What he valued most were the books, especially the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record.
There were quite a few books. The seven members of Shrek Academy had plenty in their Storage Soul Tools, including textbooks from Shrek Academy itself. That made it much easier for Yang Hao to study Soul Master knowledge.
For the past three years, he had been confined to the Strength Clan's grounds, forging iron and having little contact with Soul Master knowledge. He had only cultivated the Meditation Method to increase his Soul Power.
He urgently needed knowledge about Soul Master cultivation, so these books had come at just the right time. He had even found quite a few books on Soul Tools, which meant some of those people were clearly students in the Soul Tool Department.
After carefully inventorying his spoils and sorting them away, Yang Hao began studying the Mysterious Heaven Treasure Record in earnest, focusing especially on the Mysterious Heaven Skill.
"The Mysterious Heaven Skill really was modified."
After reading through its cultivation method, Yang Hao murmured that he had been right.
There were two versions of the Mysterious Heaven Skill. One was for those who began cultivating it from childhood, before awakening their Martial Souls and Innate Soul Power. They cultivated pure Mysterious Heaven Skill Internal Energy—the path God King Tang had followed back then.
The other version could be cultivated directly with Soul Power. It had far fewer mysteries than the pure version, and Huo Yuhao had switched to that one.
Of course, the improved version wasn't bad either. It was highly adaptable, especially for Soul Masters with powerful Martial Souls. Their Martial Souls' attributes were naturally incorporated, making the skill considerably more powerful than the balanced, gentle Internal Energy of the Mysterious Heaven Skill.
"Little Jade, let's see your limits."
After mentally reviewing the Mysterious Heaven Skill, Yang Hao decisively tapped into the power of his Golden Finger, and his comprehension soared several times over.
As a transmigrator, he naturally had a Golden Finger. It was a shard of jade in his mind, and its effect was to enhance his comprehension.
Unfortunately, before now, all he knew was one Meditation Method, along with the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer and Iron-Forging Hand techniques he had secretly learned in the Strength Clan's smithy.
He had learned the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer and Iron-Forging Hand, but he couldn't practice them. If he displayed astonishing talent and comprehension, Zhao Min would surely target him—and might even kill him outright.
The only thing he could study was the Meditation Method his parents had taught him. With his Golden Finger boosting his comprehension, he had mastered it thoroughly and even improved it to better suit himself.
Now he needed to use that enhanced comprehension to quickly master the Mysterious Heaven Skill.
With his Golden Finger's help, Yang Hao soon understood the first layer of the Mysterious Heaven Skill and began cultivating it.
His Soul Power flowed through his meridians according to the skill's method. It involved far more meridians than his old Meditation Method, so it was naturally more efficient.
But Yang Hao's cultivation did not go smoothly. His meridians had been injured three years ago when he was ambushed. They had recovered somewhat over the past three years, but many were still damaged.
As his Soul Power flowed through them, sharp pains stabbed through his body, as if countless steel needles were piercing him. It was excruciating.
He stopped his Soul Power from flowing through the damaged meridians to avoid making the injuries worse, then tried to adjust its path so it could follow the cultivation method as closely as possible.
This greatly reduced its effectiveness, but it was still better than his old Meditation Method.
His ability to make such fine adjustments came not only from his Golden Finger's boost to his comprehension, but also from the results of three years of practice.
The Meditation Method could only be cultivated for a limited time, mainly because of the strain on the mind. People grew tired, after all, and couldn't sit in meditation all day and night.
Whenever he had free time, Yang Hao trained his control over Soul Power. By now, he could condense it into threads and extend them outside his body, a technique inspired by the puppeteers in Naruto.
If he could condense Soul Power into threads outside his body and control them, then doing so inside his body was even easier. That was how he had learned this kind of control.
As for multitasking, he had been practicing that for a long time. He could now split his attention three ways, which helped him guide the cultivation method.
After making these adjustments, he managed to preserve half of the cultivation's effectiveness.
"My Soul Power's a little gentler."
Feeling the change in his Soul Power, Yang Hao confirmed the results of his cultivation.
The Mysterious Heaven Skill's power was balanced and gentle. It was excellent for maintaining health and could even heal internal injuries and repair meridians, making it perfect for treating his wounds.
Satisfied with the results, Yang Hao continued cultivating. His meridian injuries cut the effectiveness in half, but thanks to his exceptional comprehension and control over Soul Power, his overall progress was still good.
