Concept of the Armor Beast

Bei Bei looked at Su Ming, who was叮嘱ing him again and again about Tang Ya's soul ring, and a helpless, wry smile appeared on his face.

"I know, I know, you don't need to keep reminding me. In a few days, I'll accompany Xiao Ya to hunt soul beasts for her soul ring. I will definitely scrutinize the soul ring's attributes carefully; I absolutely won't pick any sinister or violent ones, and I'll manage her soul ring combination properly. You, just go focus on your own business and stop worrying so much here."

Su Ming chuckled and stopped nagging.

"Alright, then I can rest easy. I'm going to get busy with some Soul Tool matters. See you later."

After giving Bei Bei all the necessary instructions, Su Ming turned and walked straight toward the Shrek Academy Soul Tool Department building.

For some time now, Su Ming had personally forged various rare and special metals, tempering them all to the Thousand-Refinement level. He had long planned to use these top-tier forged metals to craft an exclusive Armor Beast body to house the Snow Mastiff.

The Armor Beast is the origin spirit body of the armor condensed from the Gold Shadow Stone; it is the true soul of the armor and the core source of the armor's power, not merely a beast totem.

It possesses an independent consciousness, temperament, and principles, and will only acknowledge a summoner who aligns with its own philosophy, sharing a mental connection and blood bond with them.

Currently, the Snow Mastiff he summoned still lacked a stable physical form; most of the time, it could only exert power by attaching itself to his own combat strength, which severely limited its practical performance.

Precisely because of this, Su Ming had long ago made up his mind to cast an indestructible metal body for the Snow Mastiff.

As his own soul power and Soul Master rank continued to rise, the Snow Mastiff's sealed power would also be unlocked layer by layer.

Once equipped with a perfectly compatible metal armor body, the combat power he and the Snow Mastiff could unleash together would skyrocket exponentially.

In the future, when facing powerful enemies, if one person couldn't win, the man and beast could simply ignore the rules of fair play and join forces in the name of justice to take on the enemy.

Once the power of the Snow Mastiff Armor was fully unleashed in the later stages, paired with its exclusive mount, the Snow Mastiff Colt, the fatal shortcoming of the Snow Mastiff—high attack and defense but insufficient mobility—would be completely compensated for.

The flaws of being cumbersome and slow would be swept away, leaving him with both offense and defense, free to advance or retreat, with no weaknesses left to speak of.

Soon, Su Ming arrived at his own private room.

He raised his hand to activate his storage ring, and with a flash of light, a large amount of rare metal poured out. Deep Silver, Mithril, Adamantine—every piece had been tempered a thousand times, reaching the top-tier Thousand-Refinement quality.

Su Ming sat down to ponder, carefully planning the construction of the Armor Beast's body.

He finally finalized the plan: use Deep Silver, which has extreme ductility and unparalleled soul power conductivity, to build the Armor Beast's energy core;

Use Mithril, with its gentle texture and delicate affinity for soul power, to carve the precise and complex Soul Tool connection components;

And use Adamantine and Diamond Adamantine, which possess astonishing hardness and extremely high melting points and are born for heavy-assault equipment, to forge the Armor Beast's main skeleton and outer defensive shell.

The concept was perfect, but the real difficulty lay right before him—how to engrave the core Soul Tool formation.

The current Soul Tool technology of the three empires in the Peerless Tang Sect era was relatively primitive and backward, and the knowledge and ideas from the Shrek Soul Tool Department couldn't provide him with any help at all.

The design philosophies of those ordinary Soul Engineers were rigid and outdated, far inferior to the novel and unique construction ideas in Su Ming's mind.

Moreover, he could not easily expose the secret concepts of the Armor Beast and Armor martial souls; once leaked, it would inevitably attract endless covetousness and huge trouble.

Su Ming sighed softly: "It seems I can only explore slowly, taking it one step at a time. I'll just try to engrave the formation and start building first."

As his voice fell, he focused his mind and began to draw the Armor Beast's core formation.

This work was dull and tedious, extremely mentally draining, and a single deviation would lead to total failure.

Attempt after attempt, failure after failure, the formation kept collapsing. The most embarrassing time, the formation went berserk and exploded halfway through, and a sky full of metal ash hit him in the face, leaving him covered in dust and in a sorry state.

For three whole days without sleep or rest, he studied and engraved the core formation day and night, but after countless attempts, they all ended in failure.

Su Ming rubbed his throbbing, numb temples and sighed wearily: "Sigh, it seems the matter of building the Armor Beast body can only be postponed for now. I'll try again when my Soul Engineer rank is higher and my mastery of formations is deeper."

He subconsciously glanced at the time, and his heart stirred instantly.

According to the timeline, today was the day Bei Bei would take Tang Ya out to hunt soul beasts, and on the way, they would encounter the child of destiny, Huo Yuhao.

Su Ming looked at the empty Soul Tool workshop, gently rubbing his palm with his fingertips, calculating in his heart.

It seems it is time to prepare to set off and intercept Electrolux in the Star Dou Forest.

Thinking of this, a hint of awkwardness welled up in his heart, and he muttered to himself: "It's just snatching someone else's opportunity and taking what was supposed to belong to Huo Yuhao; it's still a bit unkind, more or less."

But then, he sighed again and said to himself: "Eh, forget it, forget it. I can't worry about these minor moralities right now.

When the time comes, in the God Realm, that Great God King Tang San will insist on keeping Huo Yuhao firmly in his palm, turning him into a subservient, mindless puppet of the Tang family.

When that happens, I will step in to help him, protecting his sanity and freedom, which will be considered fully repaying the karma of snatching this opportunity today."

Having made up his mind, without any further hesitation, Su Ming packed up the messy Thousand-Refinement metals and Soul Tools on the table, turned around, and walked straight toward his Shrek dormitory.

Returning quickly to the student dormitory, he pushed the door open and scanned the room. Bei Bei, who usually lived there, was not present; only Xu Sanshi was resting in the room, tidying up his own Soul Tools.

Su Ming walked straight up to him and asked softly to confirm the whereabouts of Bei Bei and Tang Ya. Upon learning that the two had indeed left early for the Star Dou Forest to hunt soul beasts, Su Ming did not linger. He casually greeted Xu Sanshi, walked quickly out of the dormitory, and headed straight for the main gate of Shrek Academy, his target set on the Star Dou Forest.

Although he had no idea which corner of the Star Dou Forest Huo Yuhao was currently in, nor could he find the remnant soul of Electrolux hidden within the soul beast, he knew clearly that Huo Yuhao, as the child of destiny of this continent, would inevitably encounter Bei Bei and Tang Ya by chance while they were out hunting.

In other words, he didn't need to waste effort searching for Huo Yuhao; he only needed to find Bei Bei and Tang Ya first and follow them quietly from behind.

Once they successfully met Huo Yuhao, he would hide in the shadows, without exposing any trace, and wait quietly. When the Sky Dream Ice Silkworm completely transformed into Huo Yuhao's wisdom soul ring, he would strike at the right moment, using the Gold of Life to attract Electrolux's attention, and finally successfully collect Electrolux's remnant soul and consciousness.

Having figured out this series of plans, Su Ming's pace became more urgent. He walked quickly to the carriage station outside the academy and looked around.

He stopped a carriage driver waiting for passengers and hurriedly asked if he had seen a male and female pair of Shrek students leaving the city earlier.

After accurately learning the direction Bei Bei and Tang Ya had taken from the driver, Su Ming immediately took out a few heavy Gold Soul Coins and handed them directly to the driver.

He urged the driver in an urgent tone to immediately drive the horses and chase at full speed in the direction Bei Bei and Tang Ya had left.