Blue bands of light swept across Tang Wulin's face. After three passes, the elevator reached the top.
After a week of despondency and reflection, he had gradually returned to his previous routine of working and studying.
Naturally, his appetite had returned as well.
Fortunately, fate did not play another joke on him. On the day he graduated from Red Mountain Primary Academy, he received a recommendation letter for Eastsea Academy and defeated the classmate who had always mocked him in a one-on-one duel.
Later that same day, he tested at a thousand jin of strength and successfully completed a thousand-refinement of Deep Silver.
After blood-sacrificing the thousand-refined Deep Silver and sleeping for an entire day and night.
Tang Wulin finally could not bear the hunger any longer. He appeared outside the Spirit Pagoda in Aolai City and, under the guidance of the gray-robed Spirit Master, entered the elevator within.
Now that the elevator doors opened, a string of melodious hammering sounds drifted in.
Yet Tang Wulin's heart inexplicably grew uneasy.
He thought: The day before yesterday, Brother Long had brought me back at Mom and Dad's request after I lost control of my emotions. But I threw a tantrum that day. Even when Brother Long's hand was injured and bleeding, I chose to ignore him...
Was that too much?
Under such circumstances, he had come here again today to mooch a meal. No matter how innocent Tang Wulin was, he felt sincerely ashamed.
But as he touched his deflated stomach, he had to admit that his stomach had already been conquered.
Ever since that day's feast of delicacies from land and sea, Tang Wulin had discovered that no matter how delicious his mother's cooking was or how much he ate, he could no longer feel that warm current spreading through his entire body and truly filling this body of his.
He could only grumble inwardly: Damn Martial Soul mutation!
He wondered whether Brother Long's purse... could withstand his appetite.
Just as Tang Wulin hesitated over whether to step out of the elevator, he suddenly realized that the rhythmic hammering had stopped at some point.
"What are you standing there for?"
The not particularly loud greeting startled Tang Wulin in the quiet atmosphere, and the thoughts in his heart slipped right out. "I, I..."
"I came to eat."
As soon as he said it, his little face immediately turned red.
Long Zijin stood with his arms crossed and looked Tang Wulin up and down twice before turning around. "Come with me."
At the large round table where Tang Ziran had introduced Battle Armor seven days ago, Tang Wulin finally saw the sight he had been longing for day and night.
A completely different, lavish feast filled the table!
Steam still rose from the freshly served dishes, as though they had been prepared especially for him.
And that was indeed the case. Through the subtle resonance of the Purple-Gold Twins, Long Zijin had already instructed the kitchen to prepare food while Tang Wulin was still downstairs at the tower, hesitating over whether to enter.
The human body before him, fused with the Golden Dragon King bloodline, was indeed charging with all its might toward Ultimate Strength, just as Long Zijin had planned.
He could not help but smile. The faster the Golden Dragon King bloodline recovered, the greater the consumption required for Tang San's soul fragment to suppress the divine core. As one waxed and the other waned, it would only become more favorable for his harvesting plan.
But when Tang Wulin saw the person smiling at him from across the table, he froze for a moment, then timidly asked, "Brother Long, aren't you eating?"
Long Zijin shook his head. "I've eaten already. I still have things to do, so go ahead and eat first."
With that, he immediately got up and left, returning to the forging room to continue his clanging work.
The Fire Dragon King Crown was embedded in the forging platform, blazing as it raised a circle of scorching crimson flame.
Long Zijin pressed a piece of purple crystal ore firmly onto the forging platform with his left hand, while his right hand gripped the Crow-Absolute Stone, lifting it high before bringing it down heavily.
The crystal, shaped like a section of tail vertebra, deformed inward slightly under the blow, but the Crow-Absolute Stone in his right hand had already been blunted and cracked from it.
Fortunately, the Crow-Absolute Stone could continuously deform. Otherwise, it would have been impossible to forge this piece of purple crystal ore into the desired shape.
This was the Dragon Tail Vertebra Tip Bone from the Dragon Emperor's former body. Over endless years after his death, it had gradually transformed into a section of underground crystal ore.
Though the Dragon Emperor's divine power within this tail vertebra had almost completely drained away, it still contained the power of destruction capable of reducing all matter back into basic energy.
Ever since returning from beneath the Dragon Tomb, Long Zijin had immersed himself in the daily forging of this tail vertebra.
After a month of painstaking effort, this crystal ore finally possessed the faint outline of a "blade."
The Holy Dragon King stood outside the door, staring at the crystal ore shaped like a chopping blade, his platinum eyes filled with apprehension.
That was right. This purple crystal chopping blade had been specially forged by the Dragon Emperor for him, modeled after how the Dragon God had once forged the shed horn from his old body into the "Dragon-Slaying Blade."
However, to express his opposition to the Dragon God, the Dragon Emperor had taken the material from the tail vertebra of his original body.
And after the dragon soul had copied the Sub-Dragon Progenitor's information, just before leaving the Dragon Tomb, he brought this small section of tail-tip bone out above the Dragon Tomb's surface.
This allowed the Holy Dragon King to travel to Star Luo Continent, break through the Dragon Tomb Boundary Wall, and retrieve this tail-tip bone crystal ore to Douluo Continent.
After all, the Dragon Emperor traveled between the Dragon Tomb and the Douluo Plane through the human Martial Soul awakening array, so he could not carry any physical objects.
Still, the Holy Dragon King had paid no small price merely to bring back this small section of tail tip.
This dragon bone purple crystal ore, one cubit long and a palm wide, contained only a small amount of divine power and destructive power, yet that amount remained astonishing. It could ignore the protection of light- and holy-attribute Soul Power and forcibly cripple one arm of the Holy Dragon King's Life Gold body.
Fortunately, he had a most filial son—Di Tian, who stole a drop of Life Gold for his old father and restored his severed arm.
Now, under the steady control of the Dragon Emperor's Will of Destruction, this tail-tip bone crystal no longer radiated destructive power outward.
And under this control, once Long Zijin achieved Myriad-Forging Sublimation, he could grant this purple crystal blade spirituality and compel it to acknowledge an owner, allowing the Holy Dragon King to wield a brand-new Dragon-Slaying Blade once more.
As for the old one...
Over three years of searching, the Holy Dragon King had come up empty-handed.
Though he had not dissolved the master-servant contract, the body bound by that contract had long since perished. Moreover, the Dragon-Slaying Blade seemed to have developed a spirit and taken form, leaving only the faintest connection between master and servant.
Thus, even after spending three years, the Holy Dragon King ultimately failed to recover the token between himself and his father god.
After hammering for quite a while, Long Zijin finally put away the Crow-Absolute Stone in his right hand, apparently tired from swinging it.
But after resting for only a few seconds, he switched hands, pressing down the material with his right hand while raising the Crow-Absolute Stone with his left to strike...
At some point, Tang Wulin had appeared at the door of the forging room, wiping his mouth with a napkin as he curiously peered inside.
At a single glance, he was shocked by Long Zijin's primitive, savage forging method. Forging without a hammer? Was this... still forging?
Yet the two crisp "ding-ding" sounds produced by each strike were undeniably real.
So, while observing the way he exerted force with each blow, Tang Wulin also wondered what special materials the stone in Long Zijin's hand and the crystal on the forging platform were.
Only during the next pause, when Long Zijin switched hands again, did he dare ask, "Brother Long..."
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