration.

Zhang Chengdao nodded: "Indeed, it seems you are quite skilled in formations. You might as well specialize in this in the future, and you may achieve great things."

It would be best to stay in this line of work and become a high-level array master within the sect!
Even if you can't pronounce Mandarin accurately, it's not a problem—senior technicians and special talents don't need to be fluent in Mandarin!
Tang Xiaoyu nodded vigorously and said, "I know, I also think these lines and dots are quite interesting!"

Upon hearing this, Zhang Chengdao glanced at Tang Xiaoyu, whose hair was completely white. Fearing that she might die of old age, he hesitated for a long time before sending Ye Shuyun away and saying to Tang Xiaoyu, "Although I don't know what kind of secret treasure you are carrying that makes you appear to have the cultivation of the Foundation Establishment stage, yet you can't use any spiritual power, your inability to draw qi into your body is probably due to that thing. If you have the opportunity, you might as well put it away and try cultivating again."

Tang Xiaoyu scratched her head, feeling a little touched, and honestly replied, "I understand, I'll try it next time!"

After checking on his apprentices' learning progress, Zhang Chengdao returned to his residence and once again used his month's worth of accumulated membership bonuses for a 30-pull gacha pull.

This time, my luck with the draw was neither good nor bad. Although I didn't get any big items, in addition to the usual Black Ghost-exclusive [Kudzu Root Soup] and various ingredients and dishes, I did get a blue-grade weapon and a set of purple-grade manuals.

The weapon was a "Scaled Iron Cudgel" made from thousand-year-old purple-gold iron bamboo, with a purple-gold wine gourd draped with red silk attached to it, making it extremely heavy.

The purple-grade manual is a set of "Puppet Techniques," divided into three volumes: upper, middle, and lower, thicker than a Xinhua Dictionary.

But when Zhang Chengdao saw those two words clearly, his scalp tingled.

This is too much of a coincidence. Zhou Guogang caused thousands of people to be called corpse puppets because of the Mingjing, and then he himself drew the secret manual explaining puppetry. If he hadn't cursed the Heavenly Dao several times while learning the formation and hadn't been struck by lightning, he would have thought that he was being controlled by some giant hand!
Fortunately, after flipping through these secret manuals, Zhang Chengdao felt relieved.

While *The Art of Puppetry* does mention human puppets and corpse puppets, it bluntly characterizes them as "harmful to the natural order," stating that cultivators who create such harmful puppets will suffer a backlash, their path to immortality blocked. Of course, the book devotes more space to describing the simplest methods of puppet making: paper puppets created through cutting and drawing (part of the talismanic arts), iron puppets forged using weapon-refining techniques, carved wooden puppets, sewn cloth puppets, and even more abstract ones summoned using the Five Elements theory—water puppets, fire puppets, and earth puppets!

The simplest of these, which is also recorded in "Puppet Techniques, Part 1", is the paper puppet technique.

Paper puppets are paper products made by cutting paper, and then using techniques such as drawing with cinnabar and pasting with glutinous rice.

These paper puppets come in many varieties. There are small paper figures called "strongmen," who are usually incredibly strong and are used as servants to carry water and other goods.

There are also simple animal shapes, such as various birds, which are mostly used for messengers or to transport small, lightweight items. Horses, elephants, camels, tigers, wolves, and other animals are mostly used as mounts.

In the section explaining animal paper puppets, the cat surprisingly made up the largest proportion. And when it came to the function of the paper cat, besides catching mice, it was said that it "could soothe the boredom of cultivators' practice, and was a good remedy."

Zhang Chengdao strongly suspected that the original author of this "Puppet Technique" was a cat lover.

In comparison, iron puppets, wooden puppets, and cloth puppets require much higher skill levels, and Zhang Chengdao decided to give up on them after only a brief consideration.

He is not good at welding robots, carving wood, or sewing rag dolls.

After watching for a while, Zhang Chengdao became more and more excited. He simply found some paper and cinnabar and began to make the simplest of his paper puppets, a bird.

Because, comparatively speaking, this is the easiest thing to cut.

After wasting a bunch of paper, Zhang Chengdao finally cut out a few birds that looked similar. He then used cinnabar to copy the talismans in "Puppet Techniques, Part 1" on them, and then used glutinous rice paste to stick them together one by one. The core of paper puppetry is to draw different talismans on the same paper shadows and then stick them together in order with glutinous rice paste. This is the only way to ensure the continuity of the puppet's movements after it is infused with spiritual power.

Just like in modern animation, if the frame rate isn't drawn correctly, or if frames are skipped or even misplaced, the final animation will look like a ghost story.

Zhang Chengdao made two plump Northern Longtail Tits in one go (because this shape is the easiest to cut), and then poured some spiritual energy into them with great anticipation.

With two loud thuds, the two paper shadows transformed into two ruffled northern long-tailed tits amidst two clouds of white mist, chirping incessantly.

Zhang Chengdao smiled with satisfaction and beckoned the two paper puppets of the Northern Long-tailed Tit, which looked like glutinous rice balls, out of the room.

As soon as he stepped out of the room, he unexpectedly ran into a disciple who looked somewhat familiar but whose name he couldn't quite place.

Zhang Chengdao looked over in confusion, nodded slightly as a greeting, and then saw the familiar disciple bow respectfully and say, "Sect Master...Master, Steward Xu asked me to invite you to the Reception Hall. He said that people from the Taiyue Sword Sect have come to visit and are asking for the two precious swords that you borrowed earlier."

(End of this chapter)