Version's Chosen Gather, but the Era Is Misaligned

The shop owner's face no longer held the fawning look from before. It had been replaced by genuine admiration.

He gave a bitter smile.

"I don't even know why someone like you would visit a little shop like ours."

Honestly, the golden light released when the Thousand Forging was completed had truly frightened him.

To people of this era, it was no different from making a dish that glowed gold or having one's clothes burst apart while eating—an almost equally astonishing phenomenon.

Bai Chen raised a finger to his lips and gave him a mysterious smile.

"Some things don't need to be understood so clearly. It's better for both of us that way, understand?"

"I understand."

The shop owner said tactfully,

"I'll pay you the highest wage possible. You can do whatever you want while you're at the shop... Would that be acceptable?"

In his heart, he had already regarded Bai Chen as some young master from a major faction who had come out to experience life.

There was no way an ordinary independent craftsman could possess such skill. It was better to pretend he had seen nothing.

"Fine. Thank you."

Bai Chen nodded in satisfaction and gave Red King and Bai Yueqiu a gesture to show that it was settled.

With that, he had successfully taken the first step.

But he could not relax yet. What came next was the most important part.

This was the core city of the Heaven Dou Empire. Even the slightest movement would draw attention from every side. What he needed to do was gain as much profit as possible during this process and build up the funds needed for his later plans.

At the same time Bai Chen and the others settled down in Heaven Dou City, a disturbance caused by him was brewing in places beyond his notice.

"The cultivation speed of the Soul Masters in Heaven Dou City has suddenly increased across the board?"

Inside the Heaven Dou City palace, Xue Qinghe could not help freezing at the report.

The person delivering the information said respectfully,

"Yes. According to what we know, since this morning, the cultivation speed of Soul Masters in Heaven Dou City and the surrounding areas has collectively increased by about twofold. Even now, this strange phenomenon has not disappeared."

"Hmm..."

Xue Qinghe's expression immediately turned serious.

He said solemnly,

"Please summon my teacher. Tell him I have an important matter to discuss with him."

"Yes!"

Watching the informant leave in quick strides, Xue Qinghe let out a long breath and leaned back in his chair.

The fact that the cultivation speed of all Soul Masters in Heaven Dou City had doubled was simply too terrifying. He could not afford to treat it lightly.

Before long, the door opened once more, and a refined-looking middle-aged man walked in.

"Your Highness, I'm here."

Xue Qinghe hurriedly rose to greet him.

"Uncle Ning, you've finally arrived. How much do you know about this incident?"

He did not ask whether the other man knew of it. As the sect master of the Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect, Ning Fengzhi's intelligence network would not be any less informed than his own.

Ning Fengzhi drew in a breath and shook his head.

"Unfortunately, I had the experts of my sect investigate as well, but they found nothing. The cause of this phenomenon, how long it may continue, and even how to stop it are all completely unknown."

"I see..."

Xue Qinghe's expression immediately grew grave.

As the capital of the Heaven Dou Empire, the cultivation speed of its Soul Masters doubling across the board was naturally a good thing for the empire.

But as the crown prince, Xue Qinghe had to consider more than the direct effects of the matter. He also had to consider the series of upheavals that might follow.

If this were true and continued to develop, it would mean that Heaven Dou City would become a cultivation paradise coveted by every Soul Master.

A full twofold increase in cultivation speed! What did that mean? It meant mass-producing powerful Soul Masters would no longer be empty talk!

At that point, the situation of the entire world would change because of this phenomenon.

To say nothing else, could the Star Luo Empire possibly stand by and watch the Heaven Dou Empire become a holy land for Soul Master cultivation?

It was foreseeable that if this phenomenon continued, the Star Luo Empire would most likely launch a war directly to prevent the Heaven Dou Empire's strength from rapidly increasing.

And besides the Star Luo Empire, the various Soul Master factions would definitely not sit idly by either.

Especially Martial Soul Hall, the foremost Soul Master faction. That woman would surely...

Thinking of this, Xue Qinghe frowned in disgust.

His position was rather special. At least for the time being, he did not want matters to develop so quickly.

Xue Qinghe asked in a low voice,

"Then, Uncle Ning, what do you plan to do?"

Ning Fengzhi sighed.

"I have already asked Uncle Sword and Uncle Bone to speed up the investigation, but we still have no leads. No matter what, determining the cause of this strange change is our highest priority."

"Mm, you're right."

Xue Qinghe nodded in agreement and said,

"I'll also have my men accelerate their investigation. If this phenomenon was caused by some object, then we must claim it for ourselves!"

It was not only Xue Qinghe and Ning Fengzhi. Similar conversations were taking place in countless corners of Heaven Dou City at that very moment.

For Soul Masters, this change was simply too obvious. Anyone with even slightly sharp sources of information would find it difficult not to notice.

Meanwhile, Bai Chen, the culprit behind this disturbance, was completely unaware as he worked in the blacksmith shop.

"Phew... Finally done."

Inside the private forging room the shop owner had prepared for Bai Chen, he stretched lazily.

