A mutated ultimate martial soul, machine element, Metal Sublimation and Gold-Eating Beast, the next stage of life (4K)

The crisp clicks of heels against the ground faded into the distance. The evening sunlight marked the princess's departure, and the little Pin Dao Dao shop fell silent again.

"Star Luo National Academy..."

Lin Qing shook his head, paying little mind to the utterly explicit invitation. He was an honest businessman who only wanted financial relationships with his customers, not anything deeper.

That said, he had long since met the admission requirements for an advanced soul master academy. As the empire's foremost academy, Star Luo National Academy was more than adequate as Plan B.

As Xu Jiujiu departed, she basked in the secret delight of having a soul engineering genius wrapped around her little finger, completely unaware that for every foot the righteous path rose, the devil rose ten. He had relegated her to a backup option, and Star Luo National Academy mattered less to him than the rare metals in his Storage Soul Tool.

As evening deepened, business at Pin Dao Dao drew to a close, and Lin Qing's thoughts drifted toward the tantalizing metal he could burn through from the deposit.

He took out two fist-sized chunks of metal. They weighed heavily in his palms, far heavier than they looked, their deep purple color rippling beneath the brilliant white Soul Guidance Lamp.

Amethyst copper.

A rare metal produced in Sun Moon, its veins lay a hundred meters beneath the rock strata, making it extremely difficult to mine. It was generally used only to make core arrays of Level 5 or higher.

Roughly four thousand years earlier, shifting continental plates had sent the Sun Moon Continent from the west crashing into the Douluo Continent, unleashing a continental war that swept across the world.

After long years of warfare, muscle had given technology a thorough beating. The Douluo Three Kingdoms joined forces to defeat the Sun Moon Empire and named the entire landmass the Douluo Continent.

Although the Sun Moon Empire admitted defeat, its rulers had never abandoned their ambition to wage war. Rare metals such as amethyst copper were strictly prohibited from export.

Other than attending the Star Luo City auction and paying exorbitant prices for the small quantities smuggled in by underground organizations, Lin Qing had practically no opportunity to get his hands on amethyst copper.

His fingers tightened, their pads pressed against the metal as he savored its smooth, slightly cool texture. Lin Qing slowly brought it closer to the Soul Guidance Lamp beside the table, revealing every detail of its surface. The uniquely cold, hard scent of metal filled his nose and traveled into his lungs, intoxicating him.

"Mmm~ Ninety-nine percent pure. A real rarity!"

She truly was the imperial princess he remembered, lavish beyond measure. Compared with others of their kind, both pieces of amethyst copper were exceptional!

The next moment, Lin Qing mobilized the soul power throughout his body.

Silver light glittered like scattered stars. Soul power surged through his limbs and bones, spilled from his fingertips, and enveloped the two precious pieces of rare metal.

The dazzling silver soul power intertwined with the deep purple of the amethyst copper, penetrating and entangling with it. The air trembled faintly, and ripples spread outward from their points of contact, ring after ring, as unceasing as the tide.

The nearest soul tools on the shelves began to tremble. Their metal hummed softly, as though sensing the pressure of a superior being and radiating a desire to prostrate themselves in submission.

A sudden transformation swept through the amethyst copper. Its volume shrank at a visible pace, the fist-sized chunks resembling ice melting beneath a blazing sun. Their square edges rounded into spheres, which then grew smaller still.

At the same time, Lin Qing's silver-gray eyes burned ever brighter. Their pale, inorganic hue seemed to ignite, sparks blazing into a prairie-wide sea of silver.

The rhythm and depth of his breathing changed as well. Every inhalation drew great mouthfuls of air into his lungs, swallowing the Gold Element energy of the amethyst copper along with it.

Within moments, the amethyst copper had shrunk to half its original size. Two precious pieces of rare metal had become Lin Qing's soul power just like that!

