Andar's next stop was towards the Introduction to Puppet Creation test. This class was the least popular amongst the Acolyte because of the sheer difficulty and the monotony of memorizing billions of parts and manuals for even the low-level puppets, which was just the barest minimum needed before a Puppet Creator…
Puppet making was also subdivided into many different sections from Humanoid Puppets, Beastial Puppets, Puppet Structures, and Vehicular Puppets, and as always Andar disregarded all the different departments under Puppets Creation and learned them all, this would make his testing even harder.
It should be noted that a large portion of a Mage's Tower construction fell under the Art of making puppets, but every Mage Tower was unique especially when it was an Archmage Tower. The small cottage of the Steward that Andar visited was a Mage Tower, but one that was far ahead in its evolution it could no longer be called just a building, but rather a life form.
What Andar had accomplished in the Basic Formation tests had already reached the ears of those here for the Puppets Creation test and also the other Acolytes and mentors in the Body Farm who were not taking part in the tests.
They all rushed down to see what he would accomplish on such a complicated test like Puppet Creation, and if his genius was unlimited like they suspected it to be.
Andar reached the test area to see hundreds of Acolytes and Mentors had already gathered and from the Incoming stream of lights coming from afar, there were more on their way, shaking his head at the spectacle of it all, Andar proceeded to land at an open area filled with millions of parts from puppets scattered chaotically.
He should be performing part of his master's wish for him to shine brighter than the stars, yet what Andar really craved was the challenge.
The test was straightforward, it was to clean and assemble as many fully functional puppets from the mountain of scraps laid out before the Acolytes.
There were various mounds of parts spaciously laid out, and each Acolyte would proceed to the mound they felt they could tackle and begin to assemble their puppet. To pass this test you needed to fully use every bit of parts in your mounds, also the size of the mounds selected would determine your final score.
Some of the mounds of parts were the size of a small basket, and the largest was the size of a house. No one in living memory had gone for that mound in the Introductory tests, it was generally accepted that only mages could tackle that challenge.
This test would push your knowledge and ingenuity to the limits, but this was the sort of test that Andar preferred, as it was the right choice for his Gray Will talent. Andar went and stood before the largest mound, and drove away the whispers carried in the breeze as the entire Body Farm was becoming enveloped by mania.
Scattering the triangular-shaped piece of dust inside his Spirit Matrix, Andar's silver eyes rapidly began turning gray as he pushed his computational prowess to its limits.
To facilitate a quick conversion using his Gray Will he called upon the wind to push up the parts into the air until he had a swirling tornado of parts in their hundreds of thousands creating quite a visual spectacle while mapping out the parts he would use to create the puppets.
Andar raised his left hand and began directing the floating parts into a blender of elements he made using earth, fire, water, and air, this was to clean and polish the parts.
Rusted metals and dirty puppet parts entered one end of the blender and when they came out they were polished. He did not just polish them, Andar made sure he fixed the countless minor defects that covered each of the parts.
This was something most Acolyte would miss, and for those that could detect these defects, they could not perfectly repair it as Andar could.
'This is why I was reborn' An errant thought passed through his mind which he quietly dismissed as he focused on his daunting task ahead.
Andar application of the elements was something that only a Mage was capable of doing, and even still most of them would not have the sensitivity to perfectly combine so many opposing elements to work smoothly, nevermind having a talent like Gray Will that gave Andar the equivalent of a million supercomputer working simultaneously.
The Puppet Creation test was the only examination he would know the type of trial he would be facing, but the twist was that the materials provided were always random in the mound you selected.
If you were someone who focused on humanoid puppets, you may find yourself in luck if most of the parts here could create a fully functional humanoid puppet or you may have less than what you needed, and instead would be finding parts for other types of puppets.
Of course, puppet creation was malleable and you could choose to combine all the parts to create something new, but it was unknown if such an experiment would work. This was what made the test for puppet creation to be so difficult, because of this added randomness.
To score the first position, Andar had been researching all sorts of blueprints that could be used with parts that should be available during the test.
With all his preparations he was still sure that he might still fail to find the parts he needed inside his mound for the blueprints in his mind, so he had only one solution to that problem, which was to memorize every single blueprint in the basic level Puppet Creation, so he would be able to tackle any challenge given to him.
Inside the Body Farm, only Andar could consume so much knowledge as an Acolyte. For others, cramming so much information depended on their Spirit, but Andar Meditation Art made it possible for each of his cells to store seemingly an infinite amount of information.
Like the Library that represented the Endless Vault technique, Andar was getting closer and closer to that state where he would one day possess all the knowledge inside the Body Farm.
