A Whole New Breed of Ruthless
After that Soul Fighting match, it was as if someone had flipped a switch in Xiao Hongchen.
By day, he cultivated with Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen as usual. At night, instead of hurrying back to his room to sleep, he shut himself in the study and plunged into the dusty Soul Tool books in the residence, reading deep into the night.
At first, Bao Liang paid it no mind. Then one night, he got up and passed the study, only to see that the light was still on. Xiao Hongchen was hunched over the desk, making notes and sketches in a copy of "The Complete Guide to Soul Core Construction." Seven or eight other books lay open across the desk.
"...Xiao, aren't you going to sleep?"
"Who has time to sleep?" Xiao Hongchen said without looking up. "If you don't hurry and study, when you go to the battlefield someday, do you expect the enemy to wait for you to finish reading?"
"I'm worried you'll drop dead." Bao Liang rolled his eyes and went back to bed.
But the next night, when he passed the study again, the light was still on.
The third night, the fourth night... For several nights in a row, the light in the study never went out.
Bao Liang tried talking him out of it twice. Each time, Xiao Hongchen replied, "I know," and then kept right on reading.
Eventually, Bao Liang couldn't be bothered to persuade him anymore. Instead, he slipped into the kitchen in the middle of the night, set a bowl of hot soup beside Xiao Hongchen, and quietly left.
Xiao Hongchen stared at the bowl of soup for quite a while before lowering his head and returning to his books.
What Bao Liang didn't know was that in those few short days, Xiao Hongchen had already read every basic Soul Tool theory book in the residence. From the fundamental principles of Soul Cores to introductory techniques for engraving arrays, and on to the construction of Level 3 Soul Tools and even more advanced material, he had mastered it all.
By comparison, Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen were making much slower progress.
A few days earlier, Jing Hongchen had ordered the steward to bring over a batch of basic textbooks for the three of them to read in their spare time.
Bao Liang was still wrestling with the first book, "An Introduction to Soul Tool Principles." The twisting runes and energy circuits in it made his head feel twice its size. Meng Hongchen read faster than he did, but she had barely grasped the surface and was still a hundred and eight thousand li from putting it into practice.
Only Xiao Hongchen seemed born to eat this bowl of rice.
That afternoon, Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen were squatting in the courtyard, playing with the koi, when Xiao Hongchen's voice came from the stone table. "You two, come here a moment."
"What is it?" Bao Liang brushed the fish food off his hands and strolled over.
But as soon as he got close, he froze.
Three palm-sized Soul Cores lay neatly arranged on the stone table. The rounded metal spheres were densely engraved with array patterns as fine as strands of hair, and their edges still bore the marks of recent polishing.
Xiao Hongchen put down his engraving knife and looked up at them. "Take a look. What do you think?"
Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen exchanged a glance, each seeing the shock in the other's eyes.
"Brother... when did you finish those books?" Meng Hongchen leaned closer in disbelief, staring at the three cores. "I saw you reading 'The Complete Guide to Soul Core Construction' just yesterday!"
"I finished it last night," Xiao Hongchen said calmly. "I tried my hand at it this morning."
"..." Bao Liang silently gave him a thumbs-up. "You're a whole new breed of ruthless."
Bao Liang carefully picked up the propulsion core and turned it over and over, examining it for a long while.
He recognized the array pattern. It was the most common core construction used in propulsion-type Soul Tools, and there was a complete diagram of it in the book.
But the other two left him rather lost.
"Xiao," Bao Liang said, scratching his head with some embarrassment, "Sister Meng and I haven't studied as deeply as you have. Of these three cores, we only recognized the array on the propulsion core... As for the other two, I can only tell that they're interference-type Core Arrays. I can't tell what effects they actually have."
"Mm-hmm!" Meng Hongchen nodded repeatedly. "Xiao, you're amazing!"
"It's nothing." Despite what Xiao Hongchen said, he couldn't keep the corners of his mouth from turning up. "You two have talent for cultivation, and I have talent for Soul Tools. We're just taking different paths.
Once you've chewed through the basic books, you'll be able to tell too."
"That's true." Bao Liang thought about it, then nodded in agreement.
The three of them were gathered around the stone table, studying the cores, when footsteps suddenly sounded outside the courtyard gate.
"Grandpa's back!" Meng Hongchen's eyes lit up.
Sure enough, Jing Hongchen appeared at the gate.
For once, he hadn't gone running off to Mingde Hall that day. As soon as he entered, he smiled and took a yellowed book from his Storage Soul Tool, handing it to Bao Liang. "Here, the Immortal Herb Catalogue I promised you.
I heard it was a relic that an ancestor of the Dugu Family obtained from Chrysanthemum Douluo. Keep it safe, and don't damage it."
