The First young master looked at the second young master with a look of pity in his eyes. When everyone saw this, they were surprised. After all, it was clearly the first young master who was in an embarrassing situation but why is he pitying the second young master.
That is the question in everyone's mind.
"Brother Two. I can understand your enthusiasm, but you should be careful while planning something like this.
On what basis are you sure that other party would be willing to agree for a duel? And how are you sure that the rest of our elites will be able to deal with the remaining team if we keep the Astral Plane Consummate level cultivator occupied. I mean, how are you sure that he is the only present there. Are you really basing this all on Dayus' information? Even though I was foolish enough to believe in him at first, it was proven that he has ill intentions towards us.
What if the information is completely wrong?
Even if it is right, then why should the other party agree to the duel? After all, they had the upperhand against us since the start. We are the one holing up while hiding our citizens, while they were outside attacking as they like. At the same time, we are the ones who were completely laid bare in front of them and just now they even had a confirmation that our formation could be weakened by the self destruction of their puppets.
Will they leave all these advantages and just come over to fight us in the open? How did you get that absurd idea?"
When the elders heard this they were stunned. They really didn't consider these problems because they never even bothered to assume that the information Dayus gave them was wrong.
Looking at their expressions, First young master continued.
"If you ask me, it would be better if we keep our defensive stance and tire the other party out. We need to figure out a way to defend against the self-destruction of the puppets and we would be doing enough.
We need to mentally exhaust them and make the desperately attack our city openly in a do or die fashion. Only at that time would we have any possibility of winning."
Second young master became a bit embarrassed and said.
"What do you mean any chance of winning? Does that mean, you don't think we have any chance of winning?" He clearly asked the question to egg the first young master to be on opposite ends of the rest of the elders and the branch leader.
But the First young master is not fazed at all and said.
"No, not at all."
Everyone widened their eyes in disbelief and looked at him as if he was a crazy guy. The second young master smiled cruelly and wanted to slam down the first young master even more, but the first young master continued.
"I would like to ask. The city bound formation wouldn't activate unless there is something that poses threat to it. But why did it glow as soon as the bats appeared and hovered around the city."
The second young master had an expression that told him he was looking at an idiot and said.
"Of course, it is because of the potential damage the bat puppet could cause. Didn't you listen when the explosions happened? Or are you so drowned in your own so called research that you didn't get it?"
"Actually, I listened it too damn well and that is where the problem lies.
We don't know the lethality of those puppets until they self-destructed. We, a bunch of puppet masters that have a combined experience of over five to six centuries in the fields of puppet making. But even we didn't manage to find out their lethality until the explosion.
So, are you telling that the formation is smarter than us in analyzing the threat of the bat puppet.
Have you observed, how those puppets are only revolving around the city and even though there is a massive energy release from each one of them, there is no attack, no defense, no nothing. Why do you think that happened?
Did anyone of you even bothered to think? I did."
He then tossed a scroll towards them and said.
"The puppets are modelled after beasts called Energy bats. I don't know if the puppets have the same function as them. But from what I know of them, the energy bats have a function to resonate with the energy by emitting energy waves.
This resonance will give them chance to avoid danger zones, find treasures and so on. If that function was somehow replicated, then we are in deep shit.
We are going have the hardest time of our lives, because he might have just known the locations of the formations.
Even if the nodes and cores are not revealed he knew the areas that are covered with various formations.
The Bat puppets are just scouts and even they can do this much damage to the main formation with their self-destruction.
Imagine what would happen if his attack puppets come and he comes along with the team after that.
We need to find a way to counter these energy explosions…"
The first young master went on a rant and took out one scroll after another. After an hour, he took the group outside into the courtyard and set up a formation.
"When I saw this energy explosion the first time in the capital in the First puppet realm, I started researching it. I might not be able to replicate it exactly, but I can do to some extent."
With that he activated a formation and the energy exploded a bit. It looked like the energy explosion even though the effects could be considered lackluster at best when compared to the orginal energy explosion.
There is not any damage at all.
But the elders and the branch leaders were still dumbfounded.
The First young master took the chance to set up another formation for this 'energy explosion' and then he started setting up another formation around it.
He activated both the formations at the same time and as soon as the energy explosion occurred, the second formation was activated and sent an energy wave which up on hitting the target area, started rippling like crazy diffusing the explosion.
He then turned to looked at the Branch leader and the elders before saying.
"I want you guys to give me a chance and until then, find a stop him from attacking the city. I will set up a formation no matter how tough it can be and counter the energy explosions. Even if I cannot negate, as long as I could diffuse it a bit, I would be able to reduce a lot of damage to the city and we will have a chance to fight back."
The rest of the elders instantly came out of their shocks and asked.
"You did this all by yourself?"
"Yes, I have been researching since the explosion happened in the city and this is the progress I made. I never really cared much about the formations and the energy circulation techniques, but from the looks of it, they are a lot more dangerous and interesting.
So, I started researching them and these are the results. It would take a lot of time for me to create a formation that could diffuse all the energy explosions. So, I need a lot of members in my team."
The branch leader immediately agreed and gave the first young master freewill to pick members for his team.
To everyone's surprise, the second young master was selected into the team. But after the shock has passed, they were filled with admiration. The First young master is noble enough to keep the petty grudges aside and use the intelligence of the second young master which could possibly lead him to share the glory with him.
And there is another surprise. The Attention-seeking lady was also selected. But they didn't express anything, because the attention seeking lady might beautiful, but that doesn't offset her talents in other fields.
She might not be exceptional at anything, but she is above average in many aspects. Formations, puppets, forging and even inscriptions.
They just thought that he might be trying to use a person who has a diverse range of skill set.
The research team was established and the first thing the first young master did is to call Sam the very next day and inform him of the plan's success.
Sam smiled at this and said.
"Proceed with the rest of the plan. Just imitate everything I told you to and you would be fine.
If things are problematic, just directly contact me and don't bother to hide this anymore. I will come and help you as fast as I can."
With that, the first set of the plan was over.
As for the other plan, Arkiv started executing it perfectly.
