Traveling through time to cultivate immortality: a life and death test

Chapter 373 Mirror Puppet

Pang Pang's breakthrough took a long time. Liu Xing used this time to quickly restore his mana to peak levels. He also continued to study the Chaos Tower's gravity restrictions, which allowed him to decipher some key points. Assuming the Chaos Tower belonged to the Chaos Sect in the upper realm, he had a glimpse of some of the sect's restrictions.

After settling Fatty down, Liu Xing didn't waste any more time and pushed open the stone hall's doors. Behind the gates lay a spacious hall, and in its center stood a humanoid puppet. The puppet was lifelike, its face expressionless, yet the craftsmanship was exquisite. Even as a master crafting puppets at the late Jindan stage, he still felt the craftsmanship was beyond his reach.

Liu Xing carefully examined the puppet. He couldn't tell what material it was made of, but its strength was surprisingly at the peak of the late Jindan stage. Liu Xing's consciousness scanned the puppet over and over again like a scanner, but the puppet's restrictions were so strong that with his current abilities, he couldn't see through its internal structure.

"The puppet is blocking the way. It seems I have to defeat it before I can get through." Liu Xing muttered to himself.

There was no one else here, and having just wasted too much time in the stone hall, Liu Xing decided not to hold back. He activated his profound skills, clenched his fist, and without warning, punched the puppet in the abdomen.

The puppet reacted extremely quickly, a faint glow emanating from its body as it absorbed Liu Xing's punch. The puppet itself merely swayed slightly, not even taking a single step back.

"This puppet from the upper realm is indeed extraordinary." Liu Xing was very surprised. Judging from the strength of his punch, no one of the same level in the human world could take it.

Just as Liu Xing was surprised, the puppet threw a punch without warning, and its punching speed was no less than his.

"Bang!" Liu Xing was knocked back by a punch and fell heavily against the wall of the stone hall.

"Ouch!" Liu Xing cried out in pain, with stars in his eyes.

This equally sudden and powerful punch startled Liu Xing so much that he couldn't dodge in time and was hit hard. Fortunately, his powerful spiritual sense caught the angle of the opponent's punch and was able to add a layer of defensive spiritual energy to his body.

"How can this puppet be so powerful? Wouldn't other Jindan cultivators be instantly annihilated by such a punch?" Liu Xing was surprised. He watched the puppet warily, seeing it stay where it was, motionless, while thinking.

"The force and angle of the punch are exactly the same as the one I just threw, and it hit me back like a mirror. Yes, this is a mirror restriction!" Liu Xing widened his eyes and stared at the puppet, as if he wanted to see through the principle of its restriction.

He knew a little about the high-level restrictions in the human world, and had also dabbled in mirror restrictions, but because this type of restriction was too advanced, it was impossible to achieve such exquisiteness.

"Let me try again." Excited Liu Xing somersaulted up and attacked the puppet.

But this time he learned his lesson and did not use his full strength, so he did not have to be so embarrassed when he was hit back.

After fighting for hundreds of rounds, the two were still evenly matched. The puppet was hit several times, and Liu Xing was also hit several times. Neither of them had the upper hand.

Liu Xing's excitement grew as he fought, as if he were battling himself. He constantly updated his moves, trying to find flaws in his own tactics and devise ways to break them. But the puppet was incredibly agile, seemingly observing the path of his spiritual energy, the strength of his magic, and the trajectory of his attacks, replicating them almost flawlessly. The puppet didn't even have to think about how to break Liu Xing's moves; it simply responded with the same attack, deftly neutralizing them.

Liu Xing wanted to use a fighting tactic of exchanging injuries for injuries, but he suffered a great loss in the end. The puppet's body was obviously stronger than his physical body. After they punched each other, the puppets were safe and sound, but Liu Xing vomited blood on his hand and grimaced in pain.

At this point, everyone in the other trial fields had collapsed, injured, essentially self-inflicted. Most had ceased attacking and were sitting in meditation to recuperate. Only a few powerful masters, like Liu Xing, had the strength to continue the fight.

Liu Xing thought while fighting, and his previous impetuous mentality gradually calmed down. He gradually got into the better situation and seemed to have realized something.

He seemed to have forgotten he was just trying to break through a barrier, completely immersed in the perfect fusion of his own skills and combat. Gradually, he no longer considered the puppet his opponent, but rather another version of himself, demonstrating his lifelong learning over and over again. His moves began to flow effortlessly, a pure expression of his artistic conception, flowing naturally.

Every punch Liu Xing threw, every palm strike he made, was light and effortless. The puppet followed suit, attacking in exactly the same way, also without any power. The puppet's blows to Liu Xing had no lethality. However, Liu Xing's blows to the puppet, due to the blessing of his artistic conception, affected its movements.

Liu Xing excelled in swordsmanship and music, possessing a profound understanding of the meaning of swordplay and rhythm. He now used a jade flute as a sword, dancing freely with it. The flute's melodies echoed with the sword's power. It was a mere imitation, a facade in itself.

Liu Xing used his mind without exerting force, his Tai Chi movements swirling in circles without interruption. Each move, each posture, was seamless, like the unending flow of the Yangtze River. The jade flute swirled in endless circles, forming an ocean of artistic conception invisible to the naked eye. The Scripture of Illusionary Sound circulated silently, its rhythmic rhythms forming a surging tide.

As the ocean and waves of artistic conception grew more and more violent, the puppet was like a small boat tossed by the wind and rain, drifting with the current. Unconsciously, the puppet was pushed against the wall by the waves, and Liu Xing successfully crossed the hall and arrived at the second door.

At this time, Liu Xing woke up from his epiphany and found that he had passed the test successfully.

"It turns out that this level is to help disciples understand the artistic conception." Liu Xing thought thoughtfully, wondering whether other fellow Jindan practitioners had discovered this secret.

The artistic conception is comprehended in battle, so as time goes by, it can be naturally displayed in long battles. As long as time is long enough, everyone should be able to find that defeating the puppet depends on the artistic conception.

Liu Xing, quick on his heels, passed the second level. Reflecting on this battle, he concluded that his combat skills, which he had previously considered perfect, still had many flaws. This was a prime opportunity to identify and address these gaps. His current techniques and skills were seamlessly integrated, and through a sudden realization of artistic conception, he had grasped a glimpse of the essence of Dao, laying the foundation for his future Daoist roots.

After sighing for a while, he looked at the puppet that had fought with him for so long. The puppet still had no expression on its face, like a dead object, but he still bowed to the puppet to show his gratitude, and then turned around and left with satisfaction.

Fellow practitioners in other trial fields gradually discovered that puppets could not imitate artistic conception, so they also began to accumulate the power of artistic conception. Quickly or slowly, they all figured out some tricks and were able to pass in the end.