"Thank you, Grandpa Jing!" Bao Liang's eyes lit up. He carefully accepted it and, without opening it on the spot, tucked it into his clothes.
It was safer to look through the Immortal Herb Catalogue alone in his room.
If even one of the records of Immortal Herbs inside got out, it would be enough to bring a deadly calamity down on him.
Seeing that he had put it away safely, Jing Hongchen nodded in satisfaction and was about to head inside when he caught sight of the three Soul Cores on the stone table and stopped.
"What are these?"
He walked over, picked up one of the cores, and brought it close to his eyes for a careful look.
Then he picked up the second and the third.
Jing Hongchen said nothing. Narrowing his eyes, he examined them one by one in the fading light of the sky, his fingers gently tracing the fine, dense patterns on them.
The more he looked, the brighter his eyes grew.
"Xiao... did you make these?" Jing Hongchen's voice sounded a little unsteady.
"Mm." Xiao Hongchen nodded. "I just finished them this afternoon.
Three level 2 Soul Cores: one for propulsion, one for flash bursts, and one for concussion blasts."
Jing Hongchen's pupils contracted slightly.
He whipped his head around to look at Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen. "You two... saw him make them with your own eyes?"
"Yes." Bao Liang nodded. "He did it all right under our noses, from start to finish. He didn't have anyone help him.
He just sat there by himself, doing everything with his own hands, from polishing the metal to engraving the arrays."
"Mm-hmm!" Meng Hongchen nodded repeatedly as well. "Xiao is amazing. He remembered everything in those books after reading them just once, and he drew the arrays even more precisely than the ones in the books! But Little Baozi and I haven't studied as deeply as he has, so we only recognized the propulsion core. As for the other two, we could only tell they were interference-type."
Hearing this, Jing Hongchen didn't answer immediately. Instead, he slowly crouched down, picked up the three Soul Cores again one by one, and held them in his palm, looking at them for a very, very long time.
At last, he sprang to his feet, threw back his head, and laughed. "Good, good, good! As expected of my grandson! His talent truly is outstanding! Hahaha!"
His laughter startled Xiao Hongchen. "Grandpa..."
"Eight and a half years old, making level 2 Soul Cores entirely by hand, and every one of them up to level 3 standards! What's more, you learned it all from books without anyone teaching you-!" Jing Hongchen laughed so hard his beard trembled. "Even your father couldn't do that back then!"
He paused, then suddenly chuckled. "Hehe, now I've got another reason to go rile up Old Ye."
"Old Ye?" Bao Liang blinked curiously. "Grandpa Jing, who's Old Ye?"
Before Jing Hongchen could answer, Xiao Hongchen spoke up. "He's Grandpa Ye Yulin, a friend of Grandpa's for many years. He's a rank 93 Starry Sky Douluo and a Level 9 Soul Engineer too."
"He specializes in making high-altitude Soul Tools and is best at fighting at high altitudes." As Xiao Hongchen spoke, a hint of longing appeared in his eyes. "He has several famous high-altitude Soul Tools. The two most famous are Level 9 Soul Tools-one is called the Eye of Fear, and the other is the Sun Moon Divine Needle. Both are renowned throughout the Sun Moon Empire."
"The Eye of Fear... the Sun Moon Divine Needle..." Bao Liang murmured the names, then pressed on. "What do those two Soul Tools do?"
"The Eye of Fear can lock onto a target from thousands of meters in the sky and hit it in a single strike. It has never missed." Jing Hongchen took over, a note of admiration in his voice. "As for the Sun Moon Divine Needle, that's even more incredible. Once the needle is unleashed, the sun and moon lose their luster.
Old Ye may be an unreliable fellow, but when it comes to high-altitude combat, if he called himself second in the entire Sun Moon Empire, no one would dare claim to be first."
"He's that amazing..." Bao Liang's eyes grew brighter and brighter. "Then is Grandpa Ye especially good at fighting really high up?"
"Mm." Xiao Hongchen nodded. "When he fights, he's basically always in the sky."
Bao Liang opened his mouth, then closed it again.
An interesting thought had suddenly occurred to him, but now wasn't the time to bring it up. When he met Grandpa Ye Yulin someday, he would give it some proper thought.
Jing Hongchen didn't notice what Bao Liang was thinking. He was still there, stroking the three Soul Cores, unable to put them down. He smiled as he handled them, muttering things like, "Old Ye, oh, Old Ye, you haven't even found a disciple yet, and my grandson can already make level 2 Soul Cores by hand."
Bao Liang and Meng Hongchen exchanged a glance, each seeing the same thought in the other's eyes:
The old man was probably going to be too happy to sleep tonight.