Formal Forging Begins, the Holy Spirit Cult Appears

Two months later.

That day, the forging workshop was unusually quiet.

Even Bao Liang, normally the noisiest of them all, had shut his mouth and stood in a corner like part of the scenery.

Xiao Hongchen stood before the largest forging table, with a fist-sized metal ingot laid out in front of him.

It was none other than Heavy Silver.

Heavy Silver was silvery gray, exceptionally tough, and had an extremely high melting point. Its density was several times that of gold.

Their next goal was to forge it further into a genuine piece of Hundred Refined metal.

According to the standards of the Legend of the Dragon King era, Hundred Refined metal had to be hammered over a hundred times to remove impurities and improve its purity without damaging its internal structure. Only a score of over "60 points" counted as completing Hundred Refinement.

Bao Liang did not know how Hundred Refinement was scored ten thousand years later. After all, he had forgotten whether the book even mentioned it.

But he had only one requirement for Xiao Hongchen: purity. The purer, the better.

Even hammering it until it exploded was fine.

This was the foundation of the path of forging, the first step onto it.

If they took that first step badly, everything afterward would be a castle in the air.

"Relax. We've already worked out the basic theory thoroughly, and haven't you already tested your affinity for metal? If nothing unexpected happens, you're sure to succeed this time.

"At worst, we'll just blow up the place again. It's not like it's our first time." Bao Liang comforted Xiao Hongchen, who was taking deep breaths, and gave him a thumbs-up.

"Come on! If you succeed this time, you'll be the new Father of Soul Tool after Elder Kong. Even Elder Kong will see you in a whole new light!

"Seizing power and usurping the throne starts today!"

"Shut it, you! I was better off when you weren't talking. Now you've made me even more nervous! Seizing power and usurping the throne? If you want to die, don't drag my whole family down with you!" Xiao Hongchen shot Bao Liang a look of disdain, then waved him off. "All right, stop talking and let me prepare for a while.

"And don't you slack off either. After I'm done, we still need you to conduct another control experiment."

Bao Liang waved a hand too. "Relax, relax. I'm more reliable than you can imagine."

Xiao Hongchen could not help but give a mocking laugh. "Heh. I wonder who got so nervous hammering iron that he overloaded the forge and nearly blew the entire Offering Hall sky-high."

"Xiao, we can still be good brothers if you don't bring that up."

Bao Liang and Xiao Hongchen met each other's eyes, traded jabs, and soon smiled at each other.

They bumped fists.

"Come on, let's raise the curtain on the advancement of Soul Guidance Technology!"

The moment the words left his mouth, Xiao Hongchen picked up both hammers and aimed them at the Heavy Silver.

The Three-Legged Golden Toad's affinity for metal was unleashed in full at that moment-he could "see" every vein, every pore, and the location of every speck of impurity inside the metal.

He did not see with his eyes, but "listened" with his heart.

The Heavy Silver trembled faintly in his palm, like a sleeping beast waking and giving its first low murmur, or more like the sea breathing.

The first hammer fell.

A muffled impact.

A shallow dent appeared on the surface of the Heavy Silver, and a few impurities were expelled by the shock wave.

Fine beads of sweat appeared on Xiao Hongchen's forehead, but his hands did not hesitate for a moment.

The second hammer blow.

The third.

The fourth.

The fifth, the sixth, the seventh...

His rhythm was steady, his strength even. Every blow landed precisely where the metal needed forging most.

Bao Liang stood in the corner, staring unblinkingly at the Heavy Silver. He could clearly see that, as the blows added up, the impurities on the metal's surface were decreasing at a rate visible to the naked eye. Its once-pitted, rough surface was gradually being hammered firm and smooth.

Kong Deming stood nearby with his hands behind his back, his gaze fixed intently on the metal. The light in his eyes grew brighter and brighter.

He saw it.

The impurities once scattered throughout the metal were being squeezed little by little to the surface with each blow, then knocked away.

The metal's color was changing.

From silvery gray to pale silver, from pale silver to pure silver...

"Interesting," Kong Deming murmured. "The color is changing faster than I expected."

Ye Yulin leaned over for a look, raising an eyebrow slightly. "The grains are becoming finer.

"After the impurities are pushed toward the surface, the internal crystal lattice is spontaneously arranging itself more tightly. That means the frequency and force of the hammer blows are exactly right."

Jing Hongchen nodded silently beside them.

Two months of painstaking effort had not been in vain.

Bao Liang stood in the corner, watching Xiao Hongchen hammer away, blow after blow. An image involuntarily surfaced in his mind-

The heat of Ultimate Flame burning away impurities, combined with this physical forging, one hammer blow after another.

One burned at the molecular level; the other compacted at the macroscopic level.

A two-pronged approach.

This was their own path of forging.

It was neither the precision control of arrays down to the finest fraction in Soul Tools, nor the old blacksmith's approach of relying on experience and feel.

It belonged solely to the Sun Moon Empire, solely to them-

Soul Guidance Forging.

When the first hammer fell, no one cheered.

