Long before Ning Zhuo ever wandered into the Ning Family’s Council Hall—awkwardly, quietly, the way overlooked boys often do—his fate had already been carved out in a place most people would never even dare approach. Buried deep inside an old volcano where the air tasted like burnt metal and forgotten centuries, the Mechanical Fairy Palace slept. His mother had staked everything—her life, her final breath—just to reach it. And in those fading moments, she pressed into her son’s hands the strange and almost eerie Buddha Heart Demon Seal, whispering the words that would haunt him for years: “To ascend to enlightenment and cast others into darkness.”
The seal, for reasons even elders would choke trying to explain, allowed Ning Zhuo to control mechanisms as naturally as other people blinked. No strings, no sweat, no strained souls. Where other cultivators nearly passed out trying to get one puppet to lift an arm, Ning Zhuo could move dozens with a passing thought.
Yet in the Council Hall, none of this was known—not even suspected. The elders were too busy grumbling about failure after failure in this year’s Mechanical Techniques examination. Puppets had flopped, strings had snapped, one kid even sent his puppet head rolling across the floor. The scene had been embarrassing enough that the Clan Leader practically lost hair over it. Other families already had legitimate Mechanism Masters, while the Ning Family still acted like they were stuck reading beginner manuals. Their belated discovery of the Magma Fairy Palace was starting to look like a cosmic joke rather than a blessing.
So the Clan Leader made a desperate call: they needed help from outside. Rumors had been floating around for a while about one particular figure—Youthful Guest, a Mechanism Master who traded quietly in the black market, the kind of person you only found if he felt like being found. Ning Xiaoren, the Young Clan Leader, was sent to try to reach him. And poor Ning Ze, already overworked as the procurement manager, got saddled with the impossible task of buying eighty Top and Bottom Wishing Ropes from this elusive master.
Ning Ze exhausted every reasonable method—messages, coded signals, hours spent freezing in back alleys. Nothing. Youthful Guest slipped through every attempt like smoke. Frustration slowly twisted into something uglier, and eventually Ning Ze cooked up a rather pathetic plan involving the Huang Family’s Three Ghosts. If Youthful Guest wouldn’t come politely, then he would be “encouraged.”
When he finally found Youthful Guest, the man looked like a brittle old peddler pushing a rickety mechanical cart. But the cart moved with impossible grace—gears humming, panels shifting—every adjustment smooth enough to make Ning Ze’s jaw hang. Even then, the negotiation went downhill instantly. Youthful Guest simply raised the price and brushed off Ning Ze’s threats like they were crumbs on his sleeve.
The planned ambush followed. The Three Ghosts lunged, but Youthful Guest dismantled them almost lazily. Mechanical constructs erupted from the cart, moving with sharp, perfect timing, slicing through the ghosts as if they were made of mist. And through it all—still no strings. No gestures. Just raw, terrifying mastery.
It was only when Ning Ze lay on the ground, shaking, that the truth finally slapped him breathless:
Youthful Guest wasn’t an old man at all. He was Ning Zhuo—the quiet boy, hidden inside Iron Han Armor, carrying the Buddha Heart Demon Seal.
And from that moment on, the Ning Family’s problems were no longer just exams or puppet strings. Ning Zhuo’s identity cracked open a door leading straight back to the Mechanical Fairy Palace—and to the myth his mother had died to protect, now demanding its reckoning.
