A Tiny Shock

"Xiao Yi, do you know Tang Chen?"

Wang Meng recited the name with a look of yearning, then asked Ling Yi.

Hearing the name "Tang Chen" all of a sudden, Ling Yi's brows twitched. Thoughts spun rapidly through his mind, but his face showed only blank confusion. He first nodded, then shook his head.

"When I visited Uncle Lu Yi from Spirit Hall before, I heard him mention a 'Tang Chen.' I don't know if he's the same one you're talking about, Fifth Brother—"

"Spirit Hall?"

Wang Meng froze when he heard that, then remembered that the first time Ling Yi had come to him, he had arrived more than two hours late that afternoon. Afterward, he had mentioned that he had gone to the Spirit Hall Main Hall in the city to visit a high-ranking Deacon named Lu Yi.

Thinking of this, Wang Meng nodded and said, "Since you heard it from a Deacon of Spirit Hall, then he should be the same 'Tang Chen' I just mentioned."

"I heard Uncle Lu say—" Ling Yi's clear black-and-white eyes widened a little as he looked at Wang Meng in front of him and asked, "That Tang Chen is known together with Spirit Hall's Tribunal Elder as the 'Two Peaks' of the Soul Master world, and a few years ago they both became Level 99 Peerless Douluo! Is that right?"

"That's right!" Wang Meng nodded hard, his face filled with longing, admiration, reverence, and all sorts of emotions.

"But..." Ling Yi tilted his head at this point and asked Wang Meng again, "Fifth Brother, what does that Tang Chen have to do with us?"

"I only heard Uncle Lu say that his Martial Soul is the 'Clear Sky Hammer,' known as the Number One Tool Martial Soul, and that it's one of the absolute top Martial Souls, just like Spirit Hall's 'Angel' Martial Soul and the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan's 'Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon' Martial Soul—"

Because of his own Martial Soul, the "Eight-Edged Mysterious Heavy Hammer," Lu Yi paid extra attention to Tang Chen, the Clear Sky Douluo whose might shook the continent, and had collected quite a few tales and legends about him. When Ling Yi had asked, intentionally or otherwise, Lu Yi seemed to have been scratched right where it itched and immediately shared everything without holding back.

Hearing Ling Yi's question, Wang Meng immediately showed the same smile Lu Yi had worn a few days earlier.

It was a smile of pride and excitement, as if basking in reflected glory, just like those people in his previous life who mentioned that some famous person had come from their hometown, and spoke about it to outsiders as fellow townsmen.

"Heh heh~" Wang Meng grinned, picked up the forging hammer from the side platform, and said to Ling Yi, "Since you know Clear Sky Douluo Tang Chen's Martial Soul is the 'Clear Sky Hammer,' then do you know what combat technique he had when he first fought, aside from Soul Rings and Soul Skills?"

At that, Ling Yi shook his head. Lu Yi had not mentioned this to him before, and by normal logic, Ling Yi naturally should not have known.

"The Chaotic Cloak Hammer Technique—!"

Wang Meng did not keep him in suspense. Or rather, at that moment, he felt an urge to pour it all out. "A powerful hammer technique that can make every hammer strike stronger than the last, accumulate that force, and finally release it all at once!!!"

Sure enough, Ling Yi said inwardly. On his face, he cooperatively revealed an astonished, shocked expression. Then his eyes turned, and he looked impatiently at Wang Meng as he asked, "Then... Fifth Brother, are you telling me this because Tang Chen's 'Chaotic Cloak Hammer Technique' has some connection to us blacksmiths too?"

Wang Meng ()!!!: "..."

As Wang Meng's expression gradually slipped out of control, Ling Yi continued analyzing. "They both involve swinging hammers. And since the 'Chaotic Cloak Hammer Technique' can increase the force of every hammer strike, then when tempering metal materials, the effect would obviously be outstanding. Since Fifth Brother brought him up specially, then..."

"That Clear Sky Douluo Tang Chen is also a blacksmith—or rather, he also knows the forging skills of blacksmiths, right?"

"Or is it that this 'Chaotic Cloak Hammer Technique' was originally a specialized technique blacksmiths used to temper metal materials?"

