Xiao Hongchen's Talent

The forging was settled, and the matter of taking disciples was settled along with it.

But Jing Hongchen's gaze swept over Xiao Hongchen, then Meng Hongchen, before finally settling on the last person.

Bao Liang.

The boy was squatting in a corner, chin propped in both hands, looking over with an innocent expression. His meaning was clear: This has nothing to do with me. Grandpa Kong got that worked up all on his own.

Jing Hongchen's mouth twitched.

Nothing to do with you? You set off the greatest Soul Engineer in all of Sun Moon with a single sentence, and now you tell me it has nothing to do with you?

He didn't lose his temper on the spot. He simply looked away, shook his head with a sigh, and lifted his chin. "You brat, look at Xiao, then look at Meng.

"Don't you have anything to say?"

Bao Liang blinked, and realization dawned on him.

Then he spread his arms and spoke with an earnest expression.

"Grandpa Jing, you may have lost Xiao and Meng, but you still have me.

"I can be your master, can't I?

"Come on, let me hear you call me master."

"..."

The entire Worship Hall fell silent for a full three breaths.

Then-

"Bang-!!"

Jing Hongchen landed a solid punch on the back of Bao Liang's head, hitting him hard enough to send him staggering two steps forward.

"You little brat! You've got some nerve!" Jing Hongchen cursed. "You becoming my disciple would be more like it, but instead you want to turn around and be my master?! How thick is your skin?!"

Bao Liang rubbed the back of his head, pouting aggrievedly. "It's not like I won't acknowledge you as my master... I was just trying to liven things up..."

"Liven things up?!" Jing Hongchen was so angry his beard bristled. "You call that livening things up? That's outrageous insubordination!"

"Don't be mad, Grandpa Jing~"

"Don't call me that! I can't bear the honor!"

"Grandpa Jing~~~"

"Get lost!"

Meng Hongchen doubled over laughing beside them. Even Ye Yulin turned his face away, his shoulders shaking.

Xiao Hongchen leaned against a pillar with his arms folded, the corners of his mouth slightly raised. Though he wore a cool expression that said, "This has nothing to do with me," he was clearly holding back laughter too.

Even Kong Deming stood there leaning on his scepter, watching the old man and the boy bicker with a cheerful smile, his eyes full of affection.

Laughter and cheerful voices lingered in the Worship Hall for a long time.

Jing Hongchen chased Bao Liang around two pillars before finally pressing him into a chair, where he obediently kowtowed and solemnly called him "Master."

Only then did Jing Hongchen let him go, thoroughly satisfied. He stroked his beard and snorted. "That's more like it."

Bao Liang rubbed his head and muttered, "We're clearly of the same generation, so why am I the only one who has to kowtow..."

"What did you say?"

"Nothing, nothing, nothing. I said my master is mighty."

Once Kong Deming had laughed his fill, he tapped his scepter on the floor and drew everyone's attention back. "Now that everything is settled, go back and make your preparations.

"Little Toad, have the forging workshop up and running for me within three days. Little Ye, the Meng girl is in your hands; don't slack off. And since the Xiao boy has become my disciple, he should visit the Worship Hall often from now on."

He paused, his gaze sweeping over the three before finally settling on Bao Liang. His tone was meaningful. "As for you, boy-until Long Xiaoyao is found, I have other arrangements for your Martial Soul cultivation.

"For the next few days, put that Soul Devourer thing away and leave it there. If you dare touch it in secret, it won't be your ears I twist off."

Bao Liang shrank back and nodded repeatedly.

Jing Hongchen listened from the side, thoroughly amused. Serves you right. At last, there's someone who can deal with this little ancestor.

With that, everyone dispersed.

Jing Hongchen left the Worship Hall with his grandson, granddaughter, and a "prospective grandson-in-law." Ye Yulin went to arrange Meng Hongchen's apprenticeship ceremony, while Kong Deming turned back to the inner hall, tapping his scepter on the floor, his head full of forging sketches.

Kong Deming returned to the inner hall, tapping his scepter on the floor, his head full of forging sketches.

The more he thought about it, the more excited he became. When Bao Liang had casually tossed out the word "forging" that day, something had gone boom in his head. It was as though someone had pushed open a door he'd never noticed before, and beyond it lay the unmistakable possibility of taking Soul Guidance Technology a step further.

The excitement was intoxicating.

He was so carried away that he tossed and turned, unable to sleep. His head was full of words like metal, hammering, purification, and resonance. He even dug a Tang Sect Hidden Weapons manual captured during the holy war decades ago out of a corner of his memory.

That very night, he summoned Jing Hongchen, Ye Yulin, and the three children back and went over the day's ideas again.

Only after that did forging truly take root in everyone's minds.

It wasn't the kind of change that made them think, "That's a little interesting." It was the kind that turned them into "a pack of old cats who hadn't eaten in three days catching the scent of fish."

Kong Deming tapped his Starfall Silver scepter against the floor, beating out a rapid rhythm of thumps, the light in his eyes frighteningly bright.

He had spent his whole life working with metal. Rare alloys, core materials for Level 9 Soul Tools-the metals he had refined could have been piled into a small mountain. But no one had ever told him that metal could be "hammered" again.

