Huge welcome and thank you to our new Patron: Random!
New story! Please support by adding to your collection! Thank you :)
------------------------------------------------------
After leaving the shop, Xiao Wu finally couldn't help but ask, "Little Chu, is that crystal some kind of valuable treasure?"
"Huh? How did you know?"
Chu Chengzhou looked at Xiao Wu in surprise.
"That crystal must be a treasure. Otherwise, why would you have gone through all that trouble earlier?"
Xiao Wu rolled her eyes.
"Not bad, not bad—my little Xiao Wu has become smarter, hasn't she~!
That crystal really is a treasure. It contains a special type of metal. When infused with soul power, it has extremely strong piercing power. If mixed with other metals to craft arrowheads, it should be able to break through soul power defenses."
Chu Chengzhou nodded approvingly, looking as if his once-dumb wife had suddenly become clever.
Unlike ordinary soul masters, he was a summoner, and all his martial soul's power was embodied in his summoned spirits.
With this in mind, Chu Chengzhou naturally sought to enhance his own strength—not necessarily surpassing his summons, but at least not holding them back.
Among common weapons like swords, spears, bows, hammers, and staves, he chose the bow.
Defensive-type summons could serve as frontline tanks, offensive-type summons as the team's main force, agility-based summons as assassins, and healing or support types as the rear guard.
In short, as long as he paired his soul rings properly in the future, forming a well-rounded summoning team without obvious weaknesses wouldn't be difficult.
Thus, the role that suited him best wasn't that of a ranged ADC?
By ensuring high output, he could also maximize his personal safety.
However, after AFKing his Archery skill, he discovered a challenge: powerful fighters on the continent relied on their martial souls and rarely used external tools like weapons. Even if they had money, they couldn't buy high-quality bows.
If he couldn't buy one, he'd just have to make one himself.
Moreover, Chu Chengzhou knew that forgers—or blacksmiths, as they were called—would hold a status equal to or even higher than soul masters in the future Douluo Continent.
In the age when Soul Armors thrived, every top-tier expert was also a highly skilled forger.
Back then, shortly after advancing to a two-ring Soul Grandmaster, he had spent half a day at a blacksmith shop in the city, and his attribute panel immediately gained a gray-tier forging skill.
After ten days of AFKing, the forging skill was upgraded to white-tier.
According to the hierarchy of Douluo's forging system—hundred-refinement, thousand-refinement, spirit-refinement, soul-refinement, and heaven-refinement—the white-tier forging skill already reached the hundred-refinement level.
Yellow-tier and purple-tier forging corresponded to the thousand-refinement level.
In other words, Chu Chengzhou was now capable of forging thousand-refined metals, making him the undisputed top blacksmith on the continent!
When it came to forging skills alone, even Tang Hao—the legendary Hao TianDouluo and one of the three divine craftsmen of the continent—was nothing compared to him.
Chu Chengzhou: Tang Hao? New number who dis?
Of course, this only applied to forging. Otherwise, his frail body wouldn't stand a chance against Tang Hao's massive hammer.
Although crafting a true soul tool required not only high-quality materials but also intricate soul arrays, soul arrays were different from self-developed soul skills like Archery. A single skill slot sufficed for Archery.
But becoming a master of soul arrays required countless engraving techniques, far exceeding the number of AFK slots he had. He simply couldn't handle them all.
If he devoted the same effort to becoming a soul tool master, he guessed he'd probably already be a god by now. So, Chu Chengzhou didn't plan to pursue the path of a soul tool master.
However, with high-tier refined metals, even without soul arrays, they should still allow him to unleash the full potential of his Archery skill in the future.
More importantly, once his forging skill reached the black tier, he'd likely enter the spirit-refinement level.
Spirit-refined metals could be absorbed into the body. At that point, equipping himself with spirit-refined armor would render Tang San's hidden weapons useless.
In the original storyline, the reason Tang Sect's top-tier hidden weapon, Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus, achieved its legendary feat of instantly killing a group of Spirit Hall experts above level 70 during the Battle of Jiling Pass wasn't just because of the element of surprise—it was also because those Spirit Hall experts lacked sufficiently strong armor.
With a set of spirit-refined armor, how could fixed-damage mechanical hidden weapons possibly penetrate?
It was like bullets made of tofu—they'd never pierce steel plates.
---
After more than two hours of wandering around, when Chu Chengzhou's hands were filled with bags both large and small, Xiao Wu finally stopped wanting to continue shopping.
Well, it wasn't that her desire had disappeared—it was just that there was no more room in her hands.
Looking at the numerous bags, Chu Chengzhou realized he needed to earn money to buy a larger storage-type soul tool.
His current spatial jade stone only had a cubic-foot-sized internal space, which barely held anything.
Hmm~ if he had a bigger storage-type soul tool, and thus room to store everything, would tonight involve visiting every shop on the streets of Soto City until closing time?
At this thought, Chu Chengzhou shuddered—it was terrifying!
---
Inside the suite of the Rose Hotel, Chu Chengzhou took out the head-sized crystal.
"Little Chu, how does metal grow inside a crystal like this?"
After examining the murky crystal, Xiao Wu asked curiously.
Good question!
But how should I know how metal grows inside a crystal? Am I the crystal's mom?
Rolling his eyes, Chu Chengzhou pulled out his thousand-refined Dark Iron Hammer.
To be honest, dark iron wasn't particularly good material—it paled in comparison to rare metals like tungsten steel or sunken silver.
But Nuoding City was just a remote town, and there weren't any large mines nearby producing rare metals. Chu Chengzhou couldn't get suitable materials for forging a hammer, so he had to settle for what he had.
Placing the crystal on the ground, he channeled his soul power, infusing the thousand-refined Dark Iron Hammer with pale blue energy. With a mighty swing, he brought the hammer down on the crystal.
BANG—!
The dark iron hammer whistled down, emitting a relatively quiet sound. A crisp cracking noise echoed beneath the blow.
The next second, the murky crystal shattered into fine powder, and countless golden specks appeared amidst the crystal dust.
If any other soul master had tried this, it would've caused a loud explosion, scattering the crystal powder and the Hair Crystal within everywhere.
But thanks to his purple-tier Control skill, Chu Chengzhou controlled his strength perfectly. Nearly all the force of the blow was concentrated on the crystal, with very little energy spilling over, resulting in minimal noise.
"This is the special metal you were talking about?"
Squatting down, Xiao Wu picked up a piece of Hair Crystal, her face filled with suspicion.
Instinctively squeezing it, she found the golden particle slightly soft but incredibly elastic. Despite being a 38-level Soul Elder, she couldn't flatten it.
------------------------------------------------------
Double Chapters Chapters Ahead: patreon.com/EphemeralShadow
There's something for free patrons too! Free Patrons receive 1 chapter in advance :)