"What?" The gray-robed Spirit Master looked astonished and pointed at himself.
Faced with Tang Ziran's ingratiating smile, he instead let out a scoff and asked, somewhat breathlessly, "Do you know who that person is?"
"We have to deliberately avoid even discussing that person or looking in their direction."
"Do you think I have the ability to help you?"
"Please, just help me out..." Tang Ziran hurriedly pulled out a small roll of Federal Coins and slipped it over while shaking the man's hand.
As he passed the money, he added, "I have something good here. Young Master Dragon will definitely be interested. Sorry for the trouble."
But the man flicked his hand away and pointed at the door. "I'm asking you to leave now. Don't get me fired."
Tang Ziran staggered back two steps from the shove. Looking at the man's dark expression, he fell silent, caught between two choices.
At last, he sighed, lowered his head, and trudged toward the exit.
Suddenly, two sharp taps of shoes against the floor sounded outside the hall.
It was the blond man in white who had been standing behind the young man surnamed Long.
"Take him to the internal elevator. The top-floor button has been unlocked." After giving the order, the Holy Dragon King immediately turned into a beam of light and ascended.
Tang Ziran's heart jolted, but he secretly let out a breath of relief. Even an attendant is this strong. Looks like I've come to the right person.
He tightened his grip on the wedding ring on his left ring finger and strode after the gray-robed Spirit Master leading the way.
Help?
Or...
Not help?
Na'er's heart was torn by an inner battle.
Should she wager the future and make up for the choices of her lovestruck younger self, or continue being the Silver Dragon King, sovereign of the Soul Beasts?
"Na'er, am I a coward?" Tang Wulin suddenly lifted his face, as if he had finally recovered a little.
Na'er shook her head without thinking.
Tang Wulin looked down into his arms. The little Grass Snake crawled about without a care in the world.
A bitter, dry sentence slipped from his mouth. "Na'er, Na'er, go outside first. I..."
"I want to fuse with this Soul Spirit."
The words came with great difficulty, each one nearly a breath apart, as if they had drained the life from the rest of his life.
Na'er asked hesitantly, "But isn't this one bad?"
Tang Wulin smiled bitterly. "Mom and Dad already have a hard enough time raising us. I can't add to their burdens."
"Dad just said he'd raise the money to buy me another Soul Spirit, but..."
"Our family... we don't have much money to begin with. I can't let Mom and Dad work themselves to the bone."
Tang Wulin's small shoulders trembled as he clutched the Soul Spirit ball. "Even if it's bad, it's still a Soul Spirit. It can help me break through my bottleneck and become a Soul Master, can't it?"
"Once Blue Silver Grass fuses with it, I'll be able to receive the Spirit Pagoda subsidy."
Na'er stared at him blankly. "Brother..."
Tang Wulin finally managed to force a smile onto his lips. "It's okay, Na'er. I'll just think of these three years as a dream—a dream of yearning for the stars and the sea."
"Ah, perhaps spending all day cooped up in the forging room, hammering away, is what suits my life best."
Tang Wulin smiled in that moment. It was a smile of surrender to fate.
At that point, Na'er instead felt relieved. She followed Tang Wulin's words and left the room they shared.
She no longer had to choose, because Tang Wulin had already surrendered. Na'er only needed to go along with his decision and let things take their natural course.
With every floor the internal elevator rose,
a circle of blue-white light swept across Tang Ziran's face.
When the blue-white ring of light stopped above his head for the third time, the elevator gave a bang as it reached the top, then chimed and opened its doors.
A sturdy Sun Soul Master in a gleaming black combat outfit blocked the elevator exit.
Tang Ziran felt the man's eyes shining on his face like blazing sunlight, seemingly checking his identity.
"Follow me." The Sun Soul Master gestured and strode into the tiled corridor on the left.
Another Sun Soul Master immediately took his place on the right, demonstrating what security and efficiency meant.
"Whoosh—clang!"
"Whoosh—clang!"
A series of hammer blows rang through the luxurious corridor.
As Tang Ziran was led this way and that, he realized he was drawing closer to the source of the sound.
In just over ten seconds, after they passed the final corner, the blond man in white who had summoned him appeared in Tang Ziran's field of vision again. His strength remained a mystery.
The blond man in white seemed to be guarding a forging room. The sounds of rushing air and hammer blows kept coming from inside.
The door opened.
A scorching gust of air hit them in the face, along with the ear-splitting clanging of metal.
The young master surnamed Long whom Tang Ziran had seen that morning had tied his shoulder-length purple hair behind his ears.
He held a purplish-red crystal ore against the forging table with his left hand, while his right hand raised a black, hexagonal stone and struck the crystal over and over.
Even as a core Federation designer, Tang Ziran couldn't identify what rare materials the purple crystal or black stone were made of.
Nor could he tell what the black stone layer covering the forging table was, or what fantastical creation the Crimson Burning Fire Ring—embedded in the center of the table and serving in place of a furnace—might be.
But he understood the young master surnamed Long's hammering. It looked like brute force without the slightest technique, yet it was simplicity at its most masterful.
Tang Ziran was stunned. It was as if he'd stepped through a door and traveled from the age of Soul Tools back to the ancient age of myth.
The Dragon Emperor stopped hammering the remnants of his former body, extinguished the Fire Dragon King Crown that had been heating the entire forging room, and put away the deformed Crow-Absolute Stone in his hand.
He glanced toward the door and said calmly, "Tang Muran, core Federation mecha designer."
Tang Ziran—or rather, Tang Muran—was startled. He gave a bitter smile. "So you found out about me after all..."
The Dragon Emperor had no interest in hearing him ramble. Habitually using a commanding tone, he said, "For your son's sake, I'll give you ten breaths to tell me why you came to see me."
Tang Muran bent slightly and removed the wedding ring he had been clutching. Then he pried a finer wire ring from the inner band and activated it with his Soul Power.
A faint glow appeared from the storage Soul Tool...
With a rustle, several perfectly aligned, semitransparent blueprints appeared in Tang Muran's hands.
The pages were covered in dense geometric diagrams and written explanations. All six were like that.
The semitransparent pages layered together to form:
Headband + control core;
Chest armor + back armor;
Shoulder armor + arm armor + gauntlets;
Waist guard + battle skirt;
Thigh and shin armor + open-toed battle boots;
These components came together to form a miniature mecha: Battle Armor.
The Dragon Emperor's golden eyes lit up, and he finally turned to face him.
Tang Muran didn't waste a word. "Since Young Master Dragon knows who I was, you should know why I had to flee."
"It was precisely because of this set of miniature mecha—a breakthrough achievement created by the Federation's top designers."
"These six sheets are the sole surviving copy of the Level 5 Battle Armor Concept Blueprint."
Before you continue