Divine-Grade Soul Tool Talent, Tian-Shu Carving Knife

Jiang Che gripped the cyan token, his footsteps light as he headed toward the laboratory building. The Soul Tool department's laboratory building was constructed to be more substantial than that of the Spirit Master department, its outer walls cast from reinforced alloy.

He navigated the path with practiced ease, arriving at the top floor, which contained only three laboratories.

Jiang Che walked to the No. 3 laboratory he had used previously and pressed the hexagonal cyan token against the main door.

A miraculous scene unfolded: a gap suddenly split open on the door, perfectly accommodating his token.

After Jiang Che felt a brief fluctuation of soul power, the token popped out from the gap. Immediately following, accompanied by a grinding sound, the door to the No. 3 laboratory slid open horizontally.

Once the door opened, one could see that this entirely metal door was actually two feet thick.

It required rails on both the floor and the ceiling to move at all.

Jiang Che was long accustomed to this and walked straight into the laboratory without a second thought.

The moment he stepped inside, the cold, hard scent of metal rushed to meet him. His gaze swept over the high-level smelting furnace in the center, which emitted a deep blue luster, and then landed on the neatly stacked material racks nearby. He reached out and pulled a palm-sized piece of Profound Iron from the bottom shelf.

The creation of a Soul Tool involves processes such as shaping, casting, quenching, and polishing. Of course, the most important step—and also the most difficult—is the final engraving of the core array.

The engraving of core arrays often fails due to the slightest error.

It is precisely because of this that even though Jiang Che was currently at the peak of a Level 7 Soul Master, he dared not claim he could produce a Level 7 Soul Tool with 100% certainty. After all, he did not possess Huo Yuhao's martial soul or the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm's soul rings.

Jiang Che sat at the metal table and began to purify the Profound Iron, then placed it into the smelting furnace, injecting soul power to drive the array for heating, precisely controlling the melting point. Once the material melted into a liquid state, he poured it into a custom mold for initial shaping. After cooling, he obtained the basic embryo of the Soul Tool—a heart-protecting mirror.

Jiang Che took an Level 8 carving knife from the Ring of the Overseer.

He held the heart-protecting mirror in his left hand and gripped the carving knife with his right, beginning to carve. In just a few minutes, a Level 1 core array was successfully engraved.

Jiang Che then set to work on the outer shell, and after a few more minutes, a Level 1 defensive Soul Tool was completed.

Jiang Che looked at the panel, where the progress had changed.

[Level 1 Soul Master (In Progress) 1/3]

In the following period, Jiang Che traveled exclusively between the first class of the outer courtyard and the Soul Tool laboratory, rarely even visiting Ma Xiaotao.

Finally, two months later, Jiang Che looked at the Qi-shield Soul Tool in his hand. This Soul Tool required Soul Saint-level soul power to activate and could withstand a full-strength strike from an ordinary eight-ring Soul Douluo.

Jiang Che looked at the panel again, and it was now vastly different from two months ago.

[Level 1 Soul Master (Completed), Level 2 Soul Master (Completed)... Level 7 Soul Master (Completed) 3/3, Level 8 Soul Master (In Progress) 0/3]

Because he pursued high quality, he had only spent one month on the first six levels of Soul Tools, but he had spent an entire month completing the final three Level 7 Soul Tools, during which he didn't know how many had been scrapped.

Another month passed, and Jiang Che lay on the table, looking utterly defeated.

"I really am not cut out to be a Soul Master!" For the past month, relying on his high cultivation level, Jiang Che had been stubbornly pushing to reach Level 8.

But whether it was because he hadn't obtained a soul ring for a long time or because his talent as a Soul Master was simply too poor, Jiang Che always felt he was just a hair's breadth away from Level 8, yet he could never successfully craft one.

"Forget it, I can't go on like this." The richness of the rewards depended on the total breakthrough time. The month he had wasted had already caused the rewards to diminish, and with Level 8 still nowhere in sight, it was time to claim the previous rewards.

Jiang Che opened the panel and claimed the cumulative rewards for levels 1 through 7.

[Checking task completion status. Level 1-7 Soul Master tasks completed. Quality assessment in progress... Assessment complete, rewards being issued...]

[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining God-level Soul Tool Talent (No bottlenecks until reaching God-level Soul Tool rank; includes the Eye of Soul Guidance, capable of analyzing any Soul Tool.)]

[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining the God-level carving knife—Tian-Shu Carving Knife (Indestructible; contains a set of God-level defensive arrays that activate automatically in danger, capable of blocking a God-level strike; increases the power of Soul Tools crafted with this knife by over 50%.)]

[Congratulations to the Host for obtaining 100,000-year soul ring x2 (Will automatically generate the most suitable 100,000-year soul ring based on the martial soul) and Optimal Soul Ring (Will generate the most suitable ultimate soul ring based on the martial soul).]

Jiang Che stared at the panel in front of him, dumbfounded; every reward displayed was beyond imagination.

Jiang Che stood stunned for several seconds before slowly blinking, his fingertips trembling as he reached out to tap the panel lightly.

The next second, countless streams of information flooded his mind like a tide. It wasn't dry knowledge, but an almost instinctive realization.

God-level Soul Tool talent... This was like being pulled out of a quagmire and placed directly on the clouds.

The anxiety of being stuck at the Level 8 Soul Master bottleneck, which had felt like an invisible hand gripping his throat, vanished instantly.

In its place was a newfound clarity; the veins of the arrays were no longer complex lines, but as clear as the structure of bones, and the flow of soul power no longer required deliberate control, becoming as natural as breathing.

At the same time, Jiang Che realized that much of his previous knowledge about Soul Tools was wrong, as were his crafting techniques—looking back now, they seemed incredibly crude.

Immediately after, his palm felt slightly warm.

A small, dark cyan carving knife about half a foot long appeared out of thin air.

The handle was carved with intricate starry patterns, and the tip was pure white, as if it could pierce through all things in the world. This was the Tian-Shu Carving Knife.

Jiang Che gripped it subconsciously, and a warm, gentle power flowed from his palm through his limbs and bones, instantly refreshing his spirit, which had been slightly exhausted from days of refining.

He casually picked up a piece of high-grade metal left over from making the Qi-shield, and with a thought, the Tian-Shu Carving Knife swept through the air.

"Ssh—"

There was no deafening sound, only a very faint, sharp noise. The high-grade metal, which would have chipped an ordinary carving knife, was as smooth as tofu before the Tian-Shu Carving Knife, instantly sliced in two with a shockingly clean cut.

"Good blade!" Jiang Che whispered, a sharp light erupting in his eyes.

This was not just a tool, but a divine artifact that could save his life at a critical moment.

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

As for the remaining soul rings, Jiang Che did not touch them. Now was not the time; otherwise, he wouldn't be able to explain them. Only by heading to the Far North would it be appropriate to bring them out.

PS: The trial run starts tomorrow; normal updates resume from today.