And that wasn't all. He was also trying to guide the spiritual power absorbed with his Soul Bone. The Soul-Devouring Spider Leg Bone had devoured the Head Soul Bone, along with the spiritual power inside it. That power could strengthen Yang Hao, but he needed to guide it first.
Strengthening his spiritual power would let him cultivate for longer without growing tired.
When cultivation wore him out, Yang Hao read the books. With the extraordinary comprehension granted by his Golden Finger, he could quickly master their contents, especially the knowledge of Soul Tools.
And that wasn't all. He was also studying the Metal Control Soul Bone Skill. It might be the breakthrough he needed to solve the problem of his Martial Soul's corruption.
His father's Martial Soul was a spear, and his mother's were a pair of daggers. Their Martial Souls had a fusion skill that combined them into a Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear, much like Erlang Shen's Three-Pointed Double-Edged Blade. Its blades, however, were much smaller than Erlang Shen's, which was why it was called a spear.
Perhaps because his parents' Martial Souls were so compatible, Yang Hao's Martial Soul had mutated from birth, combining their two Martial Souls into that Three-Pointed Double-Edged Spear.
Unfortunately, his Martial Soul had been shattered three years ago and tainted by evil power, leaving it unable to reform. It now existed only as a source of energy.
To reform his Martial Soul, the first thing he needed to do was deal with the evil power that had tainted it. He planned to separate it out, using a Soul Tool as a vessel.
Simply put, he would use the Douluo concept of a Life Soul Tool and fuse the corrupted portion of his Martial Soul Origin into an evil-attribute Soul Tool. That would create a Life Soul Tool while leaving the pure portion behind.
Only part of his Martial Soul Origin was corrupted, not all of it. He just had to separate out the tainted portion and use a Soul Tool to reshape it, like Ji Juechen had done.
The Metal Control skill also held great potential. If he could operate on a microscopic level, he could mass-produce Soul Tools and sell them.
The Star Luo Empire had a great treasure. If he could get his hands on it, the damage to his meridians would no longer be a problem, and he would gain another means of protecting his life. He also needed to buy Soul Bones, which would cost a great deal of money.
The money in the Storage Soul Tools he had seized wasn't enough to buy those things. He needed to make money grow into more money, and fast.
At the moment, the only way he could think of to make a fortune was selling Soul Tools. He couldn't make high-level ones, but he could try making basic, first-level Soul Tools.
And he already had the Metal Control Soul Bone Skill to help him. He could see whether it would allow him to mass-produce them.
He also needed to build smelting furnaces, buy ore, and refine it. With the Metal Control Soul Bone Skill to help purify it, his costs would drop dramatically.
As a well-rounded young man of the new era, there was no way he was going to swing a hammer at a forge or become a sculptor.
With a divine skill like Metal Control, he could take a shortcut and surge ahead. Whether refining and purifying metal or shaping Soul Tool cores, he could cheat his way through—and even mass-produce them, just like Magneto in the X-Men.
Rare metals also held great promise. By the time of Douluo III and Douluo IV, they had even developed Battle Armor and Mechas. Perhaps he could use the Metal Control Soul Bone Skill to develop those as well.
Finally, he needed to bond with the Soul-Devouring Spider Leg Bone. At first, External Soul Bones could be stolen. Back then, God King Tang had used the pressure of the Heaven Dou Royal Academy board members' Soul Power to complete the bonding process and fuse it with himself, making it impossible to steal.
Chapter 7: Starlight Auction House
While Yang Hao was quietly building up his strength, Tai Jingang, the Strength Clan patriarch, had begun to sense that something was wrong. The wanted posters bearing Yang Hao's likeness made him especially uneasy.
Without wasting time, he hurried to the Star Dou Forest and followed the map to the Soul-Devouring Demon Spider's nest.
But all he found were ashes and the charred remains of countless Soul-Devouring Demon Spiders. He couldn't find the bodies of his three companions, but this attempt to destroy all evidence told him everything he needed to know.
He had been tricked—fooled and outmaneuvered by a child.
"Little bastard, I'll catch you, tear you limb from limb, and grind your bones to dust!"
Tai Jingang roared in fury, his hatred burning hot.
He regretted not accompanying his grandson to hunt for a Soul Ring. If he had, that little bastard would never have been able to harm him.
He hated it!
Suppressing his fury, Tai Jingang mobilized the entire clan to search. They found no one, not even a clue, as if Yang Hao had vanished from the face of the earth.
