Chapter 36: Puppets and Spies (Part 1)

After the previous demon attack, Donald entered the forest behind the manor once again and increased the number of Ancient Guardians to twenty-four, placing them all around the manor.
According to his estimation, these preparations should be sufficient to protect the manor from intrusions by professionals below the Bronze rank.
With the Ancient Guardians surrounding it and the existence of the Tree of Life, professionals below the Bronze rank, no matter how many there were, would merely serve as “fertilizer” for the manor.
As for professionals above the Bronze rank—whether they were melee warriors like swordsmen and knights, or ranged attackers and hunters skilled in traps—they were all formidable fighters in their own right. Relying solely on passive defenses, even with the suppression of natural barriers, could not guarantee true safety.
Although there was only one rank difference between the beginning stage of Bronze and the advanced stage of Black Iron, the strength difference was enormous. A warrior at the beginning stage of Bronze could often face five or six warriors at the advanced stage of Black Iron without falling behind. As for those as powerful as that demon, whose strength was nearly on par with the Bronze rank, they were far beyond what Black Iron-level fighters or a few Ancient Guardians could handle.
After spending so much time in this world, Donald had come to understand quite a bit about its strength hierarchy.
Taking swordsmen as an example:
At the beginning was the apprentice level, the preparatory swordsman, usually an ordinary person who had received basic training.
At the Black Iron swordsman stage, one had received formal training, mastered fundamental sword techniques, could skillfully use more than three types of weapons, understood the mechanics of combat, and had endurance far beyond that of ordinary people.
When a swordsman reached the Bronze rank, their strength saw a significant leap. Through systematic training, reaching the peak of Black Iron strength—beyond ordinary human limits—they might unlock their body’s potential, comprehend the existence of “qi,” and use this qi to enhance their abilities in various aspects.
A Silver swordsman could release this qi as a powerful attack, overcoming the limitation of swordsmen lacking ranged capabilities. At this rank, the impact of magical forces was greatly reduced. Unless it was a caster of the same rank, even mages below Bronze, even if they used all their strength, could hardly harm a Silver swordsman protected by sword qi.

Finally, there are the legendary Golden Swordsmen, also known as Sword Saints. It is said that those who reach this rank have begun to comprehend the power of the superficial laws and are formidable beings on the verge of legend. Their bodies evolve under the influence of these laws, transcending the limits of ordinary mortals. At this stage, they can no longer be defeated by sheer numbers; they can move freely even among vast armies as if on solid ground.

The rank classifications for warriors using non-sword weapons are roughly similar. Additionally, a few professions such as assassins and thieves may also gain certain mysterious spellcasting abilities. Thus, although their direct combat strength may be inferior to that of swordsmen of the same rank, their overall strength is roughly on par.

And this is only covering the major professions involved in physical attacks under normal circumstances. If spellcasters are involved, then Donald has even more reason to worry.

Taking himself as an example, his mage rank is at the beginning stage of Black Iron. But without relying on the power of the Book of Truth, he can still easily deal with a few mid-level Black Iron warriors using his own mage skills.

Mages are renowned for being invincible against warriors of the same rank, unless they are inexperienced novices who are easily knocked down by warriors once brought within close range.

Donald doesn’t have many solutions to this; he can only choose to improve his own strength in order to return to the battlefield and earn merits as soon as possible!

He cannot leave powerful summoned creatures to guard his territory, as no such creature can survive for such a long time unless he gathers enough soul power for permanent summons. With sufficient magic cores, he can deploy armies of summoned creatures at any time, so there’s no need to bring people like Clinton to the battlefield—it’s more important to keep them to protect his base.

However, even with Clinton and the others, their strength is not enough to ensure the safety of the manor. Over two consecutive nights, he has searched every graveyard around Giant Stone City, even digging graves, to secretly gather less than a hundred units of soul power. Adding the power obtained from killing the Blade Demon, he now has just over a thousand units of soul power, enough to summon a third-tier unit with at least LV3 soul rank before leaving, to enhance the manor’s defensive forces.

