BANG BANG BANG—!
The sound of hammering echoed continuously through Shrek Academy.
Unlike yesterday's thousand-refinement process for the Heavy Silver, this time it was all about shaping the thousand-refined Heavy Silver into the bow's form.
With Ma Hongjun, the "Fire Master", assisting, three hours later, a hundred-twenty-jin block of thousand-refined Heavy Silver had been hammered by Chu Chengzhou into the body of a recurve bow.
Though the Heavy Silver hammers were larger and used more material—and there were two of them—the difficulty of shaping the Heavy Silver bow far exceeded that of the hammers.
A hammer could be rough as long as it resembled a hammer, but a bow couldn't be so careless.
For one thing, the lengths of the two arms of the bow had to be symmetrical, and their curvature angles needed to match.
After more than three hours of hammering and attaching beast tendons from ten-thousand-year soul beasts as bowstrings, the thousand-refined Heavy Silver bow was finally complete.
Although its appearance might have been somewhat ugly, it didn't affect its functionality in the slightest.
"Young Master Chu, why did you make a bow?"
Looking at the newly forged thousand-refined Heavy Silver bow in Chu Chengzhou's hands, Ma Hongjun's eyes revealed both confusion and disdain.
We're all soul masters—why are you playing with a bow?
Without martial soul-enhanced ring skills, how could you possibly defeat a battle soul master of the same level?
At this moment, an image flashed through Ma Hongjun's mind.
A battle soul master, known for his brutal punches, breaks through the protection of summoned beasts. Chu Chengzhou confidently pulls out his bow, but the arrows he shoots fail to penetrate the opponent's defenses. In the end, he gets beaten into a swollen pig-like face, just like Ma Hongjun had been yesterday.
Tsk~ It was almost satisfying to imagine!
Just then, Chu Chengzhou noticed two wild geese flying a hundred meters above Shrek Academy.
"Fatty, watch closely!"
Pointing at the two geese in the sky, Chu Chengzhou held the bow in his left hand and drew the string with his right. A surge of light-attribute soul power appeared in his hand, instantly forming a three-foot-long white-golden soul-powered arrow.
WHOOSH—!
Narrowing his eyes and focusing intently, Chu Chengzhou released the arrow. The white-golden soul-powered arrow shot forward like lightning.
A streak of white light flashed across the sky, and one of the two geese flying leisurely was instantly struck in the head.
A second later, another streak of white light flashed, and the pair of geese—likely mates—were both decapitated, plummeting toward the ground.
BANG BANG—!
The two headless geese fell one after another onto the academy's field, kicking up clouds of dust.
Gray and White-tier archery skills only gave Chu Chengzhou decent accuracy, but without physical arrows, the bow would be useless.
However, after upgrading his skill to Yellow-tier, Chu Chengzhou could bid farewell to physical arrows and instead use soul power to form soul-powered arrows.
When the skill reached Purple-tier, not only did his accuracy improve further, but the destructive power of the soul-powered arrows also increased significantly.
As for the light-attribute soul-powered arrows, they weren't a result of the Purple-tier archery skill. Instead, Chu Chengzhou utilized the True Spirit Flag martial soul's ability to freely convert soul power attributes. He transformed his soul power into light-attribute soul power, inspired by the Light Lion Summoning, before forming these arrows.
Of course, even though he could create soul-powered arrows, that didn't mean all physical arrows were useless.
Ordinary arrows were indeed useless, but if high-level forged metal arrows were used, combined with soul-powered arrows, the resulting shots would be far more devastating.
"Whoa~ That accurate?"
Seeing the two fallen geese in the distance, Ma Hongjun couldn't help but whistle.
At the speed those two soul-powered arrows traveled, ordinary two- or three-ring soul masters wouldn't stand a chance of dodging. Even four- or five-ring soul masters would likely struggle to evade.
Although the targets were just ordinary geese, unable to fully demonstrate the arrows' true power, Ma Hongjun was certain that as a Level 25 Soul Grandmaster, he wouldn't be able to withstand such an attack.
After all, he wasn't a defense-type soul master and lacked defensive soul skills. Relying solely on protective soul power wouldn't stop a highly concentrated soul-powered arrow from a Level 29 Soul Grandmaster.
"Take those two geese to the cafeteria for an extra meal! Oh, and Fatty, here's your red envelope!"
Saying this, Chu Chengzhou pulled out ten gold soul coins from his storage necklace and handed them to Ma Hongjun.
Since they were classmates, Chu Chengzhou either had to pay him or owe him a favor for helping out.
Compared to owing a favor, Chu Chengzhou preferred paying—it wasn't cheap to owe him anything.
"Hehe~, Young Master Chu, I won't be polite!"
Seeing Chu Chengzhou's generosity, Ma Hongjun's eyes lit up, and he quickly accepted the money.
For Ma Hongjun, ten gold soul coins were no small amount. After all, the price to spend a night with older sisters or younger aunties in brothels was only a few silver soul coins.
Pfft~ What older sisters or younger aunties? I'm going to the most upscale Black Horse Club in Suotuo City to find some beautiful young ladies!
---
Night fell. Except for Oscar, the food-type soul master, Flender gathered Chu Chengzhou and the others on the field.
Looking at the energetic Dai Mubai, Ma Hongjun, Chu Chengzhou, and Xiao Wu, Flender nodded slightly, then waved his hand: "Let's go, follow me!"
With that, Flender lightly tapped the ground and floated off toward the academy gates.
The four quickly followed.
Flender maintained a relatively fast pace, and at this point, the differences in speed among the four students became evident.
Closest behind Flender wasn't Xiao Wu, who had the highest soul power level, but Chu Chengzhou. Xiao Wu followed in second place, Dai Mubai in third, and Ma Hongjun brought up the rear.
Excluding soul skills, while soul power level was important for determining speed, it wasn't absolute.
Chu Chengzhou's Purple-tier Movement technique, equivalent to a thousand-year soul skill, allowed him to surpass Xiao Wu, who hadn't mastered—or simply neglected to learn—such techniques.
Shrek Academy wasn't far from Suotuo City, so it didn't take long for Flender to reach the southern gate of Suotuo City.
Suotuo City, located deep within the Balak Kingdom, faced no external threats. Though guarded by city troops, the gates were open around the clock. Once everyone caught up, the group of five smoothly entered the city.
Even though it was already dark, Suotuo City remained lively, even more bustling than during the day.
Some vendors who only operated at night set up shop in their usual spots, selling snacks or trinkets.
While Suotuo City's night market was considered lively on the continent, Chu Chengzhou, having seen far livelier scenes in his previous life, wasn't particularly interested.
However, the naturally lively Xiao Wu was different. She looked around excitedly, sneaking closer to examine interesting things she spotted.
She knew they had evening classes to attend later; otherwise, Xiao Wu might have dragged Chu Chengzhou shopping.
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