Sam's expansion plans became steady. As the forces are running too thin, there is only so far they can go. So, they stopped expanding far and started thinking of expanding wide.
They started concentrating on the influence within the realm or the planet they are in and then decided to climb the realms upwards from it.
All the planets Sam sent his subordinates to are connected to a superior realm and then they are connected to an even superior realm.
From this point, everything is going to be steady as the foundations are laid.
Meanwhile, there is only two years' time for the next Palace of inheritance. The eighth Palace of inheritance.
Sam decided to wrap his things up within the Central continent temporarily as half of the continent is already conquered and is now safe for people to visit. He took a hold of the mines and fertile lands already and now the rest of the major powers at least want a chance to send their exploration teams to pick up some crumbs.
Arkiv started his exploration company. Now, the Major powers can only rely on him for the map, but no one dared to force him to hand it over. Because it is a venture of the Dusk Organization.
By now, even if they are idiots they would have realized who the head of the dusk organization is, so they didn't dare to piss them off.
Sam became an uncrowned king of the whole planet.
After wrapping it up, Sam went on full-time research mode.
He and Sirona already established the major foundations for this puppet project, so it is about time they made something big with it.
They even had a competition just for the fun of it to see who would make a better puppet in the next three months.
Sam has an extremely new approach for his new design. It is almost impossible for Sirona to know a better meridian network than he does. He just has a trove of cultivation techniques and battle techniques giving him access to a bunch of meridian networks.
He even offered some techniques to Sirona just to make it fair. It is her desire to have this competition, he doesn't want to crush her by much.
He is that confident.
And he actually took a cultivation technique and a battle technique as his references and he is creating two meridian networks.
Then he combined both of them and then started working on the body.
Sam didn't stay in the divine dimension to make it fair and also didn't use the production unit.
He designed, made every part with his own hands and it took a lot of time. The puppet is the most complicated thing he made in past few years.
When both of them revealed the puppets finally, they were shocked. Sam's puppet is almost similar to a human. It is just as tall as him and as lean as him. Except for the large metallic crossbars that are on the puppets' back.
Sirona made a large mechanical gorilla. It is the same size as the original beast. Five to six times her size.
But that is not what surprised him the most. It is the fact that different energies are coming out of the gorilla.
"Just how many elements did you use?" He asked as he took a closer look at the machine.
"Why? You scared?"
"You wish. It is not about the numbers in this case and as for the size, I think you would regret making it that big."
"How do we decide who made it better?"
"How else? Just by making them fight of course. I hope you used the necromancers well with the spirit enchantment."
"Of course."
"Then let them loose."
As soon as he said that the puppet he made had its eyes brightened with a red glow and fire elemental energy raged all over.
The gorilla has multiple elemental energy surrounding it as it walked forward.
The legs of the gorilla are covered with the lightning element, while the arms seemed to been covered with the metal element and the chest is with the fire element.
Sirona took the best of all the gorilla-type beasts of different elements and picked their best part. The metal ape has great fists, the Volcano gorilla has flame attacks that are great when coming from the mouth and the lightning gorilla has great legs which makes it fast.
She used three different meridian networks and three different power sources.
As for Sam's puppet, he used the meridian network from the cultivation technique which has fire elements and great movements and agility. After all, some cultivation techniques have inherent battle techniques and then fused this meridian network with that of another meridian network that belongs to a winged race.
Sam's puppet was surrounded with fire elemental energy as the crossbars on its back opened up created bat-like wings which are extremely thin but laced with the fire elemental energy.
The puppet kicked the ground and moved forward with a jet of fire as it used the wings to glide smoothly.
The gorilla started throwing punches, but Sam's puppet is too dexterous to get hit. He used the wings to glide here and then and started throwing attacks at the gorilla's back most of the time.
The attacks are mostly physical and sometimes they are ranged.
But the Gorilla had a defense as stable as a mountain and the movement with those lightning legs is actually fast and it managed to catch Sam's puppet a few times.
The battle is intense.
It is like a battle between a Pre-transcendent stage cultivator and a beast and soon there is some audience.
The people who are working in the factory nearby are having a break and they surrounded the scene.
The battle is going on like crazy and everything seemed so flashy because of the predetermined attacks and movements.
Some of them are cheering for the gorilla and others for the humanoid puppet.
The atmosphere is so exciting. But some of the higher-ups and the department heads who are in charge of research and staff are looking at them in awe.
In their eyes, both pieces are masterpieces. They are practically a work of art.
This is the pinnacle of the technology the organization has reached.
As the witnessed the battle, Sam's puppet soon started getting the advantage, because his design for the limbs and the mechanisms is superior and his puppet took lesser damage because of the dexterity. It is a battle of endurance.
But right before the puppet was about to finish the gorilla off, Sam stopped it.
"Why did you stop?"
Sirona asked with a displeased expression.
"It is a competition, not a fight."
With that, the factory workers left talking about these new things in excitement.
The department heads and researchers surrounded Sam to ask about the details, because they knew Sirona wouldn't give them. The already experienced Sirona's cold shoulder many times.
But Sam rejected them. There is only one reason, they need to cover the engineering basics first before they could think of doing anything remotely similar to this.
After sending them off, Sam and Sirona started talking again.
They are thinking of the flaws in these puppets. There are two main problems at the moment, one of them is the power source. Currently they are using the space jade with a bunch of elemental stones and then second part is the durability of the meridian network.
The meridian network is made with a vine. No matter how superior it was, it wouldn't be able to take the constant transmission of elemental energy through it.
It would definitely wear down.
For now, they can work on creating different prototypes like this while researching the meridian network problem.
Sam is sure that the energy source wouldn't be a short term problem. It would definitely take a long time.
Even if it is a bit expensive, they have to use it like this.
After discussing everything, Sam went back to his training and research.
For the next two years, until the Palace of inheritance neared them, he is constantly making new prototypes along with Sirona and competed with her. There are times, he lost. But most of the time he won and there are times he won by a landslide.
The workers and staff got used to this new routine.
The revenue of the organization increased by too much and it is almost twenty-four years since Sam came here and his age must be around thirty-nine or forty years old.
But he still looked like a man who is in his mid-twenties. The perks that come with cultivation.
The most confusing part is not even the looks, he didn't feel like he aged at all. He was so busy with everything and too active on all fronts, that he didn't even know how the time is going so fast. There might be some changes in his mindset, but he is still essentially the same man who came to this world.
He took a deep breath and went to attend the next Palace of inheritance.
