Three Years Later

Three years later, at Red Mountain Academy.

"Wulin, I heard Zhou Shaolong is going to the Spirit Pagoda tonight."

The chubby Wan Yunchao lowered his voice and wriggled closer to Tang Wulin, curiosity and envy written all over his face.

"His family really splashed out this time. I heard they aren't buying the cheapest random soul spirit. They picked one specifically suited to his beast martial soul. What about you? Didn't you reach the threshold of rank ten half a year ago? Why haven't you fused with a soul spirit yet?"

The boy sitting by the window raised his head, sunlight falling across the side of his face.

Three years had passed, and Tang Wulin was no longer the little boy who had only just awakened his martial soul. His once-rounded features had gradually matured, his brows and eyes refined and clear, his black eyes as bright as freshly washed black jade. He had grown considerably taller, standing a head above children his age. His shoulders and back were straight, and although his arms and waist did not look particularly bulky, they hinted at a sturdiness hammered into him through years of work.

The most obvious change was in his hands.

They were still slender and handsome, but a thin layer of calluses had long since covered his palms and knuckles. At a casual glance, he was simply an unusually good-looking boy. Look closely, however, and those hands revealed a tenacity beyond his years.

Tang Wulin closed the textbook in his hands and smiled.

"What's the rush?" he said. "Reaching rank ten in soul power and deciding when to buy a soul spirit are two different things."

Wan Yunchao's eyes immediately widened.

"But you've already waited so long! If it were me, I'd have rushed straight to the Spirit Pagoda. Even buying the most ordinary random soul spirit would be better than dragging things out like this, right?"

Tang Wulin merely shook his head at those words.

"I can't choose my first soul spirit carelessly."

This was not a boy's vanity speaking. It was something Mang Tian had repeatedly told him long ago.

For any soul master, the first soul spirit was the starting point.

For Tool Martial Soul masters in particular, the first soul spirit bestowed more than a soul ring and a soul skill. It also determined the direction their strength would take for a long time to come. The more unusual the martial soul itself, the less they could afford to settle on that first step.

And Tang Wulin's hammer had never been like an ordinary Tool Martial Soul.

All anyone else knew was that his martial soul was an unremarkable little Xiao Hei hammer. During that first year, quite a few classmates had even said behind his back, "That hammer looks shabbier than the practice hammers at an ordinary smithy." Later, however, no one dared look down on it again.

The reason was simple.

His blows hurt.

Of course, Tang Wulin did not actually like fighting. But at an age when children had neither soul rings nor soul skills, raw strength was often the most persuasive argument of all.

In their first year, Wan Yunchao had deliberately provoked Tang Wulin after class, running his mouth and relying on his short-sword martial soul. That time, Tang Wulin had not even summoned his martial soul. With his bare hands, he had swung Wan Yunchao clean off the ground, frightening the little fatty into howling on the spot. From then on, although he still liked to mouth off, he had accepted Tang Wulin's superiority in his heart.

Afterward, everyone in class gradually learned that although Tang Wulin's Xiao Hei hammer was nothing to look at, it was absurdly heavy. And Tang Wulin himself was even more of a monster.

No one knew where that monstrous strength had come from.

Only Tang Wulin knew that over those three years, the time he had spent Forging exceeded the time he had spent playing by more times than he could count.

Every day after school, he would take Na'er home, then go to Mang Tian Workshop.

At first, he stayed for only two hours.

Later, as he learned more and became capable of more, he stayed longer. From the most basic hammering, applying force, and sensing metal, to gradually handling and carrying out the initial forging of simple metal blanks on his own, he had pressed most of his childhood into the ringing blows at the forging bench.

Along with that came the money slowly accumulating in his pocket.

It was not much.

But he had earned every payment himself, one hammer blow at a time.

He had not squandered a single coin. Even when he craved something to eat, he did his best to resist, saving everything so that when he finally walked into the Spirit Pagoda, he could buy himself a better starting point.

Wan Yunchao clearly did not understand any of this. He merely scratched his head.

"You really know how to hold back," he said. "If I reached rank ten, I definitely wouldn't be able to wait."

Tang Wulin smiled without answering.

In truth, judged purely by how quickly his soul power grew, he was not among the very best.

But over those three years, cultivating soul power had been far from his only pursuit.

Three years of academic lessons and soul master classes at Red Mountain Academy, Forging practice every day without fail, meditation after returning home, and occasionally looking after Na'er... he had far less time than others to settle down and focus solely on cultivating soul power.

Besides, Forging itself was utterly exhausting.

Sometimes, after spending an entire afternoon on his feet in the workshop, his arms felt so heavy when he got home that he could barely lift his bowl. Yet after every practice session, the unusual recuperative power within him would slowly erase all his exhaustion while he slept. When he woke the following morning, he never felt drained. Instead, he always seemed a little stronger than the day before.

Over time, even Mang Tian had remarked:

"You little brat. It doesn't look like you're learning to Forging so much as using Forging to temper those bones of yours."

And that was indeed the case.

