Thousand-Refinement Metal

"The gathered power shall become a long spear that pierces the earth, and a road illuminated by light!

"Shatter, Drill Warrior!"

Facing the Flash-Radiance Electric Lizard, which had cultivated for a full four thousand years, You Jie deftly performed Synchronization and brought the drill down on it. The blow left the beast seeing stars, and it collapsed onto the ground without moving.

Bei Bei had just completed Dragon Transformation on his right arm, but before he could use a Soul Skill, he, Tang Ya, and Huo Yuhao had all become part of the cheering squad.

Neither the Mandala Snake from earlier nor the Flash-Radiance Electric Lizard they faced now had lasted even half a minute against You Jie.

As a result, Bei Bei and Tang Ya had each obtained their Soul Rings with exceptional ease.

In less than a day, they had both acquired their respective Soul Rings, meeting the requirements Mu En and Shrek Academy had set for their fourth-year advancement.

It was just that, although Bei Bei was clearly more powerful than You Jie, judging by cultivation, Huo Yuhao could no longer take his eyes off You Jie.

As for Tang Ya's invitation for Huo Yuhao to join the Tang Sect, he ignored it completely.

The Tang Sect might be a legendary sect, but Huo Yuhao had now seen a new hope: a friendly big brother was going to bring him into the greatest academy under heaven. And from the sound of it, that big brother was even going to find him one of the academy's top teachers!

What more was there to say?

Loyalty!

As for the Tang Sect, since even his big brother hadn't joined, naturally Huo Yuhao wouldn't either.

Tang Ya had been turned down once again, but she didn't start thinking about things like finding a way to get herself killed.

She had been rejected too many times by now. If she resorted to trying to get herself killed every time, she might as well go find a kind old man named Giant Shark and ask him to adopt her as his goddaughter on the spot.

Otherwise, without the strength to blow the whole damn world to smithereens by herself, she couldn't afford to keep trying to get herself killed so often.

Still, the darkness in Tang Ya's heart quietly went up by one.

After hunting the Soul Beasts, the group immediately hurried back to Shrek Academy. Even with Huo Yuhao, whose cultivation was relatively low, they saw Shrek City's eastern gate again the very next day—the entrance to Shrek Academy.

"Zhang Lexuan exchanged a glance with You Jie and said gently, "You Jie, take Huo Yuhao to register with the Soul Tool Department first. I'll help you handle his enrollment."

Then she went her separate way from You Jie and the others.

You Jie and Huo Yuhao were heading straight to the Soul Tool Department, so they parted ways with Bei Bei and Tang Ya as well.

In a way, this was just what Tang Ya and Bei Bei had been hoping for. Bei Bei was fine, but Tang Ya had nearly reached her limit.

First she had been elbowed into unconsciousness by some unknown giant bug, then she had been thoroughly cowed by You Jie's performance.

And to top it all off, Zhang Lexuan had been with them. Her mature, steady air, tinged with the authority of someone in a position of power, had kept Tang Ya exceptionally well-behaved.

Now that those troublesome people had finally left, how could Tang Ya not seize the chance to get affectionate with Bei Bei?

You Jie naturally paid no heed to the lovey-dovey couple, one of whom was his own biological older brother.

He immediately took out a Soul Tool Mini-Motorcycle he had made as an early prototype, had Huo Yuhao climb on, and sped straight to the Soul Tool Department.

He had made the mini-motorcycle to gain experience for the Duel Runner. It was a test model, but it was perfectly safe. He could take Zhang Lexuan riding around Shrek Academy—or even cruise around Shrek City.

"Brother You Jie, is this a Soul Tool too?"

When Huo Yuhao hopped off the mini-motorcycle, his eyes were visibly even more excited.

"Mm. I designed it myself. You could call it a Level Two Soul Tool."

You Jie quickly put away the mini-motorcycle, then led Huo Yuhao into the Soul Tool Department building and headed straight for Experimental Zone 12, deep inside.

"Old Qian, come out and meet someone! I've brought the Soul Tool Department a promising young talent!"

"You Jie, perfect timing! Look at my latest forging work. See? It's still glowing!"

Hearing Qian Duoduo's excited voice, You Jie immediately perked up. He brought Huo Yuhao along, and in just a few strides they found Qian Duoduo.

On the forging table before Qian Duoduo lay a piece of metal with fine, intricate patterns, still emitting a faint glow. Though it was gradually fading, it looked decidedly unusual.

"...I can't believe it. Old Qian really did manage to brute-force his way to Thousand-Refinement. I don't know what grade this is, but it's already a great start."

Looking at the rare metal on the forging table, You Jie was astonished, but couldn't help feeling delighted.

Now that Thousand-Refinement—a method of improving a material's strength—had appeared, You Jie could be much bolder in his ideas.

When it came to Soul Tools, apart from making some essential Defensive Soul Tools and everyday-use Soul Tools himself, he mostly provided inspiration and design prototypes.

As for everything else, that was for other people to handle. That was his attitude toward Soul Tools, and what he did in practice.

"Congratulations, Old Qian. Looks like our Soul Tool Department can make another leap forward. At the very least, we can narrow the gap with Mingde Hall."

You Jie had studied the differences between the Soul Tools of Mingde Hall and those of the three kingdoms on Douluo Continent. The main difference lay in the design and arrangement of their Core Arrays.

Mingde Hall's Soul Tools could always engrave more intricate Core Arrays onto the same metal materials, allowing them to produce much more powerful effects.

Over here on Douluo Continent, people had been trying hard to learn Mingde Hall's methods for designing and engraving Core Arrays. But even Shrek Academy's approach amounted to brute force, and it was difficult to truly learn Mingde Hall's systematic design ideas and methods.

Thanks to his engineering and science knowledge from his previous life, You Jie had found it relatively easy to reverse-engineer the thought process behind Mingde Hall's Core Array design and production. But getting everyone in Shrek Academy's Soul Tool Department to learn it and catch up to Mingde Hall's high-level Soul Engineers was about as realistic as teaching them all mathematics.

So, besides making up for the difference in design philosophy, if Shrek Academy's Soul Tool Department wanted to make higher-quality Soul Tools, its only option was to improve the materials.

The Sun Moon Empire already had mature machine-tool manufacturing processes. This made mass-producing their Soul Tools relatively easy, but it also kept them from further refining their materials.

The arrival of Thousand-Refinement metal gave Shrek Academy's Soul Tool Department a new path to overtake them on the turns.

"Mm, we really have you to thank for this. You not only helped us crack Mingde Hall's Soul Tool designs, you also gave us the idea of improving metal strength.

"Otherwise, our Soul Tool Department wouldn't have had the slightest hope of catching up to Mingde Hall...

"By the way, You Jie, is this the promising young talent you mentioned?"

Qian Duoduo gratefully patted You Jie on the back, then turned his gaze to Huo Yuhao.

After experiencing the effects of the Soul Skill Spiritual Detection Sharing, Qian Duoduo excitedly scooped Huo Yuhao into his arms and announced on the spot that he would take him as his personal disciple.