Why the Tang Sect declined in Douluo II and the terrifying power of mechanical hidden weapons

"You're exaggerating, really."

Hearing himself compared to a Divine Craftsman, Tang Shan waved his hands repeatedly.

"Master Tie, let's first see whether we're heading in the right direction."

Tie Zhong nodded. His burly figure abruptly rose, and he took a large chunk of iron from the nearby rack and set it on the anvil.

Seeing him prepare to forge, Tang Shan took up the bellows without being asked.

Whoosh!

Scorching flames licked the iron. Its iron-gray surface rapidly turned red, and its hard texture gradually softened.

Tie Zhong held a huge pair of tongs in his left hand, firmly securing the heated iron. In his right was a hammer roughly the size of two human heads. Once he confirmed that the heat had penetrated the iron's interior, he swung without hesitation.

Clang!

Amid the violent collision of metal, a large section of the iron caved in, its irregular shape becoming a roughly formed trapezoidal block.

After the first strike, he used the rebound to lift the hammer high with ease, then brought it crashing down again.

Sparks flew as the iron rapidly changed shape, the impurities within it being driven out with each successive strike.

"Huff..."

In less than fifteen minutes, Tie Zhong stopped of his own accord. The basin-sized chunk of iron had shrunk to the size of a soccer ball, and he was already drenched in sweat.

"Tang Shan, this is as far as I usually refine it. After this, I either start shaping it directly or fold it and forge it again."

Tie Zhong picked up the towel hanging nearby, casually wiped his face, and looked at Tang Shan.

"Master Tie, what would happen if you kept forging it?"

Tang Shan voiced his question.

"If I kept hammering, this piece of metal would be ruined within a few strikes. Later, I stopped trying because it wasted materials."

Tie Zhong rubbed the hammer in his hand. Recalling Tang Shan's earlier ideas and questions, he seemed to have a faint inkling of something.

"Master Tie, don't worry about wasting metal. Didn't you waste materials when you first learned to forge?"

Tang Shan offered the suggestion while recalling the entire forging process he had just watched.

Master Tie struck the raw material several hundred times. The metal's grade should now be at the level of Hundred Refinement metal from the Douluo III Era.

The standard for Hundred Refinement forging might be the same across all three eras. To truly transform the metal's nature, though, it would probably take Thousand Refinement forging.

Lou Gao, the Divine Craftsman from the Douluo I era, might have had the skill for Thousand Refinement without necessarily being able to achieve it properly. After all, Thousand Refinement metal should display some unique metallic properties, yet the Eight-Treasure Wishful Soft Armor he made in the original story showed no such traits.

An alternative Thousand Refinement—could that mean taking a different approach to forge metal with Thousand Refinement-level strength?

After pondering for a while, Tang Shan guessed that the Divine Craftsmen of the Douluo I era might have repeatedly folded and reforged metal to give it Thousand Refinement-level strength, without imparting the properties that true Thousand Refinement metal should possess.

Still, he had never personally watched a Divine Craftsman from Douluo I forge, so he could not jump to conclusions.

Tie Zhong finished thinking and decided to try Tang Shan's suggestion.

That's right. Wasting metal is inevitable in forging anyway. What does this little bit of loss matter?

Having come to that realization, he reheated and secured the iron, then raised his hammer and resumed forging.

One strike, two strikes, three strikes...

After roughly twenty more strikes, fine cracks appeared across the iron's surface, and it shattered completely.

Having already prepared himself for this outcome, Tie Zhong was not discouraged. Instead, he carefully reviewed every detail of the forging process, considering where he could improve further and whether he needed to adjust where his hammer landed...

After a moment's thought, he fetched another piece of raw material and began forging again.

At that moment, Tie Zhong seemed to have returned to his days as a blacksmith's apprentice: focused, persistent, and free of distractions. Even when Tang Shan told him he was heading back, he merely gave a brief acknowledgment before immersing himself in his forging once more.

Leaving the smithy, Tang Shan walked slowly toward the Great Soul Arena, reflecting on what he had learned about forging over the past few days.

With my precise control over my body, applying force while forging is basically no problem. After returning, I even used my soul skill to further optimize how I exerted force.

Working the bellows ultimately comes down to controlling the flames. With my fairly decent spiritual power, I quickly got the hang of it.

As for controlling the heat applied to the metal, that needs to be adjusted according to the material and its impurity content. I might need more practice before becoming proficient in that.

The forging techniques of the Douluo I era really aren't that difficult. And these people seem to have taken their techniques in a slightly misguided direction. Their focus isn't on purifying metal and improving the material itself at all. Instead, they've concentrated entirely on processing, manufacturing, and shaping it.

That's apparent from the Eight-Treasure Wishful Soft Armor made by Lou Gao, the Divine Craftsman from Douluo I, and his ability to forge the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus.

But when it comes to processing and shaping alone, they've already reached the pinnacle, especially Lou Gao.

Without any systematic training, he tackled skills like mechanism arts and still managed to personally create the Tang Sect's foremost mechanical hidden weapon, the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus. Such astonishing practical skill probably rivals that of the pillars of my former nation who could make nuclear bomb casings with their own hands.

At that thought, Tang Shan once again recalled the absurd reasons for the Tang Sect's decline in Douluo II.

First, the collision with the Sun Moon Continent had brought soul tools, whose effectiveness generally far surpassed traditional hidden weapons, directly costing Tang Sect Hidden Weapons their market. Later, the Tang Sect's leaders had been far too stubborn, single-mindedly following the path of the "great Buddha Tang" to cultivate the Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul. As a result, not one truly powerful individual had emerged among successive generations of sect leaders.