Knowing how to forge and mastering a blacksmith's techniques did not necessarily mean one was a blacksmith, so Ling Yi added that afterward.

When Wang Meng heard Ling Yi's analysis, he appeared somewhat dazed and could not react for quite a while.

This was not because Wang Meng was making a fuss over nothing. Even though he was nearly forty years old, he had spent most of his life by the furnace and in front of the forging table swinging an iron hammer, so he was clearly not some knowledgeable, quick-witted person.

Another reason was that Ling Yi's reasoning was built on the foundation of memories from his previous life, which was why he could produce it so smoothly, so quickly, and so casually.

Perhaps even without the memories and materials from his previous life, Ling Yi's flexible thinking after development in this life could still have led him step by step to the correct deduction, but it would not necessarily have been this precise, or come straight out of his mouth like this.

In addition, under the worldview of Douluo Continent, people in general were not highly educated, and there was no cultural education system specifically aimed at both Soul Masters and Ordinary Persons.

Under a worldview of extraordinary martial power, everyone's first instinct was to learn all knowledge related to Martial Souls.

Those Soul Masters with Innate Soul Power aptitude wished they could spend all their time on learning and cultivating things related to Martial Souls. Cultural refinement, shaping one's values, intelligence and strategy, economics and livelihood... all of it came later, and only those among the nobility with low aptitude were qualified to study such things.

Below that, it was like the vocational colleges of Ling Yi's previous life. Everyone learned some kind of skill as a means of making a living, becoming one screw after another in the human settlements of Douluo Continent—cities, towns, villages, and so on—ordinary and plain, commonplace and easily replaceable.

To give an example, in the original Timeline, Tang Hao had Tang San go to Moon Pavilion to cleanse away his easily out-of-control killing intent. What kind of people were in that Moon Pavilion?

Those with sufficiently outstanding Martial Soul Aptitude had all gone to attend Heaven Dou Royal Academy. The ones learning noble etiquette and skills were all Tool Persons for marriage alliances, and incidentally, this was also a way to distinguish themselves from ordinary upstarts and lowly mud-legged peasants.

Tang Yuehua said Tang Hao did not have her wisdom. If she had been in his place, Tang Hao's situation very likely would not have happened.

There was nothing wrong with that statement. If Tang Hao could have used alliances and mutual leverage to pull in other sects, or even the Two Great Empires, onto the same front, and with the remaining deterrence of having Tang Chen at his back, Qian Xunji would not have dared charge straight up to the Clear Sky Sect's mountain gate even if he had three times the guts.

In the end, he was the most outstanding successor of the Clear Sky Sect, the nailed-on new generation Clear Sky Douluo. If he had brought Ah Yin back to the Clear Sky Sect, could those blood relatives inside the sect really have shut him outside their gates?

But Tang Hao had taken Ah Yin and lived in seclusion in the Mountain Wilderness. Alone and unsupported, he had naturally ended up with Qian Xunji leading people right to his door.

In the original Timeline, whether it was the five elders within the Clear Sky Sect or the Single Attribute Four Sects, the main reason they had such strong opinions about Tang Hao was that after Qian Xunji died, all of them suffered disastrous losses under Spirit Hall's frenzied retaliation. Many blood relatives and close friends died miserable deaths, which was why they were full of resentment.

Of course, in the original Timeline, these had already been established facts and could not be changed. No one could give Tang Yuehua an answer to that "if" of being in his place.

But if one truly thought deeply about it, if Tang Yuehua had possessed Tang Hao's aptitude, would she still have had those methods she was so proud of?

Could she, in the spare time between cultivating, still have had the mind to learn noble etiquette, the art of speech...?

All of this was unknown.

Thinking to this point, Ling Yi could not help recalling two examples of film and television characters from his previous life.

Xiang Yu: Well-versed in military texts, breaking the cauldrons and sinking the boats, avoiding strength and striking weakness, attacking what the enemy must save...

Hegemon-King of Western Chu: Battlefield duels, unmatched under heaven; a great army pressing down, the advantage is mine...

Superman: Super brain, what should I do?

Super brain: Use your super strength~