Shen Luo shifted his gaze to Elder Man Bo, only to see him staring intently at his own furnace, wholly absorbed in body and mind, utterly unaffected by Hou Shan beside him.
By now, he had placed the Lingxiao Copper and Radiance Stone into the furnace. He was controlling the flames to form three rings around the two materials at the center, attempting to melt them together.
The three rings of flame varied in temperature, cycling around one another as they continuously revolved around the two spiritual materials. Through flames that alternated from time to time, they fused the materials at different levels.
Shen Luo had seen this method of fusion in the Heavenly Mechanism Tome. It was called Interlocking Smelting, a rather difficult smelting technique. It was more complicated than ordinary melting and blending, but it allowed the respective strengths of both spiritual materials to be preserved more effectively, granting the resulting Puppet Armor more superior traits.
For instance, Lingxiao Copper possessed exceptional malleability but lacked toughness. If it were simply fused with the other material, the resulting spiritual material could indeed gain greater toughness while retaining its malleability, but the final result would only be equivalent to another higher-grade spiritual material: Vast Sea Gold.
However, if it were forged through Interlocking Smelting, the two spiritual materials would fuse in interlocking, overlapping layers. Both its malleability and toughness would surpass those of Vast Sea Gold.
When Hou Shan saw that Elder Man Bo had actually mastered Interlocking Smelting, a trace of jealousy involuntarily surfaced in his eyes, and the corners of his brows drooped slightly.
In this respect alone, he was already inferior to Elder Man Bo.
At this point, he put away his contempt for Elder Man Bo and began focusing on forging the Puppet Armor.
As time