Wang Zhong opened the method for controlling distractions and placed it on the rock where Bibi Dong had previously sat, followed by the method given by Teacher Ying Yan Yang. He sat on the ground, his young face bitter as he stared at the two scrolls.
"Teacher Ying and Your Holiness the Pope thought it was too simple. In their opinion, my soul skill only needs to solve the problem of controlling the number of individual soul skills, without fundamentally considering how complex a person's movements can be."
"Honestly, even if the Seven-Orifice Exquisite Heart wasn't the limit of distraction control, if it had fourteen orifices, twenty-eight orifices, or fifty-six orifices, it would still be impossible to control a person so vividly!"
"This isn't a puppet, where pulling strings makes it move."
"Puppet?"
Suddenly, Wang Zhong thought of the puppet show he had seen in the orphanage. Those moving little figures, in the hands of the puppeteer, made all sorts of movements. Although a bit stiff, each movement was no different from a normal person.
A few thin strings, attached to the puppet's head, joints, and limbs, were connected to the puppeteer's hands. With a slight flick of his fingers, the little puppets came to life, playing and frolicking. Then, through the puppeteer's voice, various sounds were made, stories were told, and the little figure came alive before the audience's eyes.
His gaze lingered on the motionless wood clone in the distance for a while. Wang Zhong lay back on the ground, watching the white clouds drift across the sky, murmuring in thought.
"Puppet..."
"Puppeteer..."
"Movements... sounds..."
"Little puppets that come alive in our eyes..."
"Method for controlling distractions..."
Wang Zhong shook his head slightly, his brow furrowed. He felt as if he had grasped something.
"Have I fallen into a misunderstanding!"
"A normal puppeteer could never turn a puppet into a real person, but their control over the puppet made it come alive."
"What is the reason for this?"
"The combination of movements and the sound of storytelling made the puppet 'alive' before our eyes."
"It's the same principle with my wood clone. I don't need to make it truly alive; I need to make it *appear* alive in the eyes of others!"
Wang Zhong suddenly sat up straight, a light flashing in his eyes.
"And for the wood clone to exhibit this behavior, the basic principles are movement and sound. My wood clone can even emit sounds itself! And it can display all sorts of expressions!"
"Movement, sound, expression – these are the three basic points I need to control. And under movement, there are divisions like standing, lying, sitting, squatting, running, jumping, and so on, with each movement divided into two parts: emission and reception."
"They extend downwards in a network! A network... extending in a network..."
Taking a deep breath, Wang Zhong stood up from the ground and approached the rock, staring at the two methods for controlling distractions, his heart pounding rapidly.
"If I use the method for controlling distractions to control the method for controlling distractions, won't that allow me to break the seven-number limit of this technique!"
"The source of distraction control lies within the soul master themselves, it's a manifestation of the soul master's consciousness, soul, and spiritual power."
"If, starting from oneself, two distraction control methods are connected with some simple consciousness and superimposed, then this vast network, with myself as the root, will extend outwards infinitely!"
"This kind of extension will allow me to control every detail of the entire wood clone, and I might even be able to go beyond controlling just one wood clone."
"At that time, as long as my spiritual power is strong enough and my soul power is sufficient, I can control as many wood clones as I wish!"
"I alone can be an entire soul master legion!"
Wang Zhong's fingers pressed down on the method for controlling distractions before him, his body trembling with excitement, his eyes shining with brilliance at this moment.
After taking two deep breaths, he suppressed that future in his heart, calmed his excited mood, and said solemnly, "But there is still a problem: using myself as the source to simultaneously control multiple wood clones requires extremely high levels of control, execution, and reaction speed!"
"A reaction that normally takes one second needs to be responded to in half a second or even less, and then distributed separately to the wood clone and oneself. The time is halved with the increase in the number of wood clones. If the reaction is too slow, the wood clone's actions will become sluggish and foolish!"
"Not only will the flaws be obvious, but the wood clones will also be easily discerned."
The emergence of this problem caused Wang Zhong to frown again, his excitement subsiding.
After thinking for a long time, Wang Zhong finally shook his head helplessly and muttered to himself, "Indeed, although this idea is feasible, there are fundamental difficulties in its execution."
"This idea of mine must have been proposed by someone long ago, but reality has shattered such ideas."
"The reason distraction control stops at seven must be the ultimate limit for humans. Otherwise, why wouldn't the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile School create eight-heart control or nine-heart control? The ultimate reason is human limitations."
Wang Zhong collected the scrolls from the rock and sighed.
"Forget it, I won't think about it anymore. I'll stick to the old method of splitting consciousness to control the wood clone. Although there are only two, my own strength will increase exponentially."
"It's better not to trouble myself with such near-impossible things..."
The moment he finished speaking, Wang Zhong's body suddenly stiffened, and an unimaginable pain surged from his mind.
A cold, emotionless electronic voice, in a tone as if it were about to break, spoke intermittently in Wang Zhong's mind.
"Task... Release... Release... Fa... Fail..."
"System damage... severe... function... destructive... lost..."
"Auxiliary... function..., activate..."
"Time... rewind..., activate... in progress, fa... failure..."
"Time... acceleration..., activate... in progress, failure..."
"Space storage... activate..., warning... warning..., system damage... severe... function... destructive... lost..., activating... backup function..."
"Thought... acceleration, activate... in progress, activate... waiting... in progress..., activate later... loading progress... one percent... five percent..."
"Progress loading... one hundred percent, thought acceleration... activation successful..."
"Task... Task... activate, failed... failed..."
Wang Zhong knelt on the ground, the intense headache feeling as if it would tear his entire mind apart. Something surged from a corner of his sea of consciousness where the system was hidden, completely engulfing Wang Zhong's entire brain.
In the sea of consciousness, the fiery red nine-tailed fox glanced up, then indifferently lay down to nap. The lush green giant tree gently swayed its branches, emitting a cool energy that continuously soothed the entire space.
With the soothing cool energy, the pain in Wang Zhong's mind was considerably lessened. Although the pain was still present, it was no longer unbearable.
Time flowed by, and Wang Zhong panted continuously, his forehead and entire body drenched in sweat, drops falling to the ground. About fifteen minutes later, the pain in his mind disappeared.
"What has this thing done now? What is going on with it!"
His body weakly leaned against the giant rock. His stamina had been almost completely drained during that brief period. Breathing in the clean air in large gulps, Wang Zhong submerged his consciousness into his mind.
Since activating his second martial soul, the Nine-Tailed Celestial Fox, Wang Zhong could easily dive into his mind. It was a boundless, seemingly blank space, with a fluid like liquid flowing beneath without any impurities.
Wang Zhong did not know what this pure white liquid was, but he assumed it was something like brain fluid.
In the middle of the sea of consciousness, two light clusters, one crimson gold and the other emerald green, floated, as calm and silent as ever.
Wang Zhong looked around, finding nothing special. Just as he was wondering, something seemed to be rising from the pure white sea, causing waves to surge throughout the sea of consciousness.
An ancient and massive golden disc broke through the seawater and stood upright on the sea. Its body was made of pure gold, with unknown numbers inscribed around the disc. Pointers of varying lengths were still, and huge gears continuously rotated and meshed, emitting a crisp ticking sound.
"This, this is a clock face!"
Wang Zhong was startled. "But the characters on it are so strange. That vertical line is one! Two vertical lines are two, and that one that looks like a tree branch should be five."
"Where did these characters come from? They're so strange!"
"And what is the use of this thing the system gave me!"
"Do I have to figure it out myself again!"
"Thought acceleration... does it have something to do with this?"