The moment Xiha Dragon heard that, he exploded.
His fan-sized palm slapped the lab bench with a smack, making the heavy metal surface shudder three times and the components atop it clatter.
"You humans' flashy little gadgets deserve to be called forging?" His booming voice made the laboratory hum. "Our people have been engraving energy arrays this way for generations. Dragonfire Forging, tempered through countless hammer blows—the array patterns we carve can withstand Dragon Power impacts. How I improve it is none of your damn business!"
He pointed at the half of the precise pattern Ling Zichen had engraved, his face full of disdain. "These hair-thin lousy lines you carved? They may look pretty, but one blast in real combat and they'll shatter! Useless showpieces, and you have the nerve to bring them out and embarrass yourself?"
"Who are you calling useless?!"
Ling Zichen's eyes widened, and her temper flared instantly. What she hated most in her life was anyone questioning her Soul Guidance Technology, especially some rough brute who looked like a blacksmith.
"The array I designed has an energy conversion rate of ninety-two percent—1.7 times that of the Federation's active-duty Soul Guidance cannons! Those lousy patterns you hammered out let energy run wild. They could easily cause the chamber to explode on the spot and blow even you into ash!"
"A bumpkin is a bumpkin. You don't even understand the most basic laws of energy conduction, yet you dare touch a Grade Six Soul Tool? I think you're here to cause trouble!"
"Who are you calling a bumpkin?!"
Xiha Dragon took a large step forward. His towering body carried an overwhelming pressure. The crimson dragon crystal on his forehead glimmered faintly, and orange-red dragonfire aura rose around him, heating even the surrounding air.
"Don't give me that conversion-rate