Had a soul engineer witnessed this scene, their eyes would surely have turned bloodshot, their breath coming like a panting ox. First, they would have cursed Lin Qing for squandering heaven's treasures by not turning such excellent rare metals into soul tools. Then they would have fallen to their knees and bowed. Please, godfather, I really want to learn that trick!

Of course, Lin Qing would only have patted the fellow's head and offered a helpless smile. This was an innate martial soul talent. He could not teach it, and no one else could learn it.

In his previous life, Lin Qing had challenged a Dayun truck single-handedly and suffered a narrow defeat. Fortunately, heaven cherished life, allowing him to reincarnate on the Douluo Continent with his memories intact and live a second life.

As he grew older, Lin Qing came to understand this world where four nations vied for supremacy. He realized this was Douluo's second season, ten thousand years after Sea God Tang San's ascension-the era of the Peerless Tang Sect.

Having arrived, he might as well settle in. Before his martial soul awakening at six, Lin Qing had lain on a hillside with a foxtail grass stem between his teeth, imagining himself awakening the god-bestowed martial soul, Six-Winged Angel, with innate soul power at Level 20. Once his Angel Domain opened, his holy sword would slaughter heaven and earth in an instant. Wherever his six wings passed, the little spawn of evil souls would not dare cry at night.

Failing that, an unprecedented divine-grade body martial soul would do. The Body Sect would go wild with joy and pour its entire resources into supporting him. With a golden awakening, he would crush every enemy beneath heaven. Lin Qing could live with that episode too.

Yet fantasies were ultimately unrealistic. The unscrupulous developers ignored the young man's lofty ambitions, and one awakening ceremony destroyed his dream of becoming a great emperor. Lin Qing had merely received a miserable martial soul with unremarkable mechanics and perfectly ordinary stats.

It only had an ultimate attribute, that was all (╥﹏╥).

Machine element, a mutated version of ultimate metal.

As everyone knew, ultimate martial souls enjoyed a heaven-blessed advantage in their outrageously powerful combat abilities, especially when suppressing attributes they countered and others of the same type. For details, see the ice-and-fire-versus-ultimate-ice vlog.

Ling Luochеn had burned herself out, yet her ice element still could not punch through the sole of the Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion's shoe.

Machine element undoubtedly stood at the pinnacle of the metal attribute, enjoying the benefits of the current patch. On the very day his martial soul awakened, Lin Qing had sensed its innate, extraordinary power.

Ultimate talent.

Ultimate martial souls came in different ranks, and ultimate talents were one of the standards used to distinguish them.

The Ice Jade Emperor Scorpion's talent was nothing but pure cold. The Golden Dragon, with its orthodox draconic bloodline, was entirely different, possessing three great talents.

Machine element lay somewhere between the two. At least so far, Lin Qing could use two ultimate talents. The first was called Metal Sublimation.

Machine element tempered metal, achieving an ultimate enhancement.

Every soul tool Lin Qing personally crafted bore a machine-element imprint, its power increasing dramatically as the metal's fundamental nature evolved. Pin Dao Dao's Overdrive series of soul tools had burst onto the scene and immediately won widespread customer praise, even drawing Princess Jiujiu to his shop.

His second ultimate talent was Gold-Eating Beast.

Machine Element devoured the Gold Element within rare metals, increasing a soul master's cultivation speed.

Generally speaking, the more precious a rare metal was, the more energy it contained and the higher its price. It was roughly equivalent to burning Gold Soul Coins in exchange for soul power cultivation.

Five years flashed by, and Gold-Eating Beast brought Lin Qing both pain and pleasure.

By constantly absorbing Gold Element to cultivate, his soul power had rocketed upward before Level 30.

Even when an ultimate soul master broke through to become a three-ring Soul Elder and their meditation-based cultivation speed plummeted, Gold-Eating Beast running at full throttle could still ensure Lin Qing did not fall behind others.

If he devoured metals worth a king's ransom, Lin Qing's cultivation speed would open the world's eyes, making him the fastest-cultivating soul master in history.

