Chapter 284

Chapter 285: Irene Pro Max

After the dishes were washed, Yu Sheng took Foxy and Irene and used Door Opening to jump straight to the Valley, landing on the Portal Platform.

This time, he brought all three Irenes.

The little doll would personally handle several key steps in the rite, including drawing the complex array, placing alchemic materials, and even part of the shaping. With her current size, one body couldn’t do everything.

They wanted to push the new body’s completion as high as possible and avoid every flaw they could.

Irene looked around and found the corner where they had made her last body: “Here again? Works for me.”

Yu Sheng said while focusing, hands already moving: “Give me a sec to grow a wall, or the wind will blow out the candles.” He muttered as the platform began to “grow”: “Should’ve left the last wall standing.”

Irene grumbled: “Forget that. You should build the ‘temple’ from your plan. You kept saying you’d turn this into a hub, and the place is still bare with just the Door in the middle, not even a fence. I suggest you stop ogling epic buildings you find online. At least put up a little matchbox shed.”

Cold sweat popped on Yu Sheng’s forehead. [No wonder she always gave me that weird look when I scrolled building pics. She already knew I was using them to copy houses.]

Sweat or not, his hands didn’t stop.

With the rasp of stone and a small rumble underfoot, the ground rose like a living thing. He built a temporary wall to block the Valley winds, then raised a flat platform in the center as an Alchemic Platform. Foxy started laying out everything they needed.

Out came Ritual Candles taken from the Special Affairs Bureau, sacred oils, spices, Crystal Dust, inks, and more.

Everything was top shelf, the highest grade Borderland alchemy supplies. Some were even the kind of treasures you couldn’t buy anywhere, only issued inside the Special Affairs Bureau.

High-end goods really did feel different from the five-coin shop stuff. Even the packaging looked noble. A few ritual spices came in Gilded Sealing Caskets with seals on them. Yu Sheng remembered his last batch came in plastic bottles.

All the fancy materials lined up in a row. The little doll’s eyes went wide. She turned to Yu Sheng, full of awe: “How much did you swipe?”

Yu Sheng puffed up: “This is nothing. Foxy’s tails still have plenty. And you were there when I hauled the last batch, so why act surprised now?”

Irene blinked, scratched her hair, and admitted: “True.”

Yu Sheng fell silent. [At this point I don’t even care how strong the body turns out. I just hope these parts upgrade her brain.]

Meanwhile, the little doll had started drawing the base of the Alchemy Formation.

Compared to the simple array she taught Yu Sheng last time, this was clearly a higher-grade formation, deep and complex. Dazzling runes formed every line. Each Spirit Infusion section had precise Nodes for amplification, stability, and linkage. The ringed base lines came in four layers, and the closer to the Core Zone, the more intricate it got. It was dizzying to look at.

Two Irenes each held a dip pen, drawing with the special ritual ink. Faces tight, they worked with absolute focus. The third Irene stood outside the array, checking the whole thing for completeness and symmetry from a third-person view.

To be honest, this job fit her talent. Multiple bodies working at once, plus a third-party angle to supervise. Yu Sheng felt a little jealous. [If I had extra viewpoints when I built houses, I wouldn’t end up with something that looks like a scenic public restroom every time.]

While she worked, the supervising Irene still had time to chat: “What are we using for the frame?”

Yu Sheng started: “Rebar is actually not bad…”

He pivoted before she could rant: “But Foxy just gave me a new idea.”

The supervisor blinked and turned.

Foxy flicked one tail. With a heavy clang, a massive hunk of metal thudded onto the ground.

The little doll’s eyes went blank: “What the…”

Yu Sheng hurried to explain: “Don’t make that face. This might be the best material we can get. According to the Special Affairs Bureau, its mystic metrics are maxed out. It holds and conducts spirit power even better than living flesh. Their own warehouse doesn’t have anything better. Think about it. They buy from us.”

Irene stared, almost convinced, then snapped to a thought: “Wait. This stuff spawns Machine Spirits. If we make even a hammer, it sprouts a spirit. If you use it for my frame, won’t it come alive on its own? Will I have to negotiate with my bones every time I want to move?”

Foxy shook her head and explained patiently: “Spirit Fox Dark Iron doesn’t seize minds like an evil relic. It shows spirit when making common tools, yes. But if you use it for a body frame, it connects with the master’s will. Where I’m from, merchants from other worlds used to buy our dark iron. They couldn’t forge Artifact Spirits, but they made implants for the human body. They never had problems.”

Irene muttered: “How does your hometown have everything…” Still, her doubts faded. She eyed the iron lump and asked, puzzled: “How are you turning that into a frame? Don’t we need a forge to melt it first?”

Yu Sheng grinned: “Easy. I’ll carve a skeleton-shaped mold in the ground. Foxy will melt the iron and pour it in.”

As he spoke, he walked to a safe spot off the Alchemic Platform. He raised a hand, guided the earth, and a doll-skeleton groove formed in the ground, sized to Immortal-grade proportions. Foxy stepped over, lifted the ingot with a gesture, and the iron floated before her. Fox Fire curled around it, and it began to melt.

Yu Sheng added, proud: “I learned this technique from videos of people casting iron railings on the sidewalk.”

Irene stared, speechless.

[This whole scene is so weird.] On one side, her two bodies traced ancient runes passed down among dolls. On the other, Foxy used spirit fire and Demon Fox Immortal Arts from a far-off world to melt a mystical ingot. And the key to combining them was Yu Sheng carving a trough in the dirt, learned from a village workshop’s railing-casting.

It turned out pretty decent though. Yu Sheng’s groove was nice and even.

Soon the Fox Fire faded. Foxy set the remaining iron aside, pulled several big buckets of water from her tails, and splashed the ground to cool it. Then she pried the poured “skeleton” out of the earth and laid the hot frame at the center of the freshly drawn Alchemy Formation.

Yu Sheng said: “For the ‘flesh and fill,’ we’ll still use the Valley’s soil and stone. It’s the best match we have right now, like Living Soil. We don’t have anything higher grade.”

Irene sighed: “At least it’s not lotus starch. You do the base shaping. I’ll refine the details.”

They fed sacred oils and spices into the fire. Soil and stone writhed and wrapped the spirit-charged frame. The doll’s body began to take shape. Using the Artificial Saintess’s blade, Yu Sheng cut his palm and let blood drip into the moving earth and stone, completing the key step of the rite.

Irene guided and corrected the finer points to make sure the new body would receive the soul in the best possible state.

The spirit-rich iron was waking up.

Lifeless rock and soil began to show a spark of life.

The gray-white shell of the doll started to show the texture of skin.

Yu Sheng, Foxy, and Irene crowded the Alchemic Platform, tense and expectant.

Its chest rose and fell.

It tried to learn how to breathe.

Its hands and feet formed and trembled.

It waited for someone to call its name.

Yu Sheng spoke softly: “Irene.”

And she was given life.

A graceful black gothic dress covered the newborn doll’s body. A stiff, rough face turned lively and bright at once as Irene’s mind entered the new shell. In the next second, Yu Sheng saw something shocking.

The body began to shrink.

Very fast. Whoosh. From one meter sixty seven down to one meter twenty, then down again to 66.6 centimeters.

Yu Sheng and Foxy stared, dumbfounded: “…?”

On the Alchemic Platform, the newborn Irene Pro Max, at 66.6 centimeters tall, sat up in a daze and looked from one of her other bodies to the next.

Two seconds later, she burst into tears.