A giant Mechanical Monkey appeared before Ning Zhuo.
The monkey stood at least four or five times the height of the puppet Ning Zhuo. Its body was quite burly, and its arms were as thick as the torso of the puppet Ning Zhuo.
The monkey was not clumsy at all.
With a gentle push, it opened the first door and stepped in, bending low to pass through.
The height of the doorway didn't even reach its waistline.
The mechanism immediately activated, and a thousand-pound hammer platform came crashing down on it.
The Mechanical Monkey didn't even look up; it directly extended its arm, reaching up voluntarily.
At the same time, it straightened its body, its stance imposing, like a mountain rising from the ground!
The thick arms met the thousand-pound hammer platform, not with rigidity but with a soft resistance, skillfully diverting the hammer's trajectory.
Boom!
The thousand-pound hammer platform was gently guided by the Mechanical Monkey's arms, diverted, and smashed into the side wall.
The Mechanical Monkey remained calm and composed.
From the moment it entered the room, it stood its ground, only straightening its body without moving an inch.
After defusing the trap, the Mechanical Monkey looked at its arm.
If it had resisted forcefully, its wooden arms would have shattered long ago. But at this moment, there were only a few small cracks.
"Four ounces to move a thousand pounds!" Ning Zhuo, seeing this, instinctively realized: the Mechanical Monkey's hand-to-hand combat skills were likely even better than those Kung Fu Dolls.
Just now, its move was executed effortlessly with a balance of softness and strength, showcasing a graceful and elegant power.
The Mechanical Monkey continued to move forward.
Thud.
It triggered another mechanism, and a golden silk net rose from below, enveloping it.
It lightly leaped, stretching its arms, and precisely grasped the edges of the golden silk net.
In mid-air, it performed a backflip.
Its heavy body landed on the ground with only a slight sound.
The golden silk net was also torn apart by it, draping over its body like a slightly protective cloak!
Ning Zhuo was somewhat dumbfounded.
"This is definitely a martial arts master!"
The Mechanical Monkey's entire action was smooth and flowing, turning the enemy's force into its own with great strength, enough to tear the fishing net. But its control over its strength was exceptionally precise.
Next, Ning Zhuo saw the Mechanical Monkey continually break through, its speed far surpassing the retreating speed of the floor tiles.
During this time, numerous horizontal wooden beams struck, and the Mechanical Monkey swung its arms, sometimes smashing the beams like a heavy hammer, and other times piercing obstacles like a long spear.
It occasionally leaped agilely, moving effortlessly, and at times it stood firm as an immovable pillar in a grand hall.
It advanced step by step, breaking through various triggered traps like a gracefully dancing bulldozer.
Upon reaching the second door, it looked contemplative. After a few breaths, it chose Spirit Stones as its reward.
Seeing this, Ning Zhuo was slightly moved: "With a body this large, its consumption of Spiritual Power must be considerable. Therefore, it must be Spirit Stones."
After watching, Ning Zhuo placed the monitoring mechanism parts back into the corner.
He immediately headed to Room Three.
The scene in Room Three shocked him even more.
Thirty to forty Kung Fu Dolls were all toppled over in disarray; most had become severely crippled, and some were completely dismantled.
In the past forty to fifty days, Ning Zhuo had entered and exited the Magma Fairy Palace countless times.
This was the first time he discovered that the Kung Fu Dolls could be destroyed!
Ning Zhuo immediately took out the monitoring mechanism parts. After checking, he was speechless for a moment.
The Mechanical Monkey, upon reaching Room Three, was immediately besieged by numerous Kung Fu Dolls.
Its body was enormous, and its martial skills exceptional, but it only had two fists and two legs, so it should have been at a disadvantage.
But after examining it, Ning Zhuo understood what it meant when they said, "Every part of a martial arts master's body can become a weapon!"
In Room Three, the Mechanical Monkey rolled, jumped, crawled, using fists, elbows, head, chest, back, even its tail and butt, all as weapons.
It swung its arms in a sweeping motion.
Its elbow, like an awl, pierced through the chest of a Kung Fu Doll.
With a lift of its head, it knocked a doll to the ceiling. When the doll fell, the Mechanical Monkey whipped it with its tail, sending it flying and knocking over three or four other dolls.
Like this, the Mechanical Monkey seemed to unleash countless whirlwinds, spinning around the room multiple times.
The Kung Fu Dolls attacked one after another, only to be continuously knocked away.
Finally, when the Mechanical Monkey stood still in the center of the arena, all the Kung Fu Dolls lay on the ground, even the yellow light in their eyes dimmed.
Ning Zhuo suddenly realized: "I kind of understand."
"This is the correct way to pass Room Three!"
"Using martial arts to fight can destroy the Kung Fu Dolls. If one uses spells to be cunning, then destroying the dolls will be expressly prohibited."
"This Mechanical Monkey's martial skills are truly remarkable!"
Ning Zhuo sincerely admired it.
Whenever he passed through Room Three, he had always relied on spells to take shortcuts.
Not only had he learned all the spells, but he had also gained a lot of casting experience through weekly ranking rewards, becoming quite proficient.
"If I were to fight it, I would have to maintain a distance and use spells for long-range attacks to have any chance of winning."
"In close combat, there's no chance at all!"
Cultivators in the first three layers of Qi Refinement were sometimes killed by mortal martial masters. Such examples were not rare.
Upon seeing the Mechanical Monkey choose the Spirit Stone reward again and leave Room Three, Ning Zhuo quickly put the monitoring mechanism parts back and hurried to follow.
In the preparation room, there was no one but himself.
This slightly relieved Ning Zhuo, but then he became even more tense.
On one hand, he didn't need to fight in the preparation room, a space that was still relatively narrow; on the other hand, it meant the Mechanical Monkey had already passed through here, heading deeper.
After picking up the monitoring mechanism parts, Ning Zhuo discovered that the Mechanical Monkey had circled the room several times, carefully observing various mechanism pedestals and picking up some crafting tools to inspect before putting them back.
Finally, the Mechanical Monkey stayed in front of the five-sided stone pillar ranking board for a long time.
To Ning Zhuo's relief, the Mechanical Monkey did not infuse the stone pillars with Spiritual Power, thus not acquiring the Trial Disciple mark.
Ning Zhuo also walked up to the five-sided stone pillars.
When he saw the ranking board, he was greatly shocked!
He was only the top in four rankings now, with one ranking having been pushed to second place.
"I am tied for first in the Qi Refinement ranking, but I fell behind in the Essence Refinement ranking. I'm in the third layer of Essence Refinement now."
"What's going on?"
The Mechanical Monkey evidently had another fortuitous encounter, having early on cultivated the Demon-infused Bloodline Technique!
"Yuan Dasheng?" Ning Zhuo stared at the Mechanical Monkey's name, lost in thought.
"The Mechanical Monkey is clearly a non-human demon cultivator."
"Its martial skills and its various behaviors in the preparation room suggest it possesses remarkable intelligence."
"It has a name, and this name seems familiar to me..."
Ning Zhuo had many doubts in his mind.
How exactly did this demon cultivator named Yuan Dasheng acquire the Demon-infused Bloodline Technique in advance?
Does it live in Fire Persimmon Immortal City?
Initially, Ning Zhuo thought this Mechanical Monkey might be a Magma Demon Ape from the volcano. But the subsequent discoveries dispelled that notion.
"Where have I heard this name before?"