Because everyone knew this was only the beginning.

At least a hundred more blows awaited them.

But everyone knew one thing in their hearts-

They had chosen the right path.

And just as the fire of forging was quietly kindled in the Sun Moon Empire and the first hammer blow fell, deep within the Evil Demon Forest a thousand miles away, another secret meeting was quietly drawing to a close. It had nothing to do with this, yet would ultimately shake the balance of the continent.

Even from the outside, the forest exuded an indescribably sinister air.

Trees crowded together in a dark mass, their branches twisted like ghostly claws. Gray mist that never dispersed drifted slowly along the ground, and not even a bird or beast could be heard. When the occasional breeze passed through, the rustling leaves sounded like someone chuckling low in their throat.

Deepest within the forest lay an abandoned village long forgotten by the outside world.

Dead trees lay fallen every which way. Beneath the rotting leaves, heaps of deathly pale bone ash lay exposed, some of it rising whenever the wind blew. Mixed with fragments of damaged Soul Tools, it lay half-buried in the mud.

There were no proper roads here, only crooked, well-trodden paths winding onward through the foul stench of tainted Soul Power. The smell was like countless needles, piercing the skin and boring into the bones. Stay long enough, and even the mind would begin to grow dazed.

Patrol posts for low-level Evil Soul Masters were hidden around the bends in those paths, waiting to lure and capture Soul Masters who wandered in by mistake.

But underground lay the true headquarters of the Holy Spirit Cult.

Following the Soul Power passage that only Evil Soul Masters could recognize, the deeper one went, the thicker the air became.

Black-red fluid seeped from cracks in the walls. It was sticky underfoot, like stepping on the innards of a living creature.

The whispers of the dead grew clearer and clearer in one's ears. They were no illusion, but the dying wails left in the space by countless people whose Soul Power had been drained from them while they were still alive.

The first thing to meet the eye was a blood-colored altar.

Black-red Soul Power liquid gurgled through the cracks in the stone, gathering in the low places into a viscous "lake." It was the death energy drained from over ten thousand wronged souls, feeding the entire Death Corruption Swamp Grand Array strand by strand.

The ground around the altar glistened wetly, and every step sent up a foul-smelling splash.

Behind the altar stood a throne of white bone.

It had been cast from the spines and skulls of a thousand Soul Masters, its ghastly whiteness dazzling to the eye.

Zhongli Wu sat upright upon it. The whispers of the dead never ceased around him, like countless people wailing in one's ears with their throats pinched shut. After listening long enough, one could not help wanting to cover one's ears.

In the gu-breeding chamber to the left of the throne, soul-absorbing patterns on the walls flickered between light and dark. Among the Soul Beasts and living Soul Masters kept together inside, it was impossible to tell who was still "human." Occasionally, the faint, sharp scrape of nails against stone could be heard, though whether it was a beast struggling or a person was impossible to tell.

In the interrogation area on the right, ghastly white soul chains hung from the ceiling. Dark red scabs of blood and shattered Soul Cores had congealed on the floor, crunching underfoot.

Farther in lay the elders' council hall.

Nine Eye of the Death God Soul Tools turned eerily in the domed ceiling, taking in the entire territory. Wherever those nine gazes swept, even Soul Power was pressed down several degrees.

Tonight, every named Evil Soul Master had gathered here.

They wore robes patterned like obsidian and masks of bone, not one face exposed. Their movements made no sound; only oppressive Soul Power rose and fell through the hall, like heavy clouds before a storm.

They were here for nothing else but to discuss two matters.

First was their cooperation with Crown Prince Xu Tianran: help the prince, whose legs were crippled, seize the throne, then use the Sun Moon Empire's power to unite the continent. It was a transaction in which each side got what it needed: the Holy Spirit Cult wanted legitimacy and territory, while the crown prince wanted strength and a blade.

Second was how to deal with Shrek Academy, which clung to them like a lapdog, biting down and refusing to let go.

"Those are the matters for this meeting.

"If any of you have plans or ideas, you may contact me privately after the meeting ends."

Zhongli Wu's voice rang out from the throne of white bone, tinged with impatience. "Also, things have been tense lately.

"All of you keep a lower profile-don't let Shrek's nose sniff its way over here again.

"Slow down our operations on the Douluo Continent for now. We absolutely must not let them learn anything about our Holy Cult.

"Still less can we give them a chance to track down the Holy Cult."

The offering elders all assented as one.

The council dispersed, and the Evil Soul Masters vanished into the darkness like a receding tide.

Zhongli Wu looked at the figure about to drift away and suddenly spoke. "Uncle Long, quite a few people in the Sun Moon Empire have been looking for you lately.

"Please be careful."

Long Xiaoyao did not stop. He merely gave a casual reply and swept his sleeve, then dispersed into the secluded path like a wisp of blue smoke.

Zhongli Wu stared in the direction he had left, deep in thought.

The Worship Hall, Mingde Hall, and even the crown prince had gotten involved...

Uncle Long, please don't do anything that would betray the Holy Cult.