God-Level Soul Guidance Talent, Tian-Shu Carving Knife

Jiang Che held the blue token and walked briskly toward the laboratory building. The Soul Tool Department's laboratory building looked much more imposing than the Martial Soul Department's, its outer walls cast from reinforced alloy.

He made his way to the top floor, which housed only three laboratories.

Jiang Che walked over to Laboratory Three, which he had used before, and pressed the hexagonal blue token against its door.

A curious scene unfolded. A gap suddenly opened in the door, just large enough to fit his token.

After a brief pulse of Soul Power, the token sprang out of the gap. Then, accompanied by a grinding rumble, the door to Laboratory Three slid open sideways.

Once the door opened, its full thickness became clear: this door, made entirely of metal, was a full two feet thick.

It could only start moving slowly because of the tracks set into the floor and ceiling.

Jiang Che had long since gotten used to this and paid it no mind as he walked straight into the laboratory.

As soon as he stepped inside, the room's cold, metallic atmosphere washed over him. His gaze swept over the high-grade smelting furnace at the center, its surface gleaming with a deep blue light, then settled on the neatly arranged material racks beside it. He casually pulled a palm-sized piece of black iron from the bottom shelf.

Making a Soul Tool involved shaping, casting, quenching, and polishing. Of course, the most important step was inscribing the core array at the end—and it was also the most difficult.

Core arrays often failed because of the slightest mistake.

That was why, even though Jiang Che was now at the peak of Level 7 as a Soul Engineer, he wouldn't claim he could make a Level 7 Soul Tool with absolute certainty. After all, he didn't have Huo Yuhao's Martial Soul or the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's Soul Ring.

Jiang Che sat down at the metal table and began refining the black iron. He put it into the smelting furnace, channeled Soul Power to activate the heating array, and carefully controlled the melting point. Once the material had melted, he poured it into a custom mold to shape it roughly. After it cooled, he had the Soul Tool's basic blank: a chest guard.

Jiang Che took an eight-level carving knife from the Ring of the Overseer.

Holding the chest guard in his left hand and the carving knife in his right, he began carving. In just a few minutes, he had finished inscribing a Level 1 Core Array.

Then Jiang Che set to work on the casing. A few minutes later, he completed a Level 1 Defensive Soul Tool.

Jiang Che glanced at the panel. The progress had changed.

[Level 1 Soul Engineer (in progress) 1/3]

For the next while, Jiang Che went back and forth between Class One of the Outer Court and the Soul Tool Department's laboratory. He barely visited Ma Xiaotao anymore.

At last, two months later, Jiang Che looked down at the Soul Tool in his hands: a Gang-Qi Shield. It required the Soul Power of a Soul Saint to activate and could withstand a full-power strike from an ordinary Eight-Ring Soul Douluo.

Jiang Che looked at the panel again. It was now completely different from the one he'd seen two months earlier.

[Level 1 Soul Engineer (completed), Level 2 Soul Engineer (completed)... Level 7 Soul Engineer (completed) 3/3, Level 8 Soul Engineer (in progress) 0/3]

Since he was aiming for high-quality Soul Tools, he had spent only a month on the first six levels. But the last three Level 7 Soul Tools had taken him a full month to finish, and he'd lost count of how many he'd ruined along the way.

Another month passed. Jiang Che lay face-down on the table, utterly dejected.

"I really wasn't cut out to be a Soul Engineer!" For the past month, he had been stubbornly pushing himself to reach Level 8, relying on his high cultivation.

But whether it was because he still hadn't obtained a Soul Ring or because his talent as a Soul Engineer was simply too poor, Jiang Che kept feeling that he was just a tiny step away from Level 8, yet no matter what he did, he couldn't make the tools.

"Forget it. I can't keep going like this." The rewards depended on the total time it took him to advance. He'd already wasted a month, lowering the rewards somewhat. Now that Level 8 still seemed nowhere in sight, it was time to claim the rewards for the levels he'd already completed.

Jiang Che opened the panel and claimed the combined rewards for Levels 1 through 7.

[Checking task completion. Levels 1–7 Soul Engineer tasks complete. Evaluating quality... Evaluation complete. Distributing rewards...]

[Congratulations, host. You have received God-Level Soul Guidance Talent. (You will encounter no bottlenecks before reaching the god level in Soul Guidance. Includes the Eye of Soul Guidance, which can analyze any Soul Tool.)]

[Congratulations, host. You have received the god-level carving knife, Tian-Shu Carving Knife. (Unbreakable. Contains a god-level Defensive Array that will automatically activate in times of danger and can withstand a god-level strike. Soul Tools made with this knife will have their power increased by at least fifty percent.)]

[Congratulations, host. You have received 2 Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings. (They will automatically become the most suitable Hundred Thousand Year Soul Rings for your Martial Soul.) You have also received the most suitable Soul Ring. (It will be generated according to your Martial Soul as the ideal limit Soul Ring.)]

Jiang Che stared at the panel in stunned disbelief. Every reward displayed there was almost unimaginable.

He stood frozen for several breaths before slowly blinking. His fingers trembled as he reached out and gently tapped the panel.

The next instant, a flood of information poured into his mind. It wasn't a dry list of facts, but an understanding that felt almost instinctive.

God-Level Soul Guidance Talent... It was as if he'd been hauled straight out of a swamp and carried up into the clouds.

The anxiety of being stuck at the bottleneck before Level 8, as though an invisible hand had clamped around his throat, vanished in an instant.

In its place came a clarity that opened his eyes to everything. The array's patterns were no longer complicated lines, but as clear as the structure of a skeleton. He no longer needed to consciously control the flow of Soul Power; it came as naturally as breathing.

Jiang Che also realized that much of what he'd previously learned about Soul Tools had been wrong, and his techniques had been terribly crude. Looking back now, he could hardly bear to see them.

Then a faint warmth spread through his palm.

A small carving knife, about half a foot long and a deep shade of blue-green, appeared out of thin air.

Intricate Starry Sky Patterns were carved into its handle, while its blade was pure white, as if it could pierce through anything in the world. This was Tian-Shu Carving Knife.

Jiang Che instinctively grasped it. A gentle force flowed from his palm through his limbs, instantly restoring his spirits, which had grown somewhat weary after days of crafting.

He casually picked up a piece of high-grade metal left over from making the Gang-Qi Shield. With a thought, Tian-Shu Carving Knife sliced through the air.

"Shhk—"

There was no deafening crash, only a faint, sharp hiss. The high-grade metal, which would have chipped even an ordinary carving knife, parted before Tian-Shu Carving Knife as smoothly as tofu. It was cut in two in an instant, the edges astonishingly even.

"What a blade!" Jiang Che exclaimed, his eyes blazing.

It wasn't merely a tool. It was a divine weapon that could also save his life in a pinch.

With a thought, Tian-Shu Carving Knife vanished, and Starry Sky Patterns appeared on the back of Jiang Che's hand.

As for the remaining Soul Rings, Jiang Che left them untouched. Now wasn't the time. Otherwise, he'd have no way to explain them. He could only bring them out once he reached the Far North.