Ye Yulin did not turn down Elder Wang and the others.
Though Elder Wang now looked like an old man with little dignity to speak of, every one of these people represented a powerful force.
Getting started as a soul engineer might be easy-anyone in the Sun Moon Empire could access knowledge about soul tools-but achieving anything truly significant required resources, connections, and knowledge beyond the reach of an ordinary person with neither power nor influence.
Any soul engineer who wanted to reach the pinnacle had to practice again and again, and that practice consumed rare metals. Without vast quantities of rare metals, becoming a top soul engineer was almost impossible.
Not everyone possessed Jiang Hai's uniquely blessed talent.
Only by joining a powerful faction or taking a master could someone become a high-ranking soul engineer, and behind almost every high-ranking soul engineer stood an enormous power, especially those at Levels 8 and 9.
Within their respective factions and sects, Elder Wang, Mu Mensheng, and the others were practically ancestral patriarchs, with astonishing influence.
Ye Yulin surpassed Elder Wang and the others in both status and skill with soul tools, but he still could not offend them over a minor matter.
Besides, when soul engineers exchanged ideas, the wisdom of one more high-ranking soul engineer meant they could all gain that much more.
"He's about to succeed!" Elder Wang suddenly said.
Ye Yulin and the others gathered their thoughts, their gazes converging on the young man who was carving ceaselessly nearby. The Azure Silver Dragon Carving Knife, fused with the Twin Soul Shadows, danced up and down. Every stroke was ten times slower than before, as though an enormous, invisible resistance in the air was preventing the knife in his hand from descending.
Jiang Hai's knife hand was trembling too,