Tang Wulin's soul power had not grown at an astonishing rate, but its progress was remarkably steady. During the first two years, he had advanced another step at fairly regular intervals. In his third year, he had reached the threshold of rank ten more than half a year before graduation.

His homeroom teacher, Lin Ximeng, had told him more than once that if he devoted half the time he spent Forging to meditation, he might already have gone beyond rank ten.

But Tang Wulin had no regrets.

Because he knew better than anyone that he did not merely want to "become a soul master a little sooner."

He also wanted to become someone who could stand on his own feet.

"Well, good luck." Wan Yunchao clicked his tongue twice. "But seriously, once you have a soul spirit, we have to fight again. You used to bully me with all that brute strength, but once I have a soul skill, who beats up whom won't be so certain."

Tang Wulin tilted his head to glance at him, his tone mild.

"Keep dreaming."

Wan Yunchao promptly choked on his words.

Just then, the dismissal bell rang.

The classroom immediately bustled with noise as the children shouldered their bags and packed away their textbooks. Tang Wulin moved quickly, but once he had gathered his things, he did not rush away like the others. Instead, he went to wait at the school gates as usual.

Before long, a striking flash of silver came running from the main teaching building.

"Big brother!"

The clear, bright call rang out from afar.

The faint weariness and quiet reserve in Tang Wulin's eyes dissolved almost the instant he heard those words. He took two steps forward and reached out with practiced ease to catch the little girl throwing herself at him.

"Slow down." He rubbed Na'er's head, his voice full of helpless affection. "What if you fall?"

Three years had passed, but Na'er's appearance did not seem to have changed much.

She still had short silver hair and eyes as clear as amethysts. She had grown a little taller, but she still looked smaller than other children her age, as though she grew very slowly. Coupled with her exquisitely delicate face, that made her the first person anyone noticed, even in a crowd.

"Big brother, I want a lollipop." Na'er hugged his arm and made her demand with perfect confidence.

Tang Wulin laughed.

"All right. I'll buy you one."

With that, he naturally took her hand and led her toward the little shop by the street.

The students at Red Mountain Academy's gates had long since grown accustomed to this sight.

Everyone knew that Tang Wulin had a younger sister with silver hair and purple eyes, as pretty as a little doll. For that very reason, there had never been any shortage of talk about Na'er over the years.

When she participated in Awakening Day during her second year with the Tang family, she had caused a small stir throughout Aolai City—

Because she had no martial soul.

No, to be precise, it was neither a weak martial soul nor a trash martial soul. Nothing at all had manifested during the awakening ceremony.

Even the Spirit Transmitter had been stunned.

Such a situation was exceedingly rare, not just in Aolai City, but even in the standard records of the entire continent.

Without a martial soul, she naturally had no accompanying soul power. Thus, like any ordinary child, Na'er could only continue attending regular classes, studying academic subjects and growing up peacefully.

But she was far too beautiful.

So beautiful that her classmates, boys and girls alike, found it difficult not to notice her.

At first, Tang Wulin had gotten into plenty of fights over Na'er. Once, after school, several boys surrounded her and pestered her. Tang Wulin charged in alone and shoved them all away. That time, he could not beat several opponents at once. In the end, they left him covered in dirt, with even the corner of his mouth split, but he stubbornly kept Na'er shielded behind him, refusing to let anyone touch even the hem of her clothes again.

The next day, he sought them out himself and cornered the ringleaders one by one.

He was young, but that stubborn streak that would never retreat once he had set his mind on something gave even adults a headache. After several clashes, he really did beat those habitual troublemakers into submission. From then on, no one in Red Mountain Academy dared openly bully Na'er again.

Later, Tang Wulin simply became Na'er's regular "escort."

From the age of eight onward, unless something unexpected came up with Mang Tian, he waited at the school gates almost every day to walk home with her. Through wind and rain, he never missed once.

After buying the lollipop, Tang Wulin took Na'er home first.

Once the courtyard gate closed, he returned to his room, put down his schoolbag, changed into sturdy work clothes bearing a few metalworking oil stains, and headed out again.

He had worn this set of clothes for three years.

At first, they had hung loosely on him. Now, they barely fit. The clothes were old, but constant friction and strain had worn the cuffs, shoulders, and back into something even tougher.

Mang Tian Workshop had long since become as important a part of his life as Red Mountain Academy.

Red Mountain Academy taught him how to become a soul master.

Mang Tian Workshop, meanwhile, taught him how to stand on his own feet in a heavier, harder, more direct way.

The setting sun stretched Aolai City's streets into long ribbons.

With the sunset at his back, Tang Wulin walked toward that shabby old storefront. His shadow trailed behind him, long and straight. From his back alone, it was already difficult to reconcile him with the little boy who had once raised Xiao Hei and stepped forward for the first time to stop a bad man.

But only he knew that life had not become easier over those three years.

He had simply taken more and more weight onto his own shoulders, little by little.

And now, he was drawing ever closer to that threshold.

Rank ten.

A soul spirit.

A true soul master.

These words, once so distant that they seemed to exist only in stories, were now real and close enough to touch.