Soul Tools and the Self-Cultivation Furnace

"What?! Say that again—A hundred-thousand-year soul beast voluntarily sacrificed itself to you?!"

Inside the cramped carriage, the air seemed to be violently split apart by a bolt of thunder. Prince Xue Xing stared fixedly at the dazzling, eye-searing hundred-thousand-year soul ring beneath Lin Ya's feet. His entire body seemed frozen, his pupils contracting sharply as his mind went blank.

A hundred-thousand-year soul ring... and from a sacrifice?

He had lived for most of his life. He had heard of geniuses rising to prominence and witnessed soul beasts being hunted, but he had never heard of—nor even dared imagine—a hundred-thousand-year soul beast willingly sacrificing itself to a human Soul Master!

This was no longer a miracle. It was a myth that overturned the entire world of Soul Masters!

"And... your Swan Martial Soul actually evolved directly into an Emerald Swan Martial Soul with the ultimate life attribute?! This, this is simply..."

Prince Xue Xing's gaze clung tightly to the pair of wings behind Lin Ya, which glowed with a gentle jade-green radiance. His breathing quickened, his eyes burning with near-obsessive fervor, and even his voice trembled beyond his control.

The next second, the eyes of this usually composed prince suddenly welled up, and he actually burst into tears on the spot.

"Wonderful! This is wonderful! Our Heaven Dou Imperial Family... our Heaven Dou Imperial Family finally has a true top-tier Martial Soul!"

White Swan? What kind of trash was that?!

From this day onward, the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's inherited Martial Soul would have only one name—Emerald Swan!

Lin Ya was a legitimate prince. Once he ascended the Heaven Dou throne in the future, filling the palace with wives and spreading the royal bloodline would be no difficult matter. Within less than a century, the Emerald Swan Martial Soul of ultimate life would surely completely replace the old Martial Soul and become the brightest royal symbol of the Heaven Dou Empire!

When that time came, let's see who still dared act so high and mighty in front of him, Xue Xing!

Lin Ya slowly withdrew his second Martial Soul. Looking calmly at his emotionally overwhelmed uncle, he spoke in a solemn tone.

"Uncle, my second soul skill is called Divine Machine Hundred Refinements. I want to return to Biyou Village first and conduct some experiments..."

"Do it! Go ahead and do it! Do it without restraint!"

Without a second thought, Prince Xue Xing slammed a hand against his chest, making even the carriage tremble slightly. Brimming with heroic spirit, he declared, "Just tell me whatever you lack! Even if I have to empty your father's private treasury, I'll get every last bit of it for you!"

Lin Ya nodded slightly and listed his requirements one by one. "First, I need ores—every kind of ore, the more the better."

The core of his Divine Machine Hundred Refinements was forging all manner of magical artifacts and soul tools. Back then, Ma Xianhong had been able to stand against six temporary workers with nothing but his artifact formations. Had he not encountered monsters like Fenghou Strange Gates, Six Treasury Immortal Thief, and Feng Baobao, the victor would still have been uncertain.

"Easy! This stuff can be piled up with money. You can have as much as you want!" Prince Xue Xing agreed immediately. In his eyes, anything that could be solved with money was not a problem at all.

"Second, I need a group of craftsmen. Their soul power doesn't matter—the key is that they must be dexterous and clever, with enough aptitude."

Lin Ya's goal was far more than fighting alone. He wanted to build a soul tool assembly line. Forging by himself was simply too inefficient; only mass production could truly form combat power.

"Leave it to me!" Prince Xue Xing decided on the spot. "I'll immediately send people to the Blacksmiths' Association and bring you the best forging masters in the entire empire!"

"Third, I need a group of absolutely loyal death warriors—the kind who can die without hesitation and will never betray me."

A glint of coldness flashed through Lin Ya's eyes.

He possessed not only Divine Machine Hundred Refinements, but also Twin Hands.

The combination of these two Eight Extraordinary Skills would create a Self-Cultivation Furnace capable of rewriting the continent's entire balance of power!

