"Ding! Congratulations, Host. You have completed the beginner guidance mission and delivered a 'dimensionality-reduction strike' in front of the entire school's faculty and student body."
"Ding! You have gained a total of 3,200 Shock Points!"
"Ding! In recognition of your outstanding performance, you have received one additional redemption authorization for a 'Basic Industrial Mother Machine.'"
On the way back to the work-study student dormitory, Qin Feng watched the numbers ticking across his system panel. His grin was even harder to suppress than an AK-47's recoil.
Three thousand two hundred!
That was a fortune.
Yesterday, he'd had to scrimp and calculate for ages just to scrape together enough Shock Points to redeem a single screw.
Now, he could finally leave the Stone Age and step straight into the age of steampunk... No, the age of electricity.
"Brother Wolf, we're rich!"
Qin Feng patted the clanking "Scrap King No. 1" beneath him, in high spirits.
Grey Wolf piloted the mech, grunting without even turning his head.
"Rich? What good is being rich?"
"Can we buy sheep with it? Can we buy an automatic sheep-catching machine?"
"That stunt I just pulled cost at least two high-powered springs and a whole tin of pepper!"
"That's all overhead! Costs, you understand?"
Grey Wolf lowered his battered top hat. His penny-pinching expression was just like Red Wolf's whenever she demanded money for household expenses.
Qin Feng shook his head with a smile.
"Don't worry. You'll get your share."
"Once we're back at the lab, I'll make you a new gadget."
"I guarantee it'll be a hundred times better than your hand-cranked generator."
One human, one wolf, and one mech swaggered back to the basement entrance in the backyard of Dorm Seven.
The students who'd originally wanted to follow them and watch the excitement had been scared off by the thunderous roar of Scrap King No. 1 and Director Su's pathetic retreat. They only dared point from a distance and didn't approach.
Back in the dark, damp basement, Qin Feng immediately opened the system shop.
A dazzling array of blueprints flashed before his eyes.
[AK-47 assault rifle blueprint: 500 Shock Points]
[T-800 Terminator endoskeleton (incomplete): 2,000 Shock Points]
[Iron Man Mark I reactor theory: 5,000 Shock Points]
Qin Feng lingered over the tempting pieces of advanced technology, then forced himself to look away.
He couldn't take too big a step or he'd pull a muscle.
At this stage, what he lacked most wasn't weapon blueprints, but the basic tools to manufacture weapons.
Without high-precision machine tools, even if someone handed him a blueprint for a star destroyer, all he could do was stare at it.
"System, redeem the 'Basic Industrial Mother Machine'!"
"Redeem the 'High-Precision Lathe Blueprint'!"
"Redeem the 'Smokeless Powder Formula'!"
"Redeem the 'Barrett M82A1 Anti-Materiel Sniper Rifle (Modified Version) Blueprint'!"
He carried out the whole series of transactions in one smooth flurry.
His three thousand-plus Shock Points instantly dwindled by more than half, leaving only a few hundred.
But Qin Feng didn't feel the slightest pang.
A flash of white light, visible only to him, swept through the basement. A machine appeared out of thin air in a previously empty corner. It had a simple, old-fashioned design and gleamed with cold metal.
It was the cornerstone of industry.
A machine capable of making machines—the mother machine.
Though it was only the basic model, with a precision of just 0.01 millimeters, in Douluo Continent, which was still in the blacksmithing age, it was a divine artifact!
Grey Wolf had been sprawled motionless on a broken sofa. The moment he saw the machine, his lifeless eyes lit up like bulbs.
"Awooo!"
He yelped and pounced on the lathe, rubbing his face against the cold metal.
"This feel! This precision! These perfect chamfers!"
"Qin Feng! Where did you steal this treasure?"
"With this, I can turn that pile of scrap metal into real parts!"
"I'm going to build a sheep-catching radar! I'm going to build a supersonic sheep-catching spaceship!"
Grey Wolf was so excited he looked as if he'd just caught Lazy Sheep. He was practically drooling.
Qin Feng pulled him off the machine.
"Don't rush into building a spaceship. Make this thing for me first."
He slapped the Barrett blueprint he'd just redeemed onto the table.
Grey Wolf glanced over it, raising his brows.
"A sniper rifle? The structure's pretty simple."
"But the materials listed here are pretty demanding."
"The barrel needs heat- and pressure-resistant alloy steel, and the firing pin needs high-hardness tungsten alloy..."
"All we've got is a pile of scrap metal. What do you expect me to make this with, my head?"
Qin Feng pointed to a corner of the basement.
A pile of assorted mineral waste he'd bought cheap from the blacksmith's shop lay there, along with several blocks of refined iron paperweights he'd casually swiped from Director Su's office.
"We'll make do with these for now."
"I have authorization to use 'Material Reorganization.' I can only use a little each day, but that should be enough to refine a few kilograms of alloy steel."
"As for the gunpowder..."
Qin Feng pulled the formula from his pocket, a cold glint flashing in his eyes.
"Black powder on Douluo Continent is too weak. We need to give them something with a real kick."
"Ever heard of nitroglycerin?"
Just as the two were enthusiastically discussing how to make their first firearm...
Knock, knock, knock.
Someone rapped on the badly weathered wooden door.
The knocking was polite, unhurried.
Qin Feng and Grey Wolf exchanged a glance.
Grey Wolf immediately shoved the blueprint beneath his backside and warily eyed the door.
"Who is it?"
A slightly hesitant but rather urgent voice came from outside.
"Student Qin Feng, it's me."
"Yu Xiaogang."
Qin Feng smiled.
The Grandmaster had actually come?
"The door's unlocked. Come in."
The door creaked open.