Not smelted, not melted down, not stamped into shape.

Forged.

Hammered, blow by solid blow.

When Bao Liang said the word "forging," it was as though an electric current had passed through the Level 9 Soul Engineers present.

Kong Deming and the other Soul Engineer big shots couldn't wait to pick up hammers right then and try pounding a few pieces of metal.

After all, practice revealed true knowledge. What good was sitting there thinking? A truth as plain as a fist was big-everyone understood it.

They had the idea, and they had the drive.

But unfortunately, it didn't work out.

Because even though they were all Level 9 Soul Engineers, even Titled Douluo, none of them were as good as Xiao Hongchen at sensing metal.

It wasn't that they couldn't do it, but this kind of sensing was nothing like the surface-level perception they normally used when putting Soul Tools together.

When they made Soul Tools, they relied on pouring Soul Power into the metal and maintaining overall control of the array circuits. To put it plainly, they treated the metal as a medium on which to carve arrays and draw symbols. At most, they got a rough sense of the metal itself.

But forging didn't require that kind of broad-strokes "feel."

It required sensing deeper into the metal's microscopic structure, perceiving how its grains were arranged, finding which lines concealed impurities, and then producing something close to "resonance" with the metal itself.

Other than Xiao Hongchen, no one could manage that kind of sensing.

Even when Bao Liang used his ultimate talent, he could only vaguely sense the slightest trace of something unusual when he got close to metal.

It was like looking at a landscape through a thick pane of frosted glass: he knew something was there, but couldn't see it clearly.

Then again, high temperatures were essential to tempering metal in the first place, and what the Ultimate Flame represented was precisely the ultimate high temperature.

It couldn't forge a metal's "soul," but it could forge its "body."

Perhaps only the two together made complete forging.

Everyone present was shrewd. Kong Deming grasped the key to the direction Bao Liang's single remark had pointed out in an instant.

But he didn't rush to act. Instead, he first fell into thought.

Because one thing bothered him greatly: forging wasn't a new concept.

Whether on the Douluo Continent or the Sun Moon Continent, the foundations of forging had always existed.

It was just that no one had ever paid attention to it.

Back when Tang Sect Hidden Weapons were still in widespread use, the blacksmithing tradition in the Douluo Three Kingdoms had been fairly strong.

Though those blacksmiths knew nothing of Soul Power or arrays, they had relied on experience accumulated over generations to hammer ordinary iron into a material strong enough to arm-wrestle with Soul Tool materials.

In those days, a good blacksmith's standing among the common people was no lower than that of a Soul Engineer.

But later, the Sun Moon Empire had arrived in force.

Soul Tools had crushed all traditional weapons with the force of a landslide, and hidden weapons had been swept into history's trash heap in the very first wave.

The blacksmiths' skills that had once been treasured grew dim before the brilliance of Soul Tools, like old candles in a corner.

The blacksmiths who made hidden weapons had gradually been buried in the long river of history as well.

Although blacksmithing traditions still survived today, they had long since lost their former glory.

Blacksmith shops, once crowded with customers, had become inconspicuous little workshops by the roadside, turning out mostly everyday items like kitchen knives, iron pots, and hoes. Who would spend a fortune hiring a blacksmith to hammer out a piece of armor that could block a Soul Guidance Ray?

There was no need.

They had Soul Tools.

Besides, during the holy war, the Sun Moon Empire had obtained plenty of material related to hidden weapons and forging.

A great many of the Tang Sect's old hidden weapon blueprints, forging manuals, and material lists had been brought back to Sun Moon as spoils of war.

But out of pride in Soul Tools-We have Soul Tools, so why would we look at your primitive, hand-hammered things?-and because the hidden weapons of those Tang Sect warmongers all had safeguards that made them self-destruct when dismantled, no one had seriously studied them at the time.

And look at them now.

The Tang Sect had long since laid a way to break through material limitations right on the table, yet they had been blinded by the glory of Soul Tools, leaving Soul Guidance Technology stagnant for all these years.

It never should have happened!

The more Kong Deming thought about it, the more regretful he became. He slammed his scepter against the floor with a dull thud.

But regret was regret. Things had already come to this, and there was no use regretting them now.

Fortunately, now that their thinking had opened up and their horizons had broadened, Jing Hongchen and the others naturally stopped clinging to their old rigid ways of thinking.

Kong Deming made an immediate decision.

First, they would take measures to keep it hidden from the imperial family and the outside world. Forging had implications that were too far-reaching. Once word got out, the foundations of the entire Soul Tool industry could be shaken, to say nothing of the Sun Moon Empire's proud advantage in Soul Engineers.

Outside the hall, dusk deepened, and the evening breeze brushed past the eaves with a hint of chill.

But it couldn't disperse the warm, lively atmosphere inside.

Bao Liang rubbed the back of his head, where the swelling still hadn't gone down. He glanced at Jing Hongchen walking ahead, then at Xiao Hongchen and Meng Hongchen, and suddenly felt-

The sky over the Sun Moon Empire seemed much brighter than when he'd arrived.

Night settled completely.

The lights in the Worship Hall burned all night, casting the shadows of several people long and warm.