After returning to the flower shop by carriage, Ron did not immediately take out the life-sized Puppet Fruit. Instead, he decided to change the testing location first.
After all, he now held the title of Count, which allowed him to use spatial transfer freely within his territory.
And Tansen City just happened to have a flower shop that could be used to transplant a Phantom Willow.
The ability granted by his Count title could then be used to test the "networking range."
That was far more convenient than taking a carriage.
After transplanting a Phantom Willow to Tansen City, Ron followed it there and entered the flower shop. Telling the relaxed shop clerk not to panic, he took out a life-sized Puppet Fruit.
Once it touched a branch of the Phantom Willow, the Puppet Fruit began to transform.
In the end, a large indoor potted plant about two people tall appeared before Ron.
Compared with the Phantom Willow's full height of twenty meters, this life-sized Puppet version was still a little brother.
But compared to the miniature Phantom Willow created from a standard Puppet Fruit, this two-person-tall life-sized Puppet was already a giant.
Ron picked it up and found that it was quite heavy. Wanting to hold it as casually as the chibi Puppet version was basically a fantasy.
Still, since it was so big, the signal should be better, right?
With that thought, Ron directly used spatial transfer while carrying the life-sized Puppet, instantly arriving at the outskirts of Tansen City.
Compared to the City of Chaos, Tansen City covered a much smaller area, so even out here on the outskirts, both the chibi Puppet and the life-sized Puppet could still connect smoothly to the Illusory Spirit World.
So Ron transferred again, arriving at Lance Town, the nearest town to Tansen City, appearing in an empty alley.
This distance had already exceeded the maximum range previously measured for the chibi Puppet in the City of Chaos.
Touching the life-sized Puppet, Ron was delighted to discover that he could still enter the Illusory Spirit World!
This meant that the life-sized Puppet could maintain contact with the Phantom Willow over a greater distance!
For the sake of experimental rigor, Ron took out the chibi Puppet as well, wanting to confirm whether it had indeed lost the ability to connect with the Phantom Willow.
But to his surprise, the chibi Puppet could also connect to the Illusory Spirit World!
Ron: "?"
What the hell was this?
He was certain that the distance between himself and the Phantom Willow's original body was absolutely greater than the distance in his previous City of Chaos test.
Before, the chibi Puppet had been unable to connect. So why was it working now?
Ron puzzled over it for a long time before finally turning his gaze toward the life-sized Puppet beside him.
A flash of insight struck him. He had the Phantom Willow's original body withdraw the consciousness it had descended into the life-sized Puppet, then picked up the chibi Puppet again.
Sure enough!
This time, the chibi Puppet could no longer connect to the Illusory Spirit World!
Now this was interesting~
Ron stroked his chin and had the Phantom Willow's original body once again project its consciousness into the life-sized Puppet.
The chibi Puppet in his hand immediately regained its "signal."
So that meant, besides connecting over a greater distance, the life-sized Puppet also functioned as a signal base station?
To put it simply, wasn't this basically Wi-Fi?
Of course, the effective range of this Wi-Fi still needed to be tested.
So Ron placed the life-sized Puppet in the alley, held the chibi Puppet in his hand, and instantly transferred a hundred meters away.
Holding the chibi Puppet, he confirmed that he could still enter the Illusory Spirit World.
After that, every time he moved another hundred meters away, he checked the signal again.
Then, at roughly the five-hundred-meter mark, Ron found—
The signal had cut off.
In other words, the effective range of the life-sized Puppet as a Wi-Fi node was about five hundred meters.
Ron was fairly satisfied with that distance.
Ever since obtaining the Puppet Tree, although he had not really had any occasions to plant more, the quantity of both types of Puppet Fruits had still accumulated to a very impressive level.
Now, with the cooperation between the Phantom Willow and the Puppet Fruits, as long as Ron wanted, he could fully and seamlessly cover his entire territory with the Illusory Spirit World.
Next, it was time to test the effective distance of the life-sized Puppet itself.
Ron returned to the alley, picked up the life-sized Puppet, and used spatial transfer to go farther into the countryside. For every additional thousand meters he moved away, he attempted to connect to the Illusory Spirit World.
Only when Ron reached Bock Town, the farthest town from Tansen City, did the life-sized Puppet finally lose contact with the Phantom Willow's original body.
And between Tansen City and Bock Town, there was a distance of more than twenty kilometers.
Ron nodded in satisfaction and instantly returned to the flower shop.
Carrying the life-sized Puppet, he went back through the storage room to the flower shop in the City of Chaos, preparing for the next phase of testing.
After selecting an unused storefront in Bock Town, Ron purchased it in his capacity as lord and designated it as a branch flower shop.
Once the system completed its modifications, the cylindrical glass space capable of housing a Phantom Willow appeared inside the shop.
Ron transplanted a Phantom Willow there.
In this way, with one in Tansen City and one in Bock Town, the Illusory Spirit World now basically covers his territory completely.
However, the two Phantom Willows were not yet "holding hands," so in effect, there were still two separate Illusory Spirit Worlds.
What came next was the crucial experiment.
Ron instantly transferred to a region where the coverage areas of the two Phantom Willows overlapped, then took out two life-sized Puppets.
The two Puppets were respectively avatars of the two Phantom Willows.
Ron lifted their willow branches and tied them together in a knot, then entered the Illusory Spirit World again.
There should originally have been two separate Illusory Spirit Worlds, but Ron confirmed that the two had now merged into one!
This method worked!
Ron pumped his fist hard, feeling that the door to a new world had already opened before him.
If even a distance of over twenty kilometers like that between Tansen City and Bock Town could still allow the Illusory Spirit Worlds to merge,
Then spreading this internet across the entire empire was no longer a daydream.
Before thinking of the Puppets, Ron had even wondered whether he would have to line up Phantom Willows one by one all the way to the Royal Capital.
But now, with the Puppets, everything had become much simpler.
As long as he opened branch shops in major cities, transplanted Phantom Willows into those branches, and then used life-sized Puppets to connect all the Illusory Spirit Worlds,
An isekai version of the internet could truly take shape.
Still, the settings of the Illusory Spirit World were too bizarre. Ron felt that letting it be fully open to everyone from the very beginning might cause unforeseen problems.
So he still planned to proceed steadily, first establishing the internet in the City of Chaos, the Royal Capital, and Tansen City.
Once the first batch of netizens had been cultivated, he could gradually expand into other regions.
After all, the Phantom Willows were entirely in Ron's hands, so there was no urgent need to seize market share.
He could push things forward step by step at a measured pace.