Third-tier units already possess the strength of the beginning stage of Bronze. Even if that sorcerer from before showed up again, with enough allies, they might be able to withstand him. At this point, Donald still doesn’t know that the opponent possesses silver-level strength; otherwise, he wouldn’t have planned this way.

As for the candidate for the third-tier unit, Donald has his sights set on puppet creatures.

Although the units of intelligent beings are powerful and can continue to level up, creating them consumes a great deal of soul power. On the other hand, there are several types of units in the Book of Truth that exist between living and non-living entities, focusing more on energy consumption. Though they cannot level up through self-improvement like other units once created, their advantage is that they require less soul power.

These units include Alchemical Life, Elemental Life, and Mechanical Life. Whether they are Alchemical puppets, Elemental puppets, or Mechanical puppets, they are given a simple soul by their creators, but most of them only know how to follow their master’s commands without any independent thoughts. Creating them requires relatively little soul power—for example, permanently summoning a level 2 Golem requires 80 units of soul power, only two-fifths that of a human infantryman of the same level.

However, despite the low amount of soul power required, creating their physical forms demands a huge amount of energy, costing at least ten times more than creating intelligent beings. This is one of the reasons why Donald ordered his butler to make every effort to acquire elemental crystals.

After several comparisons and selections, Donald finalized the candidates for this permanent summon: two Golems and one combat puppet.

Starting with combat puppets, these metal puppets invented specifically for warfare are creations of alchemists and mages. The smallest ones are level 3 combat puppets with bronze-tier strength, while the medium-sized ones are war puppets—15 feet tall and possessing silver-tier strength, enough to determine the outcome of a war. The largest ones are siege puppets, towering 30 feet high; their sheer weight is sufficient to crush the walls of ordinary towns in this world, making them the ultimate weapons for siege warfare.

A level 3 field unit, a combat puppet, consumes 130 units of soul power, and its energy consumption is equivalent to creating two farms out of thin air. Yet all this effort is worth it. Combat puppets are entirely covered in steel armor, standing 8 feet tall, and look like fully armed knights. Unlike knights who need warhorses, these humanoid metal armor units are driven by magic and alchemy, enabling them to exert bronze-high-level attack power.

As for defense? With their metal shells three fingers thick, they are definitely stronger than even silver-tier warriors!

The only weakness is that the metal puppet’s movement speed is somewhat slow, and the energy consumed to create it is mainly used to form its core—the key to its existence and functionality. If it is directly hit by a powerful attack, the puppet will be completely destroyed and turn into scrap metal. However, Donald needs the combat puppet to protect the manor, not to chase after enemies, so this issue isn’t really a drawback. As for its weakness, without a powerful attack at the silver level, it’s impossible to instantly penetrate the heavily armored metal armor with magical resistance. If the enemy has silver-level fighters, any preparations made would be in vain, so this weakness doesn’t need to be considered for now. Considering that the combat puppet can’t effectively attack aerial units, Donald created two more level-2 gargoyles as reinforcements. The cost of gargoyles is much lower than that of combat puppets, but even seven or eight of them combined aren’t as strong as one combat puppet. Yet their agile attack methods give them great superiority over ground units, and their stone skin provides strong defense. Soon, a metal knight and two black stone demon statues appeared in the center of Night Manor. With these three alchemical puppets, if the manor is attacked, the combat puppet will guard the center while the gargoyles can quickly support any part of the manor. With such a defense force, if attacked by the Blade Demons again, they likely wouldn’t last three moves before being defeated inside the manor. Besides these preparations, Donald was still uneasy, as the manor’s main fighting force consisted of puppet creatures that could only attack enemies within a certain range without his orders. These alone might not be enough to cover everything. Since more hands mean more strength, the plan to recruit guards was brought back onto the agenda. “Having some real guards in the manor can stabilize morale. Even without training, giving them bows, arrows, and muskets from the arquebusiers can be quite effective. The watchtowers I built earlier can also come in handy.” Although these guards mainly serve to distract the enemy, the real fighting force remains those puppet creatures. But with them, the manor’s defense system becomes more flexible and less rigid than before. As for who to recruit as guards, Donald decided to choose from civilian adventurers in the nearby territories.