Setting aside that second reason for its decline, which merely suggested that every Tang Sect leader had indulged in wishful thinking, what Tang Shan truly could not understand was the first reason.

In all fairness, viewed objectively, the effectiveness of the Tang Sect's top three mechanical hidden weapons was absolutely outrageous.

The Storm Pear Blossom Needles had not been demonstrated much in the original story, so Tang Shan could not judge them rashly. But the power of the top-ranked mechanical hidden weapon, the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus, and the third-ranked Peacock Plume was enough to make him consider the Tang Sect's decline nothing short of a miracle.

In the original story, when the "thug rabbit" Xiao Wu used the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus, the first one killed more than seventy Soul Saints who had activated their Martial Soul Avatars. The second killed over thirty Soul Douluos from Spirit Hall.

Tang Shan's response was: I don't understand, but I'm utterly stunned.

With such a glorious combat record, calling its power equivalent to half a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell would hardly be an exaggeration.

Moreover, compared with a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell, the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus had three incomparable advantages:

First, it was cheaper to make. However scarce the rare metals required might be, a single Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus was only so large. It might even be possible to make one from scraps left over from manufacturing soul tools. Even if the materials were genuinely difficult to obtain, now that the Sun Moon Continent had collided and merged with theirs, the rare metals needed to make the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus would certainly not be lacking;

Second, it released no soul power fluctuations when deployed. Silent and undetectable, it would not alert powerful opponents at all;

Third, as a mechanical hidden weapon, anyone could operate it after learning how. Even an ordinary person could easily unleash an attack at the Soul Douluo or even Titled Douluo level. It would be an exceptional weapon for assassinating powerful figures in the Sun Moon Empire.

The more Tang Shan thought about it, the more absurd the Tang Sect's decline in Douluo II seemed. With a hidden weapon this outstanding, he could guarantee that selling a single Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus for as much as a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell would be no difficulty at all.

And the third-ranked Peacock Plume was even more outrageous. When the "thug rabbit" Xiao Wu used it, Azure Luan Douluo, a rank-ninety-seven Super Douluo, had been gravely wounded without sensing the slightest danger.

Tang Shan: My jaw has hit the floor. The Sun Moon Empire: I'll trade a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell for it.

Admittedly, the Peacock Plume needed close range to unleash its maximum power, and its greatest achievement was only gravely wounding a rank-ninety-seven Titled Douluo. It seemed slightly inferior to a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell, which rivaled a Limit Douluo's full-powered strike.

But the crucial point was that a Titled Douluo would inevitably sense something if someone approached carrying a Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shell. If someone brought a Peacock Plume right in front of them, however, they might not react until the attack had been launched and they had already been hit.

Otherwise, with the Sun Moon Empire's many Level 9 Fixed Soul Guidance Shells, if they could truly approach the top experts of Douluo at close range, why would they not seize the opportunity to launch a "terrorist attack"?

The Peacock Plume was also a mechanical hidden weapon. It needed no soul power to activate, was small and compact, and could be used by ordinary people. Even a Super Douluo who had reached the realm of Heaven-Man Unity would feel no threat from it.

"With a hand this good, how did the Tang Sect manage to play itself out of existence? Did the great Sect Leader Tang not leave behind the methods for making mechanical hidden weapons?"

Tang Shan could not help muttering under his breath.

"So what if they lost the mid-tier hidden weapon market? There was still the top-tier market. With the terrifying power of the Buddha's Fury Tang Lotus and the Peacock Plume alone, if I were the Tang Sect leader, I'd have more than enough resources to cultivate not just one Blue Silver Grass Martial Soul, but a hundred.

"And there's the Mother-Child Soul-Chasing Life-Taking Orb. When Dugu Bo, who was rank ninety-one or ninety-two at most, used it, he could directly challenge Chrysanthemum Guan, a top-class power attack system Super Douluo. That hidden weapon was absurdly powerful too."

The more he recalled, the more outrageous Tang Shan found the Tang Sect's decline. Forget Douluo II—even in the Douluo III Era, top-tier mechanical hidden weapons could still dominate the world thanks to their unique traits: they needed no soul power to activate, and powerful experts could not sense them.

Ambling up to the Great Soul Arena, he saw that the old man responsible for carving had brought over a recliner from somewhere. He was lying back in it, letting the gentle sunlight wash over him, looking thoroughly relaxed.

"Xuan Zi, has my big brother come out?"

Out of a certain mischievous impulse, Tang Shan addressed the old man surnamed Xuan this way.

Xuan Zi slowly opened his eyes, glanced at Tang Shan, and raised a hand to point in one direction.

"Your big brother seems to have gone to that shop for a meal. Don't interrupt an old man's sunbathing. Oh, and remember to bring me a portion if there's anything tasty."

Over their time together, Xuan Zi had gradually grown familiar with the father and his two sons, and he spoke to them quite casually.

"Heh." Tang Shan leaned closer and studied his belly with interest. "You eat so much every day, yet you never seem to get fat. That's really something."

Xuan Zi had already closed his eyes again. His words came out indistinctly. "This old man is naturally gifted."

Tang Shan smiled and left him in peace, heading in the direction the old man had indicated.

Before he reached the place, a rich aroma drifted into his nostrils. It smelled like roasted meat.

He widened his eyes and carefully surveyed the people in each shop, soon spotting Su Yuntao in one of them.

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