"Heavy Silver is too little. Red Demon Finegold is too much. Thousand Mechanisms Copper is too little. Windspirit Iron is too little. Profound Thunder Gold is too much."
Sensing the changes inside the mixed metal sphere, Chu Chengzhou kept adding in the rare metals that were short in proportion, while finely controlling the Four-Element Heavy Silver Twin Hammers infused with chaos soul power, hammering to shake out the few rare metals that were in excess within the blend.
Unknowingly, a quarter of an hour passed.
Under Chu Chengzhou's handling, the sphere hovering in midair shrank a lot in volume, but its actual weight did not decrease and even increased, estimated to over four thousand jin, and that was after clearing out the impurities in the original rough ingots.
Boom boom boom.
As the Four-Element Heavy Silver Twin Hammers infused with chaos soul power hammered, a brilliant nine-colored radiance suddenly blossomed from the metal sphere.
Nine metals fused. Thousand Refinements, complete!
"Hm? Why does the ratio feel off again?"
The next moment, Chu Chengzhou frowned.
In his spiritual sense, after the Thousand Refinements, the proportions of the metals inside the Thousand-Refined metal sphere again felt slightly out of tune.
Perhaps the forging tier of the fused metal had become high, a qualitative change occurred, breaking the fragile balance and causing the disharmony?
There was no help for it. Chu Chengzhou could only keep playing the patcher.
The more he did it, the more proficient he became. Before long, after another round of "patching," the sphere again gave off a sense of perfect balance among the nine metals in Chu Chengzhou's spiritual perception.
Boom boom boom boom boom.
Half an hour later, after yet another round of "patching," as the Four-Element Heavy Silver Twin Hammers kept falling, brilliant multicolored halos drifted, and a feeling of joyful elation radiated from the sphere in midair.
Nine metals fused. Soul Forging, complete!
This time, the disharmony that appeared after the earlier Thousand Refinements and Spirit Refinement did not reappear.
"Draw!"
With the Soul Forging done, Chu Chengzhou barked a shout. Attribute-less soul power surged from his body and transformed into soul power of the eleven basic elements.
Then metal, wood, water, fire, and earth fused, combined with space to become Creation. Wind, thunder, light, and darkness fused, combined with time to become Destruction. Creation and Destruction merged and became Chaos.
With a turn of thought, using his own Chaos as the guide, the elemental energy of heaven and earth around him surged. Countless misty-azure strands of chaos energy converged, tinting the nearby barren mountains a faint cyan.
"Good."
Seeing that what gathered was not soul power of the eleven basic elements but chaos energy formed by the ultimate fusion, Chu Chengzhou nodded inwardly in satisfaction.
Since what was converging was chaos energy and not the eleven-element energy, leaving aside whether the later "Chaos Heavenly Refinement" would succeed, at least the "great horror" from back then would not happen again.
As chaos energy poured in madly, the Four-Element Heavy Silver Twin Hammers in midair swelled by a large margin. The two great hammers, carrying surging chaos power, fell onto the fused metal sphere like raindrops.
Boom boom boom boom boom.
With each strike, a portion of the chaos energy borne by the hammers injected into the sphere.
As the chaos energy poured in, the fused sphere, still at high temperature and showing a temporary crimson, began to turn translucent, as if becoming a huge spherical azure gem.
Seeing this, Chu Chengzhou recalled the Four-Element Heavy Silver Twin Hammers, drew the sphere in midair to hover before him, spread his arms, closed his eyes, and focused on guiding the converging chaos energy.
Hum!
Before long, a hum that went straight into the soul rang out. In that instant, Chu Chengzhou seemed to become part of heaven and earth.
Chu Chengzhou: Heart merges with heaven and earth. Body merges with heaven and earth. I am your heaven!
At the same time, the energy of heaven and earth surged violently. A large amount of chaos energy gathered again, but this time they revolved around Chu Chengzhou.
Soon, as chaos energy kept converging, a misty-azure vortex of energy formed above his head.
The next moment, the vortex of chaos energy formed from the massed chaos energy began to move, shifting slowly from above Chu Chengzhou's head to above the sphere before him. Then a misty-azure radiance poured down.
At once, azure light flickered on the sphere, radiating the intent of Creation and Destruction.
It was as if this spherical metal was both a creation divine artifact and a world-ending divine artifact.
In the blink of an eye, as if reaching a saturation point, the misty-azure vortex in midair suddenly turned violent, faint azure arcs of lightning flickering within.
"It really works."
Seeing the tribulation cloud take shape, Chu Chengzhou could not help feeling a little stirred.
He had only injected a single type of chaos energy, breaking the baseline rule that metal Heavenly Refinement required participation of at least four types of energy.
Of course, he had thought this through beforehand and was not really gambling.
Back when he first attempted Heavy Silver Heavenly Refinement, what he injected into the Heavy Silver was Four-Element soul power formed by fusing earth, water, fire, and wind.
Four-Element soul power seemed to be four elemental energies, but strictly speaking it was a single-attribute fusion energy, only appearing outwardly as an interweaving of yellow, blue, red, and green.
If Four-Element worked, then Chaos would naturally work too.
However, the Heavenly Refinement lightning tribulation for the Four-Element path had four stages. He just did not know how many stages the lightning tribulation for Chaos Heavenly Refinement would have, or how strong it would be.
Not daring to be careless, Chu Chengzhou circulated chaos power. The flower of soul power condensed above his head, petals drifting down. A layer of misty-azure protective divine light rose around him.
Rumble.
At this moment, an azure bolt of lightning suddenly appeared at the center of the vortex. With a violent thunderclap, the furious azure lightning fell from the sky, blasting toward the jade-like sphere.
But at the critical instant, with a turn of thought, Chu Chengzhou guided the chaos tribulation lightning that was aimed at the sphere to land forcibly on the protective divine light around his body.
In a flash, violent ripples of energy spread. The falling chaos tribulation lightning dyed Chu Chengzhou entirely in misty azure.
"Not bad."
With the tribulation lightning upon him, he felt only a slight consumption of his soul power, and its power was far from reaching the defense limit of "Blooms in an Instant." Chu Chengzhou nodded to himself.
The commotion of the tribulation lightning was not small, and its attribute was Chaos rather than an ordinary elemental tribulation, but Chu Chengzhou was no longer what he had been. Compared to his first attempt at Heavenly Refinement, his strength had risen by more than one tier, and this was only the weakest first stage of the lightning tribulation, so he blocked it with ease.