Tang looked at the newly appeared 'Bionic Marionette' module in the System interface, thought about his only Sequence Six marionette, and decided to wait and get one that truly suited his liking.
After all, marionettes couldn't grow. Even if they were fed potion ingredients, they would only combine into bizarre Sealed Artifacts. The marionettes themselves couldn't advance.
Even with this module, the processor was still him, and the marionettes were still dead people.
"Speaking of which, where did the wraith controlled by that Trick Sorcerer go?"
Inside the theater, the Trick Sorcerer had evaded Olson's banishment by switching places with a marionette. Logically, it should have been thrown out after the theater disappeared.
'It was made into a marionette.'
The System replied, 'At that time, inside that theater, everyone who wasn't already a marionette was attacked. Except for that Black Knight of the Secret Suppliant pathway, everyone else, including the banished wraith without the Trick Sorcerer's control, as well as the Extraordinary individuals and ordinary people who were still in the theater, were all made into marionettes.'
"..."
So many people had disappeared in Tingen. The Church would launch a detailed investigation into this large-scale disappearance, and even demigods from the Holy Cathedral might come to investigate.
After all, it involved a Sealed Artifact at the Angel level.
However, even if they investigated, the theater itself had the sequence of a Sequence Two, coupled with the influence of multiple demigod-level marionettes inside, as well as his father's sequence, the System's sequence, his own sequence when entering 'Knowledge Follows the Person' mode, etc. If someone unskilled in divination tried to find out through divination, they would probably just run into a wall.
Failure in divination was fine, but if they succeeded, anyone below the demigod level would be in deep trouble no matter what they divined.
Tang simply ignored the 'Bionic Marionette' module for now and looked at his storage.
"To be precise, the System's mission rewards are decent and not unexpected."
After all, he had done many missions, and the System rarely gave direct items. Most of the rewards were identification次数, craftsman次数, or knowledge fragments... Ah, it was also possible that the System was very poor.
The highlight of this mission was still here.
Tang rubbed his hands, feeling like he was opening a blind box from his previous life.
He opened the System's introduction, and in an instant, dense text appeared before his eyes.
"Good heavens, really good heavens."
Tang's eyes widened.
'Sealed Artifact: [The Theater That Never Ends].'
'Item Information: A Sealed Artifact born from the combination with the Extraordinary characteristics of a Sequence Two Miracle Invoker, maintaining a considerably high degree of 'living' characteristics.'
'Description: This is a box that looks ordinary on the outside. Opening the lid reveals a simple theater inside, with numerous lifelike puppet models arranged on the stage and in the audience seats. It's not hard to see that some of the models have quite painful expressions.'
'When the box is opened, the theater will spread a special 'curtain' around the box as its center. The curtain will take up to six minutes to fully form. During this time, the area covered by the curtain will continuously expand. Without an audience, the curtain will at most envelop a 100m x 100m x 100m cubic space in the real world. The internal space has no spatial limitations.'
'All spiritual life enveloped by the curtain will passively enter the theater and become part of the audience. Only by fulfilling the theater's requirements can they leave.'
'As the number of 'audience' inside increases, the range of the curtain will continue to spread outwards.'
'Note: Within the range of the curtain, it has a certain ability to cut off connections between the inside and outside. As the number of audience members increases, the power of this disconnection will also become stronger.'
Seeing this, Tang paused.
"The Seer pathway should be Sequence One. Only after reaching the Cryptic Servant does one possess this kind of ability similar to creating a divine kingdom. Was it because it was affected by the Night pathway or other pathways with hidden Extraordinary powers during the Fourth Epoch War, causing the Sealed Artifact formed after this Miracle Invoker died to simultaneously possess such abilities?"
"Or was it because there were demigods or angels with similar Extraordinary abilities among the marionettes it controlled? Or did it use the power of miracles to make the curtain it created possess the authority of 'concealment'?"
Emm, not sure, let's look further.
'Extraordinary Abilities:'
'Has the power to accumulate miracles. The more miracles it fulfills for others, the stronger the power it unleashes. This is the core Extraordinary ability.'
'Can move the entire theater into a certain historical gap for up to thirty minutes.'
'Can reproduce people who have entered the theater, up to six, with a limit of two at the Angel level.'
'Able to turn those who do not meet the miracle requirements into marionettes...'
'Can perform divination...'
'The Magician possesses magic performances...'
'...'
'Negative Effects:'
'Everyone who enters the theater must fulfill a miracle to leave. If they do not fulfill a miracle, they will become a marionette.'
'Once you enter the theater, it means a part of you has become a marionette. The spirit threads will gradually be controlled by the theater. Even if you don't become a marionette through performance, you will gradually become one over time. At the same time, if the number of audience members in the theater does not increase within a certain period, the spirit threads will randomly control people outside the theater to enter.'
'Sealing Method: Tell it a miracle that it can achieve with its sequence but cannot easily accomplish, and store it in a black box in a sealed space where no items with spirit threads are allowed within fifty meters.'
In other words, even Extraordinary individuals of the Fate pathway, lucky enough not to be called by name, would become marionettes over time.
And even if someone realized the problem with the theater and didn't enter, it would forcibly pull people in.
"Compared to other Angel-level Sealed Artifacts, the negative effects shouldn't be considered many, but they are all very targeted, and difficult to complete, difficult to satisfy."
For example, the first one: to leave, one must demonstrate a miracle. Apart from Olson using the principle of the steam engine he provided to fulfill the 'industrial miracle,' and him using compressed water to create metallic hydrogen to fulfill the 'miracle of creation,' no one else could leave.
All in all, besides these, there was a lot of content, but most of it was consistent with the Seer pathway.
As for the marionettes, Tang looked at the dense list of names below. After asking the System for an abridged version, he found that apart from the Sequence Four demon, there was only one Sequence Three War Bishop of the Red Priest pathway among the demigod-level marionettes in the theater.
The number was smaller than he thought.
"Only two demigod-level marionettes, the rest are historical projections. Hmm, that's normal. Demigod marionettes aren't exactly common."
However, Tang hadn't seen that Sequence Three marionette until it died. It should have been the theater's trump card.
In the end, it was directly cut down by 'Knowledge Follows the Person.'
Tang directly scrolled the list to below those two demigod marionettes. There was one special marionette there.
'Marionette: Meatball.'
He didn't complain about why the System's naming was so strange. When he saw this name, he thought of the monster the Black Knight had fought.
This should be his biggest gain from this adventure besides the Miracle Invoker's Sealed Artifact itself.
The System interface showed a lump, yes, really a lump of aggregated Extraordinary characteristics forming an indescribable thing.
(End of this chapter)