Delay Reappears

Mu Chen brought Su Ming to his private forging room.

"Pick any metal here and forge it. As long as you succeed, it's yours—a meeting gift from your Martial Uncle."

So stingy. Even the meeting gift has to be earned by passing a test, Su Ming grumbled inwardly.

If Mu Chen knew what he was thinking, he would definitely feel wronged.

Good heavens, you came all this way just to provoke an old man like me, and you still call me stingy?

There are so many pieces of Thousand Forgings First Grade metal in that bracelet. You're telling me your forging might fail?

"Martial Uncle, please guide me!"

Su Ming stepped forward and selected a piece of Star Soul Iron.

This stuff was produced in extremely limited quantities. If he saw a piece he could take, he naturally had to take it.

When Mu Chen saw this, the corner of his mouth twitched in pain.

He was not Zhen Hua. When it came to Rare Metal allocation, he had to compete with many Saint Craftsmen. There was only one piece of Star Soul Iron in this room.

In fact, this truly was his last remaining piece of Star Soul Iron.

He had used up all the others.

Su Ming paid no attention to Mu Chen's feelings. He placed the Star Soul Iron on the forging table and began heating it.

Every one of his movements was exceptionally smooth. From heating to sensing to forging, he remained calm and composed.

The Forging Hammer struck the Star Soul Iron, beginning a rhythmic cadence.

Previously, he had been unable to properly control the delay effect of his Forging Hammer and could only use it as stacked power. After Zhen Hua's three months of instruction, he had already gained a preliminary ability to adapt as he went.

Although he was still far from perfectly wielding the delay effect, it was already enough to greatly aid his forging. When he had first forged Thousand Forgings First Grade, he had barely managed to hold on by borrowing all the power of Dou Yi and Dou Er, along with the restorative trait of that piece of Star Soul Iron. As he became more proficient with the delay effect, he could now successfully forge Thousand Forgings First Grade by borrowing only half their power.

Before leaving Heaven Dou City, Zhen Hua had helped him fuse that original piece of Star Soul Iron with the restorative trait into his Forging Hammer.

This time, he intended to borrow the minimum amount of power and attempt Thousand Forgings First Grade!

"What kind of special effect is this?"

Mu Chen stared at Su Ming and noticed that Su Ming's Forging Hammer kept returning Soul Power to him. At the same time, whenever the hammer rose, the metal continued to be struck.

He was bewildered.

Tang Wulin also watched the scene with a stunned expression, unable to understand what kind of forging technique Su Ming was using.

Of course, Mu Chen did not insist on uncovering the hammer's trait. He merely watched Su Ming's forging process, observing every strike upon the Star Soul Iron.

"At least so far, there haven't been any problems. This piece of Star Soul Iron hasn't been wasted."

An hour later.

Su Ming brought down his final hammer.

Before him, the Star Soul Iron erupted with a column of starlight one and a half feet high.

Thousand Forgings with Spirit!

Tang Wulin stared at the scene in shock.

So this is Thousand Forgings First Grade?

He had only just mastered ordinary Thousand Forgings. He still had a long way to go before reaching Thousand Forgings First Grade, yet Su Ming, someone his own age, could already forge Thousand Forgings First Grade.

Teacher was right. My talent can only be called decent, not outstanding, Tang Wulin thought.

Su Ming seemed to sense something. He cut open his palm and immediately let his blood flow.

Blood Sacrifice?

Mu Chen frowned.

This was not his first Thousand Forgings. It was merely an ordinary forging session, so why did he need a Blood Sacrifice?

Or had this piece of Star Soul Iron undergone some special change during the forging process?

Mu Chen truly could not sense it.

Of course, that was not to say this forging was not impressive. On the contrary, it was exceptionally perfect. Yet because it was so standard, he could not see anything particularly remarkable about it.

Why perform a Blood Sacrifice?

Because Su Ming had sensed a familiar fluctuation. It was the same fluctuation he had felt when his first Thousand Forgings metal had taken shape, representing this piece of Star Soul Iron's trait.

Its trait: delay!

After two years, he had finally forged another piece of Thousand Forgings metal with a time-related trait!

After the Blood Sacrifice, Su Ming absorbed the Star Soul Iron into his body and said nothing more about the metal.

He looked toward Mu Chen.

"Martial Uncle, is there still anything I can improve in my forging?"

Mu Chen said, "The area I can see that still needs improvement is your use of that Forging Hammer. Its trait is very special, and very powerful. If you can take it a step further, your forging will become much easier."

Though he had identified an area for improvement, he had no way to correct it.

"Martial Brother has taken in a fine disciple as well." Mu Chen sighed, then said to Tang Wulin beside him, "Wulin, did you see that? Your talent isn't actually considered top-tier. You still need to work harder."

Mu Xi, standing nearby, rolled her eyes when she heard that.

She had heard this sort of thing several times over the past few days.

To be fair, she felt that Tang Wulin had been completely hoodwinked, to the point that he could no longer even recognize his own talent.

Now that Su Ming had appeared, Tang Wulin would probably believe Mu Chen's words even more firmly.

Still, there was actually someone on this continent with a forging talent even more monstrous than Tang Wulin's...

After chatting with Mu Chen for a while longer, Su Ming took his leave and returned to Skysea City with Zhang Tianyang.

Inside the mecha.

"I just received word that the projection for your project has been completed," Zhang Tianyang said.

"It's finished?"

Su Ming was pleasantly surprised.

"You can set your worries aside. According to the results projected by the Research Department, even if a soul master's Soul Power hasn't fully accumulated, as long as they can cultivate it to a nearly solid state, condensing a Soul Core is still possible. It's just that certain techniques need to be adjusted." Zhang Tianyang continued, "With the power you've borrowed, both your Soul Power Quality and physical condition are being affected. Your Soul Core will condense ahead of schedule, but it won't be much of a problem."

"Teacher, can I look at the projection results first? I want to see what technical adjustments need to be made," Su Ming said.

Although he did not understand why Su Ming was already so concerned about condensing a Soul Core at this stage, Su Ming's Soul Power Quality was indeed unusually outstanding because of the power he had borrowed. It was entirely possible that he would face the issue of condensing a Soul Core before his Soul Power was full.

Zhang Tianyang directly operated the controls inside the mecha.

The Red-grade Mecha was extremely well-equipped. It could even connect to the network and handle work-related tasks.

He pulled up the Research Department's results, opened several of the models, and let Su Ming study them.

Su Ming stared intently at the human meridian model on the screen. As he examined those techniques he had never heard of before, he treated them like priceless treasures.

"Oh, these external magic arrays are also crucial. They can effectively help soul masters restrain their Soul Power."

Zhang Tianyang brought up several more attachments, all applications of Soul Tool Magic Arrays. They were inscribed around the soul master to help restrain their Soul Power.

"The Research Department is really efficient," Su Ming remarked.

"Haha, the Spirit Pagoda invests even more into the Research Department than you imagine. Although many Spirit System projects have hit bottlenecks, that doesn't mean progress on other projects has slowed."

Su Ming nodded.

Soul tool technology had now advanced to the point where it could construct models of human soul masters' meridians and simulate the cultivation process. It was an incredibly powerful capability, but it had not been widely applied. Most soul masters able to access this field did not particularly need such technology.

The powerful soul masters had no need for it, but Su Ming placed enormous importance on this technology.

He looked at the model before him and rapidly calculated in his mind, working together with his Dou Er self to comprehend the many techniques within the model.

In just half an hour, he reached a conclusion.

His Dou Er self could attempt a breakthrough.

As it happened, he had also made his final decision regarding the choice of soul spirit.