As for the cost...

His cultivation expenses bore down on him like Mount Tai.

Level 30 was a threshold. Beyond it, Lin Qing ate his family out of house and home, draining the retirement savings Grandma Lin had spent half her life accumulating and forcing Pin Dao Dao to launch its Pin Gold Gold promotion to attract customers...

Spend 380,000 and save 180,000. Qing Zai had racked his brains just to gobble one more mouthful of rare metal!

Only a fellow countryman understood another's suffering. Before transmigrating to the Douluo Continent, Lin Qing had gone an entire month without managing to boost a discount coupon into such a fantastic deal!

Crack-

A crisp sound rang out. Lin Qing kept his fists clenched as the two pieces of amethyst copper, now devoured down to fingernail size, burst into fine dust.

Precious goods that a smuggling organization had transported across ten thousand miles to Star Luo City vanished just like that, as though they had never appeared at all. Only a fine layer of purple powder left on the tabletop proved they had existed.

Gently exhaling a breath of stale air, Lin Qing turned to look out the window. Night had fallen over Star Luo City, and scattered lights glimmered through the streets and alleys of the old district.

The short, dark-skinned man selling Shaobing next door finished work and went home. A while later, a charming young married woman arrived with Shaobing, crisp pears, and side dishes, exchanging them with Lin Qing for a large metal radish. Her words brimmed with flirtatious charm as she asked him to come repair her Soul Guidance Lamp when he had time.

After seeing off the beautiful woman, who had wanted to linger and chat, Lin Qing rose, hung up the closed sign, locked Pin Dao Dao, and pushed open the back door.

Behind Pin Dao Dao lay a small courtyard enclosed by walls on three sides. A locust tree stood in one corner, its branches stretching into the sky and cutting the patch of heavens into scattered fragments.

A white-haired old woman was resting in a wooden reclining chair with her eyes closed. At Lin Qing's footsteps, she opened them, looked at the steaming food in his hands, and said with a smile:

"One glance tells me that's Little Pan's cooking. Dalang gets up early and works late selling Shaobing every day. He's finally married a capable wife. He'll be enjoying a blessed life now."

"...Mm."

Lin Qing opened his mouth, then stopped, giving a subdued answer rather than shattering her illusion with reality.

Soul masters matured far faster than ordinary people. If he harbored any wicked intentions, he could surely take up the post of Ximen Qing by tomorrow.

The young man and the old woman ate dinner beneath the locust tree, enjoying the mild, cool night breeze. Looking at the boy's usual expression, Grandma Lin spoke:

"Last month was Shrek Academy's annual holiday. Little Lan comes back to Star Luo City every year during the break, but for some reason she didn't come home this time. She didn't ask a classmate to bring a letter either."

"Judging by her soul power cultivation, Sister Lan should be breaking through Level 60. Maybe she's in deep meditation on Sea God Island, using the Golden Tree's boundless life energy to break through her bottleneck," Lin Qing guessed.

Grandma Lin's real name was Lin Lian. Her martial soul was Green Vine, and she was a Level 39 Soul Elder as well as a Level 3 Soul Engineer. She had never married. In her younger years, she had traveled far and wide, leaving footprints throughout the Douluo Three Kingdoms.

At sixty, like a fallen leaf returning to its roots, Grandma Lin returned to her hometown of Star Luo City and opened a soul tool shop-the predecessor of Pin Dao Dao.

Later, she adopted two abandoned orphans, named them Lin Lan and Lin Qing, and always treated them as her own, acquiring both a daughter and a son in her own way.

The siblings were ten years apart and unrelated by blood. It had originally been Lin Lan who discovered the infant Lin Qing and begged Grandma to keep him.

An impoverished household had produced outstanding children-two supreme talents under one roof. Perhaps it was heaven rewarding Grandma Lin's kindness. Lin Qing's martial soul had undergone a beneficial mutation, producing ultimate metal unmatched in ten thousand years, while the Blue Dragon Lin Lan awakened could certainly be called excellent.

