Mu Chen brought Su Ming to his personal forging room.
"You can pick any metal here to forge. As long as you succeed, it's yours. Consider it your martial uncle's meeting gift."
Su Ming thought to himself that he was stingy, only giving a gift after passing a test.
If Mu Chen knew what he was thinking, he would definitely feel wronged.
Good heavens, you came all this way to provoke an old man like me, and you still say I'm stingy?
With so many Thousand Refinement, First Grade metals in that bracelet, you're telling me your forging might fail?
"Martial Uncle, I seek your guidance!"
Su Ming stepped forward and picked a piece of Star Soul Iron.
This stuff had extremely low output; if he saw a piece he could take, he definitely had to take it.
Seeing this, Mu Chen's mouth twitched, his heart aching.
He wasn't Zhen Hua; he had to compete with many Saint Blacksmiths for the allocation of rare metals. The Star Soul Iron he had displayed here was just this one piece.
In fact, this was indeed the only piece of Star Soul Iron he had left.
The others had all been used by him.
Su Ming paid no attention to Mu Chen's feelings. He placed the Star Soul Iron on the forging table and began heating it.
All his actions were extremely fluid, from heating to perception, to forging, calm and composed.
The forging hammer struck the Star Soul Iron, beginning a rhythmic beat.
Previously, he couldn't control the delayed effect of his forging hammer well, only using it as a simple stacking of force. After three months of guidance from Zhen Hua, he could now preliminarily plan one step at a time.
Although he was still far from perfectly utilizing this delayed effect, it was already enough to play a huge role in his forging. Back during his first Thousand Refinement, First Grade, he had barely managed by borrowing power from his Douluo 1 and Douluo 2 selves, plus the feedback property of that Star Soul Iron, to complete it. As his proficiency with the delayed effect increased, he could now achieve Thousand Refinement, First Grade by borrowing only half the power instead of all of it.
And before leaving Heaven Dou City, Zhen Hua helped him integrate that first piece of Star Soul Iron with the feedback property into his forging hammer.
This time, he planned to borrow the minimum amount of power and attempt Thousand Refinement, First Grade!
"What kind of property is this?"
Mu Chen stared at Su Ming, noticing that Su Ming's forging hammer continuously returned Spirit Power to him, and simultaneously, the metal was continuously struck as the hammer lifted.
He was puzzled.
Tang Wulin also watched this scene with a dumbfounded expression, not understanding what forging technique Su Ming was using.
Of course, Mu Chen didn't insist on figuring out the property issue. He just focused on Su Ming's forging process, watching every strike on the Star Soul Iron.
"At least so far, there are no problems. This piece of Star Soul Iron isn't being wasted."
An hour later.
Su Ming struck the final blow.
Before him, the Star Soul Iron erupted with a foot-and-a-half-long pillar of starlight.
Thousand Refinement has Spirit!
Tang Wulin looked on in awe.
This was Thousand Refinement, First Grade?
He himself had only mastered ordinary Thousand Refinement and was still far from Thousand Refinement, First Grade. Yet Su Ming, who was the same age, could already achieve it.
"The teacher was indeed right. My talent can only be considered good, not top-notch," Tang Wulin thought to himself.
Su Ming felt something. He cut his palm and directly offered his blood.
Blood sacrifice?
Mu Chen frowned.
This wasn't his first Thousand Refinement, just a normal forging session. Why the blood sacrifice?
Or was there some special change in this Star Soul Iron during the forging process?
Mu Chen genuinely hadn't sensed anything.
Of course, it wasn't that this forging session wasn't brilliant; on the contrary, it was quite perfect. But because it was so standard, he couldn't see anything particularly outstanding.
Why the blood sacrifice?
Because Su Ming had sensed a familiar fluctuation, the same fluctuation he felt when his first Thousand Refined metal took form, representing this Star Soul Iron's property.
Property: Delay!
After two years, he had finally forged another piece of Thousand Refined metal with a time-related property!
After the blood sacrifice, Su Ming integrated the Star Soul Iron into his body and didn't mention the metal again.
He looked at Mu Chen.
"Martial Uncle, are there any areas where my forging can be improved?"
Mu Chen said, "From what I can see, the area that needs improvement is your application of that forging hammer. The property of your hammer is very special and very powerful. If you can advance further, your forging will become easier."
Although he identified an area for improvement, he couldn't provide corrections.
"Martial brother has also taken a good disciple," Mu Chen sighed, then said to Tang Wulin beside him, "Wu Lin, you see? Your talent isn't actually top-tier yet. You need to work even harder."
Mu Xi, standing to the side, rolled her eyes upon hearing this.
She had heard this several times these past few days.
She felt Tang Wulin had been fooled into lameness, even losing sight of his own talent.
Now with Su Ming's appearance, she estimated Tang Wulin would deeply believe Mu Chen's words.
However, to think there actually existed someone on this continent with even more monstrous forging talent than Tang Wulin...
After chatting with Mu Chen for a while longer, Su Ming also took his leave and returned to Tianhai City with Zhang Tianyang.
Inside the mecha.
"Just received news. The simulation for your project has concluded," Zhang Tianyang said.
"Concluded?"
Su Ming was pleasantly surprised.
"Your worries can be put to rest. According to the results from the R&D department's simulation, even if a Spirit Master's Spirit Power isn't fully accumulated, as long as the Spirit Master can cultivate their Spirit Power to a near-solid state, condensing a Spirit Core is still achievable. Only some techniques need to be changed." Zhang Tianyang said, "Given your power-borrowing situation, both your Spirit Power quality and physical constitution are being affected. The Spirit Core will condense ahead of time, but it's not a big problem."
"Then, Teacher, can I see the simulation results first? I want to see what technical changes are needed," Su Ming said.
Although he didn't understand why Su Ming was so worried about Spirit Core condensation at this stage, given Su Ming's power-borrowing, his Spirit Power quality was indeed somewhat exceptional. It was true that he might face Spirit Core condensation before his Spirit Power was full.
Zhang Tianyang operated directly within the mecha.
The functions inside a Red-level mecha were very comprehensive; it could even connect to the network and perform work.
Pulling up the R&D department's results, he opened some of the models for Su Ming to view.
Su Ming stared intently at the human meridian model on the screen, treating the previously unheard-of techniques like priceless treasures.
"Oh, these external arrays are also crucial. They can effectively help the Spirit Master restrain Spirit Power."
Zhang Tianyang brought up some attachments, all applications of spirit guide arrays inscribed around the Spirit Master to help restrain Spirit Power.
"The R&D department's efficiency is really high," Su Ming remarked.
"Haha, our Spirit Transmission Pagoda's investment in the R&D department is even larger than you imagine. Although many projects in the Spirit Soul system have hit bottlenecks, it doesn't mean progress in other projects will be slow."
Su Ming nodded.
Current spirit tool technology has advanced to the point of being able to model human Spirit Masters' meridians and simulate the cultivation process. This was very powerful, though not widely applied. Most Spirit Masters who could access this field didn't really need such technology.
Those powerful Spirit Masters might not need it, but Su Ming placed great importance on this technology.
Looking at the model before him, he quickly calculated in his heart and began understanding the many techniques within the model in conjunction with his Douluo 2 self.
In just half an hour, he reached a conclusion.
His Douluo 2 self could attempt a breakthrough.
Coincidentally, the choice of Spirit Soul also had a final decision.
...
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(End of Chapter)