In front of him lay all kinds of equipment—the basic apparatus needed to create Soul Guide Devices.

He had anticipated that a day like this would come, so he had learned how to make these tools long ago. As expected, that knowledge came in handy now.

In his hands was a pair of crimson-gold forging hammers.

These forging hammers were the finished product of his Blood Sacrifice in this era. As expected, they had awakened a powerful trait related to his Martial Soul.

This trait was very strange. Every strike made with the hammers would trigger a random selection, like tossing a coin. The result would determine the special effect of the next strike.

The weaker effects could add ten percent more force, while the stronger ones could directly imbue the strike with elemental attributes he possessed. Like a slot machine, the hammer's effects were entirely blind-box luck.

If any other blacksmith were here, this bizarre forging trait would surely leave them utterly overwhelmed.

After all, forging valued stability. Such completely uncertain effects could only negatively affect the final result.

Without bringing down the hammer, one could not know what result that strike would produce. For every blacksmith, such a trait would be disastrous.

But Bai Chen was the sole exception.

With Future Prediction assisting him, the effect of the next strike was no longer unknowable to him.

At the same time, he discovered that whenever he actively chose to alter the future, the trait drawn for the next strike would change accordingly.

And perhaps because he himself was a gathering point of fortune, his luck was absurdly good. At least so far, he had only rolled an ordinary trait once. All the others had been extremely powerful and useful effects.

Although the effects of these forging hammers were not very controllable, there was no doubt that their theoretical upper limit was the highest.

Clang! Clang!

Even while Bai Chen rested, the sound of metal colliding continued to ring through the room.

At another forging table behind him, Bai Yueqiu held a forging hammer and diligently struck the metal placed on the table.

Since people of this era generally did not know of the Three-Eyed Golden Lion, Bai Yueqiu had directly chosen her own species as her Martial Soul this time.

In other words, her Martial Soul was exactly the same as Bai Chen's. Theoretically, her talent for forging should also be exceptional.

With the mindset that there was no harm in trying, Bai Chen had taught her a little. Sure enough, that was exactly the case.

She learned forging at an astonishing pace. In just one day, she had already begun to look the part.

That was good too. Bai Chen intended to establish his own faction in the future, and there certainly could not be only one blacksmith in it. With Bai Yueqiu assisting him, many things would become far more convenient.

Thinking this, Bai Chen smiled and called out,

"Yue Qiu."

Clang! Clang!

As if she had not heard him, Bai Yueqiu continued hammering the metal in front of her.

Bai Chen's mouth twitched, and he changed how he addressed her.

"Big sister."

"Mm? What is it?"

Hearing that, Bai Yueqiu immediately stopped pretending to be deaf. She halted her work and looked down at him from above.

Bai Chen was amused by her childish behavior. He patted the chair beside him and said,

"Come over here. I'm going to start making a Soul Guide Device. Haven't you always been curious about how Soul Guide Devices are made?"

"Oh?"

As expected, Bai Yueqiu's curiosity was immediately piqued. She tossed aside her forging hammer, skipped over to Bai Chen's side, sat down, and urged him,

"Hurry, hurry! I've wanted to understand this stuff for ages!"

"Heh, alright. Listen..."

Bai Chen picked up the equipment used to create Soul Guide Devices and began explaining their principles.

But before long, he realized something was wrong. Bai Yueqiu's eyes had clearly begun to glaze over. It was obvious at a glance that although she was still sitting there, her soul had already flown elsewhere.

Bai Chen's mouth twitched, and he lightly tapped her on the head.

Bai Yueqiu suddenly came back to her senses and asked in a fluster,

"W-what is it?"

"You're asking what it is... Do you know what I was just talking about?"

"Uh... How to use the various tools for making Soul Guide Devices?"

"That was at the very beginning. I only talked about that for two minutes before moving on to the next topic."

Bai Chen rolled his eyes.

It seemed this girl was not suited to studying Soul Guide Devices.

Bai Yueqiu could see his disappointment too, and she pouted unhappily.

"It's just that I can't follow your lesson. What's the big deal... Besides, what use is learning this stuff anyway? According to your memories, even twenty thousand years later, the upper limit of Soul Guide Devices still won't reach the point of killing gods, right? To beings like us, Soul Guide Devices are practically useless."

"That is true when it comes to improving personal strength." Bai Chen nodded frankly, then abruptly changed the subject. "But who told you I only learned this stuff to improve my own strength?"

Bai Yueqiu asked back,

"Then what do you want to do?"

"Of course, I want to drive human society forward."

Bai Chen said calmly,

"I will use knowledge from the future to rapidly transform the human society of this world toward the future."

In Bai Chen's view, pure strength was not particularly appealing to him. What he liked most were the achievements created through wisdom.

For example, in the Douluo I Era, there was a massive gap between humanity's overall strength and that of Soul Beasts. As long as top-tier Ferocious Beasts moved, humanity would have no ability to resist. The combat power of Ferocious Beasts absolutely surpassed that of humans.