The creator of the Dollhouse had left a great deal of information regarding his findings on the Human Path, as well as the Puppet Path.
There were multiple Human Path killer moves, as well as refinement recipes for certain Human Path gu worms. The majority of Human Path gu worms, however, was noted to come from a Human Path Immortal's aperture as per what Fang Yuan could find out.
As for the Puppet Path, a good deal of the creator's findings were kept in his 'true' inheritance, but even the small amount which was left here was of immense help to a mortal.
It was to the point that Fang Yuan had now achieved quasi-Master level attainment in the Puppet Path simply from studying this information. He had initially relied up on his will stored in the house to study it for him which was quite convenient as it could do so even when he was busy; but found that consumed too much of it and that he had to start looking at things himself since he lacked the methods to replenish his will. Since he had Grandmaster level attainment in the Human Path and Master level in the Enslavement Path from his prior life, the two of them had combined together along with this information to bear this quick advancement.
Still, he had to continue practicing if he wanted to get any further.
A room filled with 100 puppets stood in front of him. Puppets were a strange kind of Gu worm. Although they looked very much like Human Path Gu worms, such as Doctor Gu, which was kept within his aperture, they were different in a few key ways.
One was that they had no gu worm form of their own; they simply remained as puppets constantly. Secondly, they did not require feeding in the traditional sense.
However, they required a large amount of primeval essence to be active and to move about. Given this, it was not possible for most mortals to use the Puppet Path to any real extent because of the amount of primeval essence that was needed to command them.
This distinguished it from the Enslavement Path. Although the resources needed to feed one's army would be large, primeval essence expenditure was usually at a minimum. Each animal in one's army was a soldier, but that soldier did not require primeval essence, only food. Not so with the Puppet Path. Conversely, so long as one had enough primeval essence, say, they were an Immortal - they could easily make a mortal puppet army with great strength.
So long as the puppets were within the Gu House and acting as per the Dollhouse, they were being powered by the drop of grape green Immortal Essence that Fang Yuan had managed to obtain from the system.
However, those that he took outside and had given to the clan members to use had to be powered with their own primeval essence.
Fang Yuan could only command about five or ten of them at once, depending on what rank they were.
Unlike something like Grass Puppet Gu, which might have 'puppet' in the name, these could not be produced by continuously using primeval essence. How had they been made then? There was no information regarding this from what Fang Yuan could find, and so, if he wanted more puppets he would need to discover the owner's true inheritance it seemed.
The reason why he had gathered 100 in this room, regardless, was simply to get a handle on how to actually command them without using his soul directly. He instead wanted to see if he could exploit their intelligence that mimicked those of humans.
He did not need to control all of them directly. As long as the Dollhouse controlled them, and he controlled the Dollhouse, he could still give them all verbal orders, and they would understand and respond.
Much like with enslaving animals, although there weren't any Beast Kings or the equivalent, he could find several of them and make them 'officers', so to speak, giving them authority over the others.
It would then make his job easier to command them so long as he spoke to those officers.
The puppets' intelligence, therefore, was a double-edged sword; although they could understand instructions far more clearly, it also meant that there was occasionally some pushback. They might misinterpret commands. Some of them were like Doctor Gu and had strange eccentricities.
'Once I become an immortal, this might be useful,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. As a mortal, one could only use a handful of puppets. As an Immortal though, their intelligence could be exploited to manage one's aperture. He could have them perform small tasks such as overseeing resources or managing inventory as a workforce without worrying about them betraying him.
As they did not need to rest or eat, they were far preferable to slaves. Which made Fang Yuan wonder why they were not more prolific when it came to Immortals - back when he had been a Rank 6 Blood Path Gu Master, the slave market was quite profitable in Yellow Treasure Heaven. Yet, he had not heard of anyone using puppets to make their work easier.
Was it because that the Puppet Path was kept secret and confidential? Or was there some other reason behind it?
He searched through his memories during his prior life, and he had only heard the term 'Puppet Path' thrown about once or twice, no further details of it. Not only that, but there were no significant figures who used it. It might have been a very esoteric path, but you would expect some kind of news from somewhere. He even knew more about the Food Path than he did the Puppet Path.
"Line up!" Fang Yuan yelled out.
The puppets fumbled a bit at his instructions before he clarified - "I mean, make rows!"
They did so as he desired, though not without there being some slight chaos as they bumped into each other looking for a spot.
'That was quite slow,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. He would need to clarify his intentions beforehand. "Alright, assemble yourselves by order of height. Make it so that the shortest are on that side of the room, and that the tallest are on the other side."
The puppets looked around at each other, confusion on their faces as they struggled to do what he told them to do.
"The person on your left should be shorter than you and on the right should be taller than you," Fang Yuan said.
He felt like Sun Tzu when asked to train the Emperor's concubines for battle - only that he knew there was no solution like killing off the commanders here. He didn't want to damage the puppets as he didn't know how to repair them.
They finally did as he said, standing proudly. One of them coughed and another one couldn't seem to help but break into giggles.
And when that puppet started laughing, so did the others until laughter echoed throughout the room. If they had been actual people Fang Yuan would've punished whoever did so, but they were all gu worms - what was the point?
'I feel like I am missing some crucial aspect here,' Fang Yuan thought to himself. "Alright, I want you to pair off against one another!"
The puppets found partners and stood in front of them.
"Back away so that there is at least five paces's worth of space between the two of you," Fang Yuan said. "And then bow."
They did as he told them too.