Vermilion Clear Ice Toad

The more often metal was hammered, the fewer impurities it contained.

Removing all impurities through repeated hammering marked the limit of Hundred Refinement, and laid the foundation for Thousand Refinement.

The greatest special effect of Thousand Refinement was sublimation.

Only when hammering metal caused it to undergo sublimation could it truly be called Thousand Refinement.

Although Mu Han's work was only Hundred Refinement,

all the impurities in the metal had already been removed. It simply lacked the effect of sublimation.

At that moment, Mu Xi was bewildered.

Casting only required a mold, with machinery pressing the metal into shape according to it.

Forging, on the other hand, was a craft, not routine labor.

A smith had to judge the metal's texture and properties from the impact's rebound and the changes in the metal as they struck it.

Yet compared with Mu Han's method, what people called forging seemed so crude.

Mu Xi finally understood why Mu Han couldn't make parts.

It was because Mu Han had never systematically studied forging at all.

He had simply used the properties of his Martial Soul to forcibly remove the impurities from the metal.

Mu Xi was competitive, but that was precisely why she had her pride.

She wouldn't compete with Mu Han under these circumstances.

In a contest of pure metal purification, Mu Xi had no chance of winning.

But if they competed in machining parts, then Mu Xi would be winning unfairly.

So Mu Xi took the little boy home with her.

At the time, Mu Han wasn't yet called Mu Han.

But when Mu Xi brought him to Mu Chen, and Mu Chen proposed taking him as a disciple,

Mu Han immediately fell to his knees. "I've drifted for half my life, lamenting only that I never met a wise lord. If you don't reject me, I'd be honored to take you as my adoptive father."

After that, he changed his name to "Mu Han."

He became Mu Chen's adopted son and Mu Xi's adopted younger brother.

With a Level 8 Saint Craftsman as his adoptive father, Mu Han no longer had to worry about cultivation resources.

He could naturally choose a Soul Spirit that suited him better, too.

The reason he sold that free slot wasn't just to repay the orphanage for its kindness.

The main reason was that the free Soul Spirit offered by the Spirit Pagoda wasn't compatible with him.

Unless he was willing to join the Spirit Pagoda, the selection of free Soul Spirits available to him would probably be very limited.

Rather than get a Soul Spirit that didn't suit him, he was better off selling the slot.

After all, it was a free slot for a hundred-year Soul Spirit.

A hundred-year Soul Spirit cost at least a million on the market, and he'd sold his slot for several hundred thousand.

He had relied on that money over the past year to support himself and Na'er.

But now he no longer needed to "live off his savings."

With Mu Chen's guidance, Mu Han soon reached the level of a second-level blacksmith.

In truth, his forging skills had already met the second-level standard.

As for machining parts, it was nothing more than a minor detail.

Meanwhile, the Blacksmith Association quickly found the Soul Spirit Mu Han needed.

But Mu Han wasn't in a hurry to absorb it.

In the original story, the protagonist, Tang Wulin, reached level ten at the age of nine, absorbed a Soul Spirit to become a One-Ring Soul Master, and completed his first Thousand Refinement.

Now, he wanted to try reaching Thousand Refinement with the cultivation of a level-ten Soul Scholar.

It would be best if he succeeded. If he failed, that was fine too.

He could treat it as a way to hold back his cultivation and make sure he could enter Grade 1 Class 5.

In Mu Xi's eyes, all the students in Eastsea Academy's Grade 1 Class 5 were useless.

But only Mu Han knew that Grade 1 Class 5 was where the protagonist's group began.

It was where the protagonist, Tang Wulin, found the first member of his group after leaving the novice village of Aolai City.

Fortunately, Mu Han ultimately succeeded.

He had started learning Hundred Refinement after turning six.

At seven, he became a first-level blacksmith and was taken in as Mu Chen's adopted son.

At seven and a half, he became a second-level blacksmith.

Then another year passed.

After two and a half years of practice, he finally completed his first Thousand Refinement piece.

And now, he was still only a level-ten Soul Scholar.

Thousand Refinement wasn't just about strength. More important was insight, especially an understanding of metal.

Only after reaching the level of Thousand Refinement could a blacksmith be considered to have truly entered the field.

Yet for ninety percent of blacksmiths, reaching this level was impossible in a lifetime.

Mu Han's Martial Soul, Gold-Water Mutual Containment, truly gave him an innate advantage in forging.

But he had only made it this far through hard work and spiritual power.

His spiritual power now stood at a staggering 499, only one step away from the Spirit Sea Realm.

And forging had also greatly improved his physical fitness.

Mu Chen valued his genius adopted son highly, providing an unlimited supply of all kinds of precious body-tempering materials.

By now, refining a thousand-year Soul Spirit would be well within his capabilities.

A toad as white as jade rested on Mu Han's shoulder. It was his first Soul Spirit, the Vermilion Clear Ice Toad.

It was white as jade and translucent, save for its blood-red eyes, which looked as though they might drip blood.

As soon as he broke through the bottleneck in Soul Power, a purple Soul Ring bloomed around him.

This was the Soul Ring unique to Soul Masters. Once it appeared, it circled him, pulsing rhythmically.

Ten thousand years ago, before Soul Spirits existed, the most iconic feature of a Soul Master had been their Soul Rings.

And this was a thousand-year First Soul Ring!

He might only have one ring now.

But this thousand-year Soul Ring was the threshold for becoming a three-ring Soul Elder!

A thousand-year First Soul Ring was even rarer than having three Soul Rings!

That was because it meant he would never have a Soul Ring below the thousand-year level.

From now on, every Soul Ring he acquired would be at least a thousand years old.

The Vermilion Clear Ice Toad population was tiny, and its movements unpredictable.

Its territory lay at the edge of the Far North, where it bordered the human world. That was why it was known as the king of the cracks.

Its greatest strength was the deadly poison it cultivated by absorbing the world's frigid energy.

Although the Vermilion Clear Ice Toad was entirely ice-attribute, its eyes were fire-attribute.

It produced its unusual poison by alternating between its ice and fire abilities.

Wherever the Vermilion Clear Ice Toad went, it left behind a poison that lingered for a long time,

one that was primarily ice, yet held fire at its core.

Mu Han's Martial Soul, Gold-Water Mutual Containment, was a combination of the metal and water elements.

The metal and water elements blended perfectly, without the slightest flaw.

Yet the metal element kept changing under the water element's embrace, its fluctuating structure transforming at every moment.

When the Martial Soul Gold-Water Mutual Containment encountered the Soul Spirit Vermilion Clear Ice Toad,

metal gave birth to water, water condensed into ice, ice nurtured fire, and fire gave birth to earth.

In the Soul Master World's system of the four elements—water, fire, earth, and wind—the metal element was a mutation of the earth element.

Just as the ice element was a mutation of the water element.

The original story mentioned that three elemental-control Soul Masters had once appeared at Shrek Academy.

But in the end, they had only cultivated to the level of a Seven-Ring Soul Sage, unable to advance any further.

That was because controlling three elements divided their attention too much.

Mu Han's situation was different.

Although he only controlled three of the four elements—water, fire, and earth—

the Vermilion Clear Ice Toad's properties made water and fire share the same source.

And the properties of Gold-Water Mutual Containment allowed water and earth to merge.

So Mu Han's water, fire, and earth elements could coordinate with one another, just as if all four elements were present.