Chapter 2: Puppet

Seeing the mix of surprise and disdain on the faces of both, the usually indifferent Rebry also felt a touch of embarrassment.

Such a shoddy product indeed tarnished his reputation.

Mages capable of creating puppets should be scholars of considerable accomplishment in painting, sculpture, and literary arts, with near-exacting standards for their own creations and a strict adherence to principles.

Adhering to a policy of quality over quantity, even if some mages can scarcely create a few successful puppets in their lifetime, they would not compromise the puppeteer mage's standards for transient satisfaction, all to defend the dignity of puppeteer mages, which says a lot about their demands for the puppets.

Yet what stood before him was something he had cobbled together in a matter of days; it could not compare in material to those formal puppets, and the craftsmanship was plainly rushed, indeed making a bit of a laughingstock of himself.