Han Yu left the peak and once again changed into the ordinary outer court robes he had worn for years. Putting them on felt oddly tedious now, especially after having worn the robes bearing the Peak Head's crest earlier.
Still, Han Yu knew the disguise was necessary.
Tonight was only about collecting his belongings quietly.
Once everything was settled, he would not need to repeat this routine again.
Han Yu moved quickly through the mountain paths.
The distance between the Second Kidney Peak and the Puppet Peak was considerable, but his cultivation speed allowed him to cross it in roughly an hour.
As he approached the Puppet Peak, the familiar atmosphere returned imdiately.
Compared to most areas of the sect, the Puppet Peak had its own peculiar rhythm.
Many disciples here were deeply absorbed in their craft. They spent countless hours studying puppet chanisms, experinting with spirit circuits, and assembling intricate constructs.
As a result, social awareness among these cultivators was notoriously poor.
Han Yu walked along the main path while observing the surroundings.
Several disciples sat beside work tables positioned outside their caves, surrounded by disassembled puppet limbs and scattered tools since their own caves were too small to fit everything.
So were hunched over tallic fras, muttering calculations under their breath as they adjusted spirit threads or inserted control cores into puppet torsos.
CLANK CLANK CLANK
One disciple nearby was arguing with himself while repeatedly tapping a puppet arm with a small hamr.
Another seed to be staring intensely at a rotating gear assembly while whispering theoretical adjustnts.
In short, the people of Puppet Peak were utterly absorbed in their own world.
'At least the nerds won't trouble .' Han Yu relaxed slightly.
Here, he could move far more freely.
Nobody cared about robes.
Nobody cared about status.
Most of these people would not even recognize the difference between an outer court disciple and a core disciple if both walked past them.
True to expectation, no one stopped him.
No one even glanced at him.
Han Yu made his way directly toward the storage sector assigned to puppet artisans.
Eventually he reached a long corridor lined with reinforced doors. Each door led to a private storage unit assigned to individual craftsn. Han Yu stopped in front of one such door and activated the lock with his disciple token.
SHING
The door slid open.
Calling the space a locker was almost laughable. The storage unit was the size of a small house.
Inside were several partially assembled puppets along with nurous chanical components. Broken fras lay stacked against one wall while disassembled limbs rested neatly on work tables. Several crates contained spare puppet cores, spirit thread spools, and various materials used in puppet construction.
Han Yu had accumulated all of these through years of work and experintation.
He stepped inside and began collecting the most valuable pieces.
He stored completed cores, refined components, and specialized tools into his storage pouch while leaving behind only the most common materials that could easily be replaced later.
After about thirty minutes, Han Yu finished gathering everything he needed.
Next, he headed toward the Puppet Peak library.
Since he would not be returning here frequently, it made sense to take several reference books now rather than request them later through official channels.
The library was quiet.
Several puppet artisans sat scattered among the reading tables, their attention buried in manuals and diagrams.
Han Yu walked through the aisles calmly, selecting several texts he knew would be useful for future projects. These included advanced puppet assembly guides, formation synchronization manuals, and a few specialized treatises on autonomous spirit circuits for the field of puppets as well as severeal books about Blood Arts and Curses.
Under normal circumstances he could have requested these books through his new status as a personal disciple.
In fact, soone else could probably deliver them to his residence with minimal effort.
Han Yu could not help feeling a little amused at that thought.
As a personal disciple of the Peak Head, he now possessed a personal allowance within the sect. This allowance functioned separately from rit points and could be used to obtain resources directly.
In essence, many things were now effectively free for him.
It was an absurd level of convenience compared to the grinding effort he had endured before. For a brief mont, Han Yu even felt a strange sense of appreciation toward the Slaughtered Moon Divine Blood Sect.
The benefits were undeniably generous.
Then he suddenly shivered.
"What am I thinking?"
The thought itself made him uneasy.
He could not allow himself to beco comfortable here.
This sect was not his ho.
His goal had never changed.
One day he would return to his original sect.
Everything he did here was rely preparation for that eventual return.
Han Yu shook his head and turned toward the library exit. However, just as he stepped toward the doorway, he noticed a familiar figure approaching from the opposite aisle.
The man wore the familiar robes of a supervisor.
Supervisor Kun.
The thin middle aged man who had frequently assigned tasks to Ju Fan during his ti on Puppet Peak.
Supervisor Kun stopped in his tracks when he saw Han Yu.
His eyes widened slightly.
"Ju Fan?"
The man blinked several tis, clearly surprised.
"Where have you been?"
Han Yu paused.
Supervisor Kun stepped closer, examining him carefully.
"You disappeared for months," the man continued. "Do you know how many tasks have been hanging unfinished because of that?"
His tone was not exactly angry, but it carried genuine frustration.
"There were several repair assignnts specifically assigned to you. When you vanished, those tasks remained pending for weeks. Other artisans had to delay their own work to cover them."
He sighed.
"And so other jobs had to be postponed entirely."
Han Yu listened quietly.
Internally, he knew the situation was awkward.
Technically speaking, Ju Fan had indeed disappeared without explanation.
From the perspective of Puppet Peak managent, that created quite a problem.
Han Yu realized that explaining everything would not be simple.
For the mont, he was definitely in a bit of a pickle.
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