Blue Dragon was an ice-attribute martial soul. The same year she adopted Lin Qing, Grandma Lin took Lin Lan to the outskirts of the Far North to hunt for her second soul ring. Along the way, they encountered a group from a major sect hunting soul rings.

Every disciple of that sect possessed a draconic martial soul. Its sect master was particularly fond of Blue Dragon, and upon learning that Lin Lan intended to study and gain experience at an advanced soul master academy, she volunteered to write a recommendation letter to help her enter Shrek, the continent's foremost soul master academy.

The condition was that Lin Lan would join her sect after graduation.

The outcome was obvious. For commoners without any significant backing, admission to Shrek Academy was a heaven-sent opportunity that could only be encountered, never sought. Naturally, Lin Lan refused to miss it, and her studies had lasted eleven years.

"That makes sense..." Grandma Lin sighed deeply. "But for some reason, I keep feeling uneasy. I'm afraid something has happened to Little Lan.

"Xiao Qing, make a trip to Shrek City and ask about Little Lan. If nothing has happened... well, you're old enough now. Why not enroll in the outer court while you're there?"

"Grandma really can't afford to feed you anymore. Shrek has vast resources. With ultimate metal, you should only have to plant yourself at their doorstep for them to waive the recommendation letter..."

Every family had a difficult scripture to recite, but the Lin family's was particularly difficult.

However poor they were, they could not skimp on education; however hard life became, they could not let the children suffer.

The old woman's face filled with sorrow. Calling this bottomless Gold-Eating Beast's appetite that of an ox did not capture even half of it. Everything she had accumulated through eighty years of hard work had gone into him!

Lin Qing guiltily averted his silver-gray eyes. Was working hard at cultivation wrong? The world was far too malicious toward hardworking people!

"A big customer came to Pin Dao Dao today." Lin Qing stiffly changed the subject. "She placed an enormous order, paid a million Gold Soul Coins upfront as a deposit, and invited me to join Star Luo National Academy. I think she's shown plenty of sincerity.

"In recent years, I've heard Star Luo National Academy has been vigorously developing its Soul Tool Department and is willing to invest in talented soul engineers.

"By contrast, Sister Lan has mentioned more than once that Shrek Academy's Martial Soul Department and Soul Tool Department are as incompatible as fire and water. The Martial Soul Department's dean suppresses the Soul Tool Department both openly and covertly, restricting its development at every turn.

"My martial soul talents are closely linked to soul tools, and so are my soul skills. There's no separating them.

"Compared with Shrek Academy, where the two departments are at odds, Star Luo National Academy seems more suitable for me. I'd be studying near home, closer to you."

"Don't worry about me. The salt your grandma has eaten in eighty years is saltier than all the roads you've walked.

"Plant-type martial souls aren't outstanding in battle. All we have left is a long lifespan. Before you and Little Lan were around, didn't Grandma still build a good reputation for this little shop?"

Grandma Lin knew it was Lin Qing's excuse. Faced with an ultimate martial soul, anyone would set aside their conflicts. She exposed his excuse on the spot and gave him a dose of reassurance, speaking earnestly:

"Xiao Qing, my soul engineer level was only enough to get you started. Once I led you onto the path, you had to find your own way."

"How could golden scales belong in a pond? Once wind and clouds gather, they transform into a dragon. With your outstanding talent, wherever you go, everyone will compete to nurture you.

"Whether it's Shrek Academy or Star Luo National Academy, one of the ancient sects... even the soul engineers' holy land across the continent, the Sun Moon Royal Soul Engineer Academy, it doesn't matter... as long as it benefits your future development, go boldly and without worry.

"Hiding away in a quiet corner is just another name for wasting your talent. Xiao Qing, it's time you left the old district, left this little Pin Dao Dao shop, and began the next stage of your life."