After 4 days, Jace arrived at Bayam. He paid the captain half of the remaining money and got himself a room in a nice inn.
It was morning; Jace had just woken up.
He stood on the balcony of the room in his casual clothes. The view was nice; under the soft light of the morning sun, the trees swayed with the fresh air that came from the sea.
It was time to check out his marionettist's powers.
He pulled out a fistful of grains and held them out at the railing of the balcony. Soon, a few gray pigeons flew over with fluttering wings, sat on the railing around, and started picking grain from his hand.
Jace immediately turned on his ability to see spirit body threads and picked a pigeon out to make his marionette.
'Sorry little bird, but I'm afraid I need to experiment.'
He chose the one that sat on the left side of his hand on the railing and started controlling its spirit body threads.
After 20 seconds, he obtained control of the initial phase.
The bird still seemed unaware of any abnormalities, so he went to the main phase of making the bird his marionette.
That's when the bird showed some reaction; its body twitched as it let out a weird sound, but being a bird, it could do nothing.
Halfway through the process, Jace realized that he could stop the process halfway and still control the bird, like a 'partial marionettization'. And when he would drop the control, the bird could just return back to being a bird without dying.
But he also realized that it would take more focus to control the bird, as the connection between them was only partial, so he decided to go all the way.
2 minutes later, he had his first marionette!
By now, seeing the abnormality in one of them, the rest of the pigeons had scattered away, leaving only Jace's marionette.
The spirit body threads of the pigeon were now directly connected to Jace's hand. Through these threads, he could feel and control every aspect of this pigeon.
It was basically a part of him.
So he decided to check the senses of his new marionette.
"Woah!!" Jace said out in amazement.
A pigeon's senses were just different!! Jace was pleasantly shocked.
The pigeon had a vision of 340°; not only that, it could see more colors than humans.
Jace could now see a different spectrum of colors, including ultraviolet rays. Not only that, its hearing was different as well; he could hear the waves of water and the rumblings of clouds far away, and he could also hear the vibration of the earth!
The sense of smell was great as well. It also had some sort of vibration sensitivity in its wings; other than that, Jace could also feel the magnetic field of the earth, like which direction was north or east and what not, like a compass.
'This is fucking bizarre!!' he thought in excitement as he started to move around the pigeon's body, trying to get accustomed to it.
It was easier than he expected, it was likely because the marionette's mind and muscle memory were not exactly gone.
After moving around for a few seconds on the railing, Jace decided to give 'flying' a try.
He jumped off the railing and spread out his wings, fanning them as he was propelled up.
"Haha haha!" Jace's real body, standing on the balcony, laughed. He could control both himself and the marionette with no problem; as a Sequence 5 of the Seer pathway, his mind was far broader and more perceptive now.
He continued flying in the air through his marionette, enjoying the world from a different perspective.
Of course, he was mindful of not going out of the 100-meter range.
——
Next day.
It was afternoon in Bayam.
Jace stood in the alley before a middle-aged, shabby degenerate.
He had just obtained the initial control over the degenerate's spirit body threads and started the process of marionettization.
Jace liked his pigeon marionette just fine—even loved it—but he needed to experiment more, so he had to let it 'go'.
Jace shook his head, thinking it was a shame.
Soon, he made the degenerate his marionette completely.
When he sensed the world through his new marionette's world, he was extremely disappointed; the body was imperfect, and the senses were human and dull.
Jace was disappointed. "The pigeons are better than humans..." he muttered.
But he got to the experiment he had been waiting to perform.
He wore the Rose Bishop bracelet and used the power of 'flesh blood fusion' to turn into a bloody and gooey fluid, crawled onto the marionette's body, and entered its body through the mouth.
He took a few moments to settle in properly in the marrionet's body, as it was his first time using this power. A few moments later, he started to check out the marionette's body from the inside.
The marionette's blood was flowing and the heart was beating because Jace was controlling it to do so unconsciously; he could stop the blood flow and heart, but it would not affect the marionette, as it was already dead.
He shifted his perspective and possessed his marionette; now he saw the world from its perspective. He walked and jumped around with no problem whatsoever.
It was working. This was indeed the perfect way for him to control a marionette; he could also stay inside the body for about 2 days, until he needed to replenish his blood due to the side effect of the artifact.
This would likely help him act as a marionette more effectively, as it was necessary for a marionettist to hide in shadows while letting his marionettes take the stage, and what better way to hide other than in the body of the marionette itself!
Nonetheless, there was still a last thing to check.
Jace moved his body inside the marionette, got out the same way he got in, took his real form, and observed the marionette.
After a few moments, he smiled. The marionette was still intact; when using the 'flesh blood fusion' power on humans, they would die upon exiting the body. But the marionette was essentially dead, so it couldn't really be more dead.
But the body of the marionette was damaged; it would have been significant enough for a human to die, but a marionette was different.
Other than that, Jace believed that the damage could be repaired by the marionette wearing the Rose Bishop bracelet, but that was only viable for a Beyonder marionette.
This was not a Beyonder marionette.
So Jace discarded it.
Thud.
The body fell down.
Jace just turned around and left; it was time for him to find a Beyonder marionette.
——
The same day in the evening, Jace was searching for a new Beyonder marionette.
His preference was pretty simple: the target should be a mid-sequence Beyonder and a criminal on the wanted list.
And through a simple divination, he found one walking around on a street.
Currently, Jace was walking behind a particular man who was in his mid-30s with a rugged appearance, wearing casual pants, a shirt, and a vest.
Now that Jace was a Sequence 5 of the Seer pathway, his intuition and divination skills had been significantly enhanced, so it took him only a moment of using his Spirit Vision and his knowledge to find out that the guy before him was a Sequence 7 Pyromaniac.
Jace had also seen him on a wanted poster, so he was an ideal candidate.
So he walked closer nonchalantly, as a normal person would, and started controlling his spirit body threads.
He achieved the initial control in 20 seconds, and then he moved on to the process of marionettization.
Since Hunters had a strong intuition of danger and would likely figure out something is wrong, Jace started performing divinations to interfere with the Pyromaniac's intuition; he could do that now that he was a Sequence 5.
As soon as the process started, the Hunter's body slowed and twitched. Realizing something was wrong, he started using his fire abilities, but before he could do anything, Jace stole the power he was about to use with the Prometheus Ring right form behind him.
So the Hunter was helpless. In around 5 minutes, Jace made the Pyromaniac his marionette completely.
And he controlled the marionette to walk normally.
As both the marionettist and the marionette continued walking, Jace immediately checked out his marionette, and he was impressed.
The body was strong and perfect, each of the senses was even sharper than he had expected, and then there were the abilities of the Sequence 7 Pyromaniac, and also the powers of the Sequence 8 Provoker along with the Hunter's powers as well.
'Now this is what you call a marionette.'
He went to his inn to rest, while he made his marionette buy another room for itself.
Jace sighed deeply while laying on the bed.
He had become a Sequence 5, experimented with his new powers, and made a new marionette.
Now it was time to return to Backlund.
The next day, he changed his marionette's appearance, went into its body using 'flesh blood fusion,' and boarded a steam ship straight to Backlund.