"Was this really forged from that piece of bone?"
Xiang Yang looked at the dark silver dagger in his hand. He had deliberately asked Tang San to forge it into this shape. On their way back, they had visited the smithy again and bought all the remaining material, but there was less in stock than he had expected, even with his Purple Demon Eye. All together, it was smaller than a washbasin.
According to that smith, a piece half the size of a fist was just enough to forge a dagger. All the material he had left could be made into another two or three swords or blades. Dark Gold Bear bones could greatly enhance a weapon's sharpness, so they were best used for weapons rather than armor.
Since they did not yet know enough about its properties, they thought it better to follow their predecessors' experience.
"Yes, I tested it. It really is extremely sharp. It doesn't just cut through iron like mud; it can even pierce Soul Power defenses," Tang San replied.
"Hmm..." Xiang Yang pondered for a moment, then tried channeling Soul Power into the blade. The dagger immediately lit up with a white glow. Seeing this, Xiang Yang stabbed it into the hardwood test block beside him.
Pfft!
Although the corpse of this hundred-year-old plant Soul Beast was as hard as steel, it could not stop the dagger from sinking in easily. It looked as though the blade had pierced water, meeting not the slightest resistance.
Tang San was surprised, however. Of course, it was not because of the sharpness, but because there were scorch marks in the hole after the dagger was withdrawn.
He had tried channeling Soul Power into it before, but after a flash of cyan light, there had been no further reaction.
"Oh, is that so? It should be because of the difference in attributes. You've only cultivated Blue Silver Grass so far, so you're of the wood system. It wasn't compatible to begin with, and metal also overcomes wood."
It was worth mentioning that at this time, the Douluo Continent did not yet have the concept of "wood," only the broad category of the "plant system."
But judging from the tests the two had conducted on various substances and attribute energies over the past few years, there was also a relationship of mutual generation and suppression among the five elements. Moreover... because Xiang Yang's Purple Demon Eye had reached the second realm, Minute Observation, two months ago, he could clearly recall most of the relevant details from his previously blurred memories of his past life, as long as he took the time to think.
Besides the concepts of the five elements, the Heavenly Stems and Earthly Branches, and yin and yang appearing in the sequel, there was also a plane called the Five Elements Continent in another region under the Douluo God Realm's jurisdiction.
So the two simply used the five elements as a foundation and reorganized the Douluo Continent's various natural attributes.
Setting that aside for now, the next day the two took the Dark Gold Dagger to find Dai Mubai, who was doing weight-bearing training.
"All right, I'll try it." Dai Mubai removed the thousand-jin sandbags from each arm and drew a breath as soon as he set them down.
As the Power Attack System Soul Master with the highest Soul Power and strongest body on the Shrek team, he carried at least four thousand jin while doing various exercises every time he trained. If he carried less than that, the training had practically no effect.
At first glance, that weight did not seem very high, but this was while moving with the weight on his body. The record from Xiang Yang's previous life was around eight hundred jin; rounding it off for convenience, it could be counted as a thousand.
That was already a fourfold difference. Moreover, Xiang Yang had observed that different Martial Souls and systems provided vastly different boosts to various physical qualities. In the early stages of cultivation, one could catch up through various means, but given enough time, it became clear that no matter how hard Soul Masters outside the Power Attack System trained, they could never attain the same physical strength as those in it.
The same was true of the speed and agility of the Agility Attack System.
To use a game analogy, they had invested in different talents—the difference between mages, warriors, and assassins. (Actually, many things in the original work were clearly settings found only in games.)
One thing that defied common sense was that, according to Dai Mubai, he was already close to his limit. Even if he later became a Titled Douluo, his raw physical strength would increase by only two or three thousand jin at most. That was the record of his family's predecessors.
Didn't that sound strange? He was only a Soul Elder now. Even if advancing one major realm did not double it, surely it should increase by half?
But there were six realms between Soul Elder and Titled Douluo, yet the increase would only be around half.
Could it be that Soul Masters belonged to a "mage-side" system? Looked at that way, there was nothing wrong with it. After all, every Soul Skill required Soul Power to empower it, whether it was used on oneself or others.
With Soul Power being so versatile, it was understandable that they had not developed body-tempering methods.
Xiang Yang still did not understand the principle behind this phenomenon. Was it because there was a fixed upper limit, or because their body-tempering methods were not advanced enough? After all, wasn't there something called Tidal Body Tempering later on? He just didn't know whether that thing could be used universally.
He could only add it to the research plan for now and study it when he found time later. Xiang Yang still hoped to keep his six attributes as balanced as possible.
Sure enough, under the influence of Dai Mubai's metal-attribute Soul Power, the dagger became more than twice as sharp. Although the weapon greatly enhanced his combat strength, Dai Mubai still did not think it was useful. After all, how could a weapon compare to Soul Skills and fists? It was merely a toy for the inadequate, who vainly sought to make up for their shortcomings.
Of course, he would not say that in front of the two of them.
He held that view until he learned that it could pierce Soul Power defenses. Only then did he say regretfully, "It's a pity the dagger is too small to suit me. Zhu Zhuqing's attribute doesn't seem compatible either."
Indeed, everyone tried it afterward. Oscar's result was much the same as Tang San's, while Ning Rongrong's was a little better, adding some hardness.
Xiao Wu's was a little worse than hers. Ma Hongjun and Zhu Zhuqing managed to imbue it with the fire and darkness attributes respectively, but the Evil Fire and darkness left the dagger pitted one after the other, half ruining it.
So it seemed that only Dai Mubai's metal attribute and Xiang Yang's "yang" attribute could use it.
Speaking of Xiang Yang's Martial Soul attributes, if quantified, they had actually started out as wood plus light, in a ratio of roughly seven to three. Now, however, the ratio was around four to six.
Looking at the ruined dagger, Tang San felt it was a pity. Even if it was a little large, it could still have been used as a Hidden Weapon.
Xiang Yang was more optimistic. "We only scrapped this little bit of material and found out how compatible Soul Master attributes are with beast-bone weapons. That's good enough." He paused, then continued, "But I really didn't expect a Soul Master's Soul Power to have such a strong effect on beast bones."
He had anticipated both the enhancements from the various attributes and the damage they could cause, but he had not expected them to be so strong. Thinking about it now, perhaps it was because the Soul Beast's age had been too low. According to the blacksmith, the Dark Gold Bear had only been a little over a thousand years old at the time, and it had been dead for many years. Getting this kind of result was already quite good; he could not ask for too much.
"Yeah, it's a pity about that dove." When Tang San saw how sharp this thing was, he had thought of the Wind-Plumed Gray-Feathered Dove. Although it was not large, only a little over a meter, and birds had relatively few bones, he figured there should have been enough to make a pair of boots.
Unfortunately, they had not had any thoughts of collecting Soul Beast corpses at the time. Besides, they had boiled it into soup, bones and all, so they were even less likely to have thought of such things.
"Ah!" Xiang Yang was reminded by his words. "The feathers! If they were made into a piece of clothing, they should be able to boost speed and improve agility a little."
The two exchanged a look and nodded to each other. Although they would not go so far as to deliberately slaughter or trade for materials, surely there was nothing wrong with taking away the Soul Beasts they hunted for their own Soul Rings?
Yes, it was decided.
But if ordinary beast bones had this effect, what would happen if a Soul Bone were made into a weapon? Wouldn't that get around the limit of Soul Masters only being able to absorb six Soul Bones, not including External Soul Bones? Even if it were only used as a staff for releasing skills, that would be good too.
When would they get their first Soul Bone? They looked forward to it.