Ma Xianhong's Self-Cultivation Furnace could turn ordinary people into Outcasts; his Self-Cultivation Furnace could allow ordinary people without soul power to awaken directly as Soul Masters!

Why was Spirit Hall invincible? It was not merely because of its top experts, but because it possessed an enormous army of low-level Soul Masters. In the Battle of Jiayu Pass, Spirit Hall could easily field an army of twenty thousand Soul Masters, while the Heaven Dou Empire, even after exhausting the strength of the entire nation, could only scrape together eight thousand.

The difference was like an uncrossable chasm.

But now, there were still more than twenty years before that great battle.

One person a day meant nearly ten thousand Soul Masters in over twenty years! With batches of soul tool equipment added to the mix, the Heaven Dou Empire's weakness in lower-level combat strength would be filled directly!

Twenty years to catch up to Spirit Hall's accumulation of several centuries!

This was the true terror of the Eight Extraordinary Skills!

At the words "death warriors," Prince Xue Xing frowned slightly, his tone becoming more cautious. "Death warriors... this is no small matter. I'll have to return to the palace and ask your father. If a prince like me privately raises too many death warriors, it could easily bring disaster upon me."

"That's fine." Lin Ya nodded indifferently, then released his first Martial Soul as well. Tapping the two purple soul rings at his fingertips, he tossed out his final request.

"One last thing—since we're already here, help me upgrade my first and second soul rings directly into ten-thousand-year soul rings before we head back."

As soon as the words fell—

Prince Xue Xing's entire body stiffened abruptly, and his expression instantly became extraordinarily vivid.

He suddenly recalled the perilous scene of Lin Ya being abducted earlier. His heart clenched, and the lingering fear made his scalp go numb.

"Y-you still want to go back?!"

Looking at his audacious nephew, he felt like crying but had no words of refusal to offer.

Sigh... what else could he do?

This was the most monstrous and most precious prince of the Heaven Dou Empire, after all.

Fine, fine.

If he had to risk his life alongside a madman, then he would see it through to the end!

Elsewhere...

"Fengzhi, are we really just leaving like this? I have a feeling that kid wasn't telling the truth." Bone Douluo Gu Rong reminded Ning Fengzhi beside him.

Ning Fengzhi shook his head. "Uncle Bone, he wasn't lying. He merely concealed part of the truth from us. At the very least, he never told us why those powerful soul beasts wanted to abduct him, yet did not harm him."

"Huh? Then shouldn't we go back and ask? There must be a huge secret behind this!" Bone Douluo suddenly realized it. Damn, no wonder he had kept feeling that something was off. So they had been led off the subject.

But they could not be blamed for it. Whale glue was simply too enticing; it was perfectly normal that he had not reacted in time.

Ning Fengzhi smiled and shook his head. "There's no need. Since he doesn't wish to say, there's no need for us to ask. As long as he remains in Heaven Dou, we'll meet again sooner or later."

Ning Fengzhi knew very well that Lin Ya's existence was undoubtedly the Heaven Dou Imperial Family's greatest secret.

But he was a smart man. The greatest advantage of smart people was knowing what they should know and what they should not.

"Besides... I have a feeling I've seen that face somewhere before." Ning Fengzhi lowered his head in thought. Then, he suddenly recalled what he had seen when he entered the palace some time ago.

At the time, Emperor Xue Ye had asked him to become the Third Prince of Heaven Dou's teacher, but he had not agreed immediately.

Because he felt that, given his status, if he were to be a teacher, he should be Crown Prince Xue Qinghe's teacher. What meaning was there in teaching a third prince?

But he suddenly remembered that, beside Emperor Xue Ye at the time, apart from the Third Prince, there had also been a small figure!

Those two faces were almost identical!

"He is the Fourth Prince of Heaven Dou! No, that Fourth Prince I met looked timid and submissive, completely unlike Lin Ya. At the very least, he didn't possess that vibrant confidence."

As though he had thought of something, a smile suddenly appeared on Ning Fengzhi's face. "Didn't Emperor Xue Ye want me to teach his Third Prince? Now it seems... perhaps becoming the Fourth Prince's teacher... would be far more interesting."