Yang Hao, meanwhile, had hidden away to quietly build up his strength. Since he could dress as a girl, he paid no attention to the search—including the wanted posters.
The face on the poster only resembled his, and he was dressed as a girl besides. Even standing right in front of one, nobody would connect it to him.
After cultivating for a while, he began buying materials to make Soul Tools, focusing on a single type.
Half a year passed in the blink of an eye. In a hidden cave in a barren mountain, Yang Hao busied himself beside two furnaces he had built himself, one large and one small.
He filled them with smokeless charcoal and Iron Essence ore—Black-Veined Iron ore—and lit them to begin smelting.
Ore was much cheaper than finished Iron Essence or Black-Veined Iron. About one Gold Soul Coin's worth of Iron Essence ore could be smelted into a kilogram of Iron Essence.
Of course, this method produced metal of low purity. But with the help of his Metal Control Soul Bone Skill, the process became much more efficient, and the purity increased as well.
As the charcoal burned steadily, the Iron Essence ore broke apart after half a day. The Iron Essence inside melted and flowed out, then, guided by his Soul Bone Skill, separated into a nearby furnace to remain molten.
Yang Hao then opened the mechanism at the furnace's base. The hot slag fell below to cool slowly, and he loaded another batch of smokeless charcoal and ore to continue smelting.
Next, Yang Hao plunged his metal-attribute spider leg into the molten iron and used his Metal Control Soul Bone Skill to draw the Iron Essence together, squeezing out the other impurities.
The denser impurities settled at the bottom, while the lighter ones floated to the top. He scraped them away with a ladle, and the impurities at the bottom drained out through a channel. This left him with high-purity Iron Essence.
He used the same process on the Black-Veined Iron ore, ultimately producing high-purity Black-Veined Iron.
While it was still molten, Yang Hao separated out a piece of Black-Veined Iron about the size of a peanut and used his control to shape it into a Soul Guidance Array.
That was how he made Soul Tool cores. His Metal Control Soul Bone Skill took the least effort to control molten metal, which also made it easier to shape with microscopic precision.
Combined with the control over Soul Power he had developed through training, he could shape the core like this.
Besides, first-level Soul Guidance Arrays were the simplest, and the arrays for close-combat Soul Tools were simpler still. With practice, he could make them quickly.
As for the Soul Power it took, he could already split his attention to keep the Mysterious Heaven Skill running at all times. His recovery and expenditure were more or less even.
Yang Hao made a hundred Black-Veined Iron Soul Tool cores in a row, then used the furnace to keep them at a temperature between liquid and solid.
Next, he poured the purified molten Iron Essence into molds for spears and set the Soul Tool cores in the handles. He guided the Iron Essence and the outermost layer of Black-Veined Iron on each core to permeate each other and form a single whole.
Finally, he guided the molten Black-Veined Iron to form the sharp edges of the spearheads. It was a kind of laminated-steel technique, and the contact surfaces had a jagged structure that further locked the metals together and let them permeate each other.
That still wasn't the end. As the Iron Essence cooled and was about to solidify, Yang Hao used his Metal Control Soul Bone Skill to smooth the edges. It was like polishing the weapons.
That completed the batch of spears. Once they cooled, he could store them away.
There was no need for quenching or tempering. Those processes worked on a molecular level, but his material was high-purity Iron Essence—a monatomic substance that had no concept of quenching or tempering.
Besides, Iron Essence was plenty strong.
Only after shaping enough spears did Yang Hao finally leave his hiding place.
It was time to make a move for that treasure!
At the gates of Star Luo City, a round, petite girl stepped down from a carriage.
"So big!"
Looking up at Star Luo City's towering walls, Yang Hao couldn't help exclaiming.
That's right, he was currently disguised as a girl, complete with a long skirt, stockings, and ladies' shoes. Everything he wore was in a pink, girlish style.
After six months of letting his hair grow, it now fell to his shoulders.
Half a year without sunlight had also lightened his originally wheat-colored skin. From the outside, he looked like a girl.
On top of that, half a year of eating heartily had made him several times plumper, concealing the broad bones of a boy. This was especially true of his hands: the extra flesh covered his knuckles, making them look chubby. His barely noticeable Adam's apple was completely hidden too.
He had also filed away the calluses on his hands, which he had gained from years of swinging a hammer and forging iron, letting the skin grow back.
Now, even if someone from the Strength Clan stood right in front of him, they would never recognize him.
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