You Just Don't Understand Him

Yuanen Yehui pouted. Remembering how she hadn't known anything when she'd talked with An Lan that day made her feel so embarrassed.

She was a genius with Twin Martial Souls. How could she fall behind An Lan?

It was all Dad's fault. He wasn't nearly as responsible as An Lan's teacher.

Hearing his daughter's complaint, Yuanen Zhentian didn't get angry in the slightest. He hurriedly played along. "My fault, my fault. Dad didn't think things through and made our Huihui lose face in front of her little friends."

Then he asked curiously, "Sweetheart, why do you want to learn forging? Wouldn't it be better to become a Mecha Designer or a Mecha Manufacturer?"

Yuanen Tiandang couldn't imagine his pretty, adorable daughter swinging a huge hammer and hammering metal in the future.

Even though he thought she'd just brought it up offhand, he still wanted to persuade her to change her mind.

Yuanen Yehui leaned against her father's shoulder and shook her little head with firm conviction. "An Lan's already learning Mecha Design, Mecha Manufacturing, and mecha repair, so I don't need to learn those. The only thing left is forging."

At her words, the smile on Yuanen Tiandang's face stiffened instantly, and his wariness toward An Lan rose once more.

Her words clearly showed she intended to have An Lan design and make her Battle Armor in the future.

After all, designing and making Battle Armor was no overnight task. And if Battle Armor was to fit a Soul Master perfectly, the Mecha Designer had to understand the Soul Master's Martial Soul traits and fighting style extremely well.

That took absolute trust. They would even have to spend every day together, repeatedly working out their compatibility.

At this point, An Lan was no ordinary little punk in his eyes. He had to strike hard!

To scare his daughter off, Yuanen Tiandang deliberately put on a stern expression and warned her, "Forging hammers are heavy. People who forge regularly don't just build up a lot of muscle—they eat a ton, even more than pigs. If a girl learns this, she'll turn into a giant."

Yuanen Yehui wasn't moved. She stuck out her little chest, brimming with confidence. "I've got strength and tricks to spare."

Ever since awakening her Titan Giant Ape Martial Soul, she could swing one arm and unleash a thousand jin of force. In her eyes, a mere forging hammer couldn't possibly be that heavy.

Yuanen Yehui was brimming with confidence. She felt forging was simply perfect for her.

If her father hadn't kept quiet about Battle Armor and secondary professions, she might already have become a Level One Blacksmith. How could she have fallen behind An Lan?

Thinking of this only strengthened her resolve. She absolutely couldn't let her father hold her back any longer. "I've already decided. I'm choosing forging as my secondary profession! An Lan's learning three things at once, while I'm only learning one. I'll focus on it completely, and there's no way he'll learn faster than me!"

Seeing how stubborn his daughter was, Yuanen Tiandang said flatly, "He's bragging."

Yuanen Tiandang had studied secondary professions himself, so he knew how difficult it was for a Soul Master to balance Soul Power cultivation with developing a secondary profession, let alone study three at once.

He didn't suspect An Lan of lying. He just thought the boy was too young and too ambitious. Once he hit a few walls in the future, he'd naturally learn to turn back.

Seeing her father doubt her friend, Yuanen Yehui got angry in an instant and shouted in his defense, "An Lan wouldn't brag! Dad, you don't understand him at all. You're not allowed to say that about him!"

As she spoke, she struggled and reached out her little hands toward Yehui, huffing angrily. "Mommy, hold me!"

In an instant, Yuanen Tiandang felt as if his heart had shattered. Even when his wife took their daughter away, he still couldn't recover.

Shangling City Spirit Pagoda, Mecha Room.

The entire ninety-ninth floor of the Spirit Pagoda housed only Leng Qingning, Le Lingzhao, and An Lan.

To make the place more comfortable, Leng Qingning had carefully divided up the space. The inner area was the living quarters, the middle held a private cultivation room, and the largest section on the west side was a Mecha Room specially prepared for An Lan to study his second profession.

The Mecha Room was fully equipped with everything needed for the three secondary professions of Mecha Design, Mecha Manufacturing, and mecha repair. It really was possible to build a mecha by hand in there.

Leng Qingning was extremely generous. Though An Lan had been only three when she prepared all this, she had considered that he might choose forging as his second profession and had even set up a Forging Room inside the Mecha Room.

At that moment, the Mecha Room was brightly lit, the entire room illuminated as if it were broad daylight.

An Lan sat upright at a huge worktable, his posture straight. His fingertips moved intently over a metal blank, carving a Soul Guidance Array into it.

Mecha Design required a deep foundation in theory and was too remote a prospect for beginners. At this stage, An Lan was still learning the fundamentals.

The core of Mecha Manufacturing was engraving core Soul Guidance Arrays onto Battle Armor and mechas. Besides memorizing the theory, it also required day after day of hands-on practice.

So, after Leng Qingning and Le Lingzhao discovered that An Lan had a solid theoretical foundation and had already studied who knew how long in advance, they brought him to the Mecha Room with satisfied smiles.

They called it checking his progress.

"Failure is the mother of success." That was Leng Qingning's teaching principle, so she had prepared plenty of rare metals for him to "waste."

On the left side of the worktable, rows of neatly cut rare metals were laid out, each piece sized just right for practicing Soul Guidance Arrays. Purple Copper had a warm sheen, while Mithril gleamed. Every piece had been carefully polished and was ideal practice material for beginners.

On the right was a haphazard pile of scrap metal, covered in crooked grooves and incomplete arrays, with cracks caused by poor control of Soul Power. Every piece was a failed attempt left behind by An Lan during his repeated practice, each one bearing witness to his progress.

Le Lingzhao drew in her presence and stepped forward quietly. She gently picked up a scrap piece of Purple Copper that An Lan had just tossed aside, ran her fingertips over the grooves, and looked up at the focused boy, her eyes full of approval.

From making frequent mistakes before he could even engrave a fifth of an array to now producing arrays that were nearly complete, An Lan had mastered the basics in just one night.

His progress was far beyond her expectations.

An Lan was completely unaware of this. He was already in a state of total concentration, oblivious to everything around him.

His left hand held a piece of reddish metal steady, while his right gripped a custom-made engraving knife. The blade was slender but tough, its tip alloyed with a small amount of Meteorite Iron and exceptionally sharp.

His eyes were lowered, his gaze and mental strength fixed on the metal's surface. Soul Power gathered at the fingertips of his right hand, and he controlled every bit of force with just the right precision.

The first cut fell, precise and steady. Then came the second, the third. Though his movements were slow, they flowed without the slightest pause. In just a moment, he had carved more than half of the new array.

Leng Qingning and Le Lingzhao stood quietly behind him, their eyes fixed on the array as it gradually took shape. When they saw An Lan nearing the critical point where he had failed several times before, they unconsciously held their breath.

In the blink of an eye, An Lan smoothly crossed that bottleneck and successfully carved the pattern that had repeatedly frustrated him. His hands never stopped moving.

Soul Power continued to flow from his fingertips, keeping a steady rhythm as he carved toward the end of the array, one stroke at a time.