Yu Xiaogang still wore his somewhat worn robe, but the expression on his face was nothing like his usual arrogant look that said, "I know everything, and you're all trash."
Instead, he looked at Qin Feng like an eager schoolboy meeting a doctoral advisor.
And that wasn't even the strangest part.
He carried a paper-wrapped bundle in his left hand and clutched a thick notebook in his right.
A rich smoky aroma drifted in with him.
"As you asked."
Yu Xiaogang carefully set the bundle on the table, as if it held not cured meat but some priceless treasure.
"Two pounds of top-quality cured meat. I specifically bought it from the best deli in the city."
"And..."
He awkwardly scratched his neck.
"I brought the notebook, too."
"Can we start the lesson now?"
Grey Wolf's nose twitched. In an instant, he was beside the table.
"Meat! It's meat!"
He tore open the wrapping, grabbed a glistening piece of cured meat, and stuffed it into his mouth, chewing until grease ran down his chin.
"Mmm... It's a little tough and a little salty, but it still counts as meat, I guess."
"Qin Feng, the old guy knows how to play his cards."
Yu Xiaogang watched the upright wolf wolfing down the food, the corners of his mouth twitching twice.
Was that really a Soul Beast?
He looked more like a starving ghost reincarnated.
Qin Feng ignored Grey Wolf. He pulled over a rickety chair, sat down, crossed his legs, and looked at Yu Xiaogang.
"Grandmaster, since you've shown such sincerity, I won't hold anything back."
"But before we start, I need to correct one deeply rooted misconception of yours."
Yu Xiaogang immediately opened his notebook. His hand trembled slightly as he gripped his pen.
"Please, go on."
Qin Feng pointed at himself, then at Yu Xiaogang.
"In your eyes, Soul Power is some mysterious force that only Soul Masters can control, right?"
Yu Xiaogang nodded.
"Of course. Soul Power is a gift from the heavens, something that accompanies Martial Soul Awakening..."
"Wrong!"
Qin Feng cut him off without hesitation.
"Completely wrong!"
"Soul Power is, at its core, a form of energy."
"Like light, heat, and electricity, it's a type of energy that exists in this universe."
"It's simply biologically compatible and can be captured and stored by specific genetic sequences—in other words, what you call Martial Souls."
"When you cultivate, you're essentially turning yourselves into batteries and charging them up."
"And unleashing a Soul Skill is the process of discharging the battery."
Yu Xiaogang stared at him, dumbfounded.
Batteries? Charging?
He'd never heard those terms before.
But for some reason, combined with the electric-shock device Qin Feng had shown him earlier, the theory actually seemed... logically consistent!
"Then... what about Soul Rings?"
Yu Xiaogang pressed eagerly.
"If Soul Masters can't break through bottlenecks without absorbing Soul Rings, how do you explain that?"
Qin Feng picked up a screw from the table and rolled it between his fingers.
"That brings me to my second point."
"Soul Rings aren't some divine law bestowed upon you."
"They're just keys to a 'limiter.'"
"Or, you could call them specific genetic codes."
"Your bodies are like locked machines. Every time you reach a new level, you need a new password to unlock greater power."
"Hunting Soul Beasts and absorbing their Soul Rings is essentially stealing these codes from their genes and forcing them into your own bodies."
Qin Feng's voice echoed through the empty basement.
"So, in theory..."
"As long as we can crack these genetic codes, or create an artificial device that can simulate their energy frequencies..."
"People won't need to hunt Soul Beasts to grow stronger."
"And what's more..."
Qin Feng leaned closer to Yu Xiaogang, lowering his voice with a devilish hint of temptation.
"We could mass-produce... artificial Soul Masters with the power of Ten Thousand Year Soul Rings!"
Clatter.
The pen fell from Yu Xiaogang's hand.
He stood as if struck by lightning, his mind completely blank.
Artificial Soul Rings?
No need to hunt Soul Beasts?
This... this challenged a rule that had held across Douluo Continent for tens of millions of years!
It was practically... a miracle!
Just as Yu Xiaogang's worldview was undergoing a catastrophic reconstruction...
Suddenly...
An utterly terrifying pressure descended from the sky without warning!
"Boom!"
The ground above the basement seemed to be crushed beneath an invisible giant hand.
The chandelier overhead shook violently, and the parts on the table clattered together.
Grey Wolf had been chewing on some cured meat, but he abruptly tossed it aside. His fur stood on end as he bared his teeth at the ceiling.
"Bloodlust!"
Qin Feng's expression darkened in an instant, too.
He felt it.
That wasn't an ordinary Soul Power fluctuation.
It was an aura brimming with domineering force, destruction, and overwhelming fury.
He knew that aura all too well from the original story.
There was only one person in all of Nuoding City with a presence like that.
The blacksmith who hid in a ditch and drank himself into a stupor.
The ruthless man who could kill a Titled Douluo with a single hammer blow.
Tang San's father.
The Clear Sky Douluo, Tang Hao!
"His son got beaten up, so the old man couldn't sit still after all?"
Qin Feng sneered and rose from his chair.
Yu Xiaogang was so overwhelmed by the pressure that he could barely breathe. Pale-faced, he braced himself against the table to stay upright.
"This... this is the aura of a Titled Douluo!"
"Why would a Titled Douluo come here?"
Qin Feng paid no attention to the panicking Grandmaster.
He walked over to the Industrial Mother Machine he had just redeemed and pressed the start button.
At the same time, he issued a command to the system in his mind.
"System, activate Level One Combat Readiness!"
"Brother Wolf, quit eating."
"Bring out those Fully Automatic Anti-Wolf Turrets of yours."
"Tonight, we're going to slay a god!"
Before you continue