Jin Peng and the others struck extremely quickly.
Neither Wang Yanfeng and the others nor Huo Yuhao had time to explain.
Seeing the three howling under the beating from Jin Peng and the other elders, Huo Yuhao hurried over to Jin Peng and briefly recounted the forging experiment they had just conducted.
"The Mind-Soul Forging Method?"
After hearing Huo Yuhao's account, Jin Peng released Wang Yanfeng.
He strode to the forging bench, took the fragments of Spirit Silver Iron from Linghu and Gu Tong, and began examining them closely.
"Metal can actually have life?"
Jin Peng said in disbelief, "How is that possible..."
Bai Ming, Xue Yang, and the other elders also found it hard to conceal their shock.
If the idea Huo Yuhao had proposed really worked, wouldn't the Body Sect soar into the heavens in a single bound?
"Let's not jump to conclusions."
Although Jin Peng was just as excited, he still retained a measure of reason. "This was only our first attempt. It will need many more trials in the future, perhaps even generations of exploration."
He turned to Huo Yuhao, an indescribable tremor in his gaze. "Yuhao, how confident are you that the Soul Guidance system born from the Mind-Soul Forging Method can be fully realized within your generation?"
Huo Yuhao pondered for a long time, not daring to give Jin Peng a casual answer.
The core of the Mind-Soul Forging Method lay in drawing on the use of Spiritual Power as fire in Talisman Master Artifact Refining to resonate with metal.
For Soul Engineers or blacksmiths, achieving this required extremely high Spiritual Power cultivation.
However, through the Heaven-Man Unity Combat Technique, the Body Sect could take a shortcut, merging a Body Soul Master's Soul Power with his Spiritual Power and greatly amplifying the latter's strength.
Thus, even a non-spiritual-type Soul Master like Wang Yanfeng could perform mind-soul forging.
As Huo Yuhao remained silent, everyone in the hall grew tense.
Only after a long while did Huo Yuhao carefully say:
"Although the Mind-Soul Forging Method is still only in its preliminary trials, when Senior Brother Wang was forging just now, all of us present could use the Spiritual Detection Sharing Soul Skill to see his Martial Soul, Soul Power, and Spiritual Power resonate with the metal's internal structure."
"This is a good beginning. It proves this path is viable."
"I think the greatest factor limiting our progress is that our forging skills are far too crude. You could say we don't know the first thing about it."
"Second, the threshold for the Mind-Soul Forging Method is too high. As things stand, anyone without a Body Martial Soul or a Martial Soul capable of forging, or whose Spiritual Power falls short, is unsuited to mind-soul forging."
"If we can obtain the Tang Sect's or Clear Sky Castle's insights into forging and combine them with the advantages of Body Martial Souls in the Heaven-Man Unity Realm, I think the chances of realizing this idea within a single generation are very high."
Finally, Huo Yuhao added, "As for the high threshold, Mr. Linghu and I also discussed an idea."
"We considered that the Mind-Soul Forging Method demands too much Spiritual Power, making widespread adoption difficult."
"So we wondered whether we could custom-make a set of Spiritual Power amplification soul tools specifically for smiths, applying them to forging benches and hammers to assist with forging."
"But making metal undergo a qualitative transformation, or even develop vitality, will ultimately still require extremely advanced forging skills."
Jin Peng looked thoughtful.
Inscribing soul tool core arrays onto forging benches and hammers to create forging soul tools...
"How difficult would it be?" he asked.
Linghu replied, "Simply making a set of soul tools like that wouldn't be very difficult."
"Spiritual amplification soul tools are extremely common in the Sun Moon Empire, usually used in detection soul tools. It's just that no one has ever proposed applying this method to forging."
"The difficulty lies in perfectly integrating forging soul tools into the forging process."
Huo Yuhao picked up the explanation. "The Mind-Soul Forging Method requires every strike during forging to resonate with the metal."
"So introducing soul tools must not disrupt that delicate spiritual connection."
"But the vibrations during forging, the temperature changes, and the interactions between different metals could all compromise the stability of the forging soul tools."
Huo Yuhao frowned. "So the best forging soul tools would be ones that can attune to our own minds. But that brings us back to the first problem: we currently have no way to forge such metals."
The hall fell deathly silent for a moment, broken only by the occasional soft hiss from Wang Yanfeng and the other two as they rubbed their backsides.
"In other words, we're trapped in a vicious cycle."
Jin Peng rubbed his temples. "Because we lack advanced forging skills, we need forging soul tools to help us forge metals."
"But to make forging soul tools, we first need high-quality metals."
Bai Ming, whose Martial Soul was his own muscles, approached the forging bench and picked up a fragment of Spirit Silver Iron.
He entered the state of Heaven-Man Unity and motioned for Huo Yuhao to light the furnace again, wanting to try forging it himself.
With the assistance of Spiritual Detection Sharing, Bai Ming continually adjusted how he exerted force and where his hammer struck.
Soon, a faint silvery glow rose from the Spirit Silver Iron.
Bang!
The Spirit Silver Iron suddenly shattered again.
Bai Ming said nothing, closing his eyes in thought instead.
"There's nothing wrong with the way force is applied, the points of impact, or the realm state."
No one would doubt the control a Titled Douluo whose Martial Soul was his own muscles had over his body. "But the metal's internal structure is too fragile to withstand resonance with a Soul Master's Spiritual Power."
"We need to improve the fundamental quality of the metal itself first-in other words, what blacksmiths call Hundred Refinement or even Thousand Refinement."
After hearing Bai Ming's words, Jin Peng let out a long sigh.
But he also understood that perfecting the Mind-Soul Forging Method could not be accomplished in a single stride.
He therefore turned to everyone and assigned their tasks one by one. "Then we'll do as Yuhao suggested earlier. I'll go to the palace to see His Majesty and ask him to send someone to contact Clear Sky Castle."
"After that, Yuhao and I will visit the Tang Sect's former site."
"As for Ao Tian, have him investigate further at Shrek and see whether their historical documents mention anything about forging."
"At the same time, the people of the Body Sect," Jin Peng looked at the elders, "should also seek out blacksmiths to learn from wherever possible and explore forging skills themselves. After all, we have an innate advantage. We can't fall behind."
"Also," Jin Peng paused, "we'll need to visit the Sun Moon Empire."
"They have rich deposits of rare metals. Let's see whether we can find metals with greater spirituality. Steal them, seize them, or trade on the black market-any of those will do. Even if those metals don't have much spirituality to begin with, as long as we can bring them 'alive' through the Mind-Soul Forging Method, we'll have succeeded."
Everyone nodded.
For now, they did indeed need to work on several fronts to break through the Mind-Soul Forging Method's bottleneck as quickly as possible.
"Good. Then it's settled." Jin Peng brought the hammer down on the decision.
Finally, he turned to Huo Yuhao. "Yuhao, prepare to come with me to Heaven Dou City. We'll meet His Majesty at the palace and tell him about mind-soul forging."