Time flew by, and in the blink of an eye, a year and a half had passed.
During this year and a half, many events occurred across the continent.
Not long after Qian Renxue's infiltration plan failed, Emperor Xue Ye, who had been poisoned with an incurable toxin, passed away. The fourth prince, Xue Beng, who had just been appointed as crown prince, ascended the throne and became Emperor Xue Beng of the Heaven Dou Empire.
Although his ascension was rushed and he had no solid foundation beforehand, after taking Ning Fengzhi as his teacher, the newly enthroned Emperor Xue Beng quickly stabilized imperial authority. While not yet in complete control of the empire, he at least became the sole object of allegiance for the Heaven Dou Empire's million-strong elite army, the Imperial Guard Corps, and the Royal Knight Regiment.
With imperial authority stabilized, the full support of the Seven Treasure Glazed Tile Clan, and the backing of the Blue Lightning Tyrant Dragon Clan along with a recent victory over Spirit Hall, where even four Titled Douluo of Spirit Hall, including two Worship elders, were forced to flee in panic—Xue Beng, now confident that Spirit Hall was not so formidable, immediately promoted a plan to expel Spirit Hall from the empire.
Of course, the young Emperor Xue Beng hadn't lost his mind and did not forcibly drive them out. Instead, he gave Spirit Hall a three-month ultimatum to fully withdraw from the Heaven Dou Empire.
Subsequently, the Heaven Dou Empire signed a mutual defense alliance with the Star Luo Empire targeting Spirit Hall. The two great empires formed a defensive pact.
The alliance agreement was set to last for thirty years, during which neither empire could attack the other. If Spirit Hall attacked either the Heaven Dou or Star Luo Empire, the other was obligated to declare war on Spirit Hall and dispatch troops to jointly strike back.
However, the agreement also stipulated that if either signatory took the initiative to attack Spirit Hall, the other party would not be bound to fulfill the treaty.
With the two empires forming a defensive alliance and various factions across the continent showing subtle signs of forming coalitions, Spirit Hall refrained from making any rash moves and withdrew entirely from the Heaven Dou Empire before the three-month deadline.
At the same time, Clear Sky Douluo Tang Hao and the son of the Blue Silver Empress nephew of Tang Xiao, the Clear Sky Sect Master and one of the three current twin martial soul holders, the original timeline's protagonist and otherworldly visitor Tang San, returned to the Clear Sky Sect, becoming an outer sect disciple.
A year ago, the Headmaster of the Divine Wind Academy, Feng Zhen, reached the nine-ringed Titled Douluo realm and gained the title: Gale.
Soon after, three of the five great elemental academies of the Heaven Dou Empire Blazing Academy, Sky Water Academy, and Divine Wind Academy—jointly issued a statement announcing their merger and reorganization into the Elemental Sacred Academy.
Tyrant Dragon Douluo was appointed as the academy's headmaster, with Blazing Douluo, Ice Douluo, and Gale Douluo serving as vice headmasters. The Elemental Sacred Academy was now guarded by four Douluo and equipped with large-scale elemental simulation training grounds for fire, water, ice, and wind, welcoming talented soul masters from across the land to enroll.
At the same time, the young master of Spirit Hall, Qian Renxue, sincerely knelt in worship before the Angel God statue in the Douluo Hall for one hundred and eight days, successfully initiating the Angel God Test and becoming the inheritor of the Angel God's divine position.
Half a year ago, after prolonged deduction by a certain individual, the soul-forging level metalcraft technique incorporating fusion forging—the "Seventy-Two Earthly Fiend Hammer" was unveiled.
In the following month, unbeknownst to the world, the Douluo Continent welcomed its first-ever Soul Forging Grandmaster.
One month ago, a certain Grandmaster surnamed Mu, who wished to remain anonymous, deduced the method to craft three-word battle armor using his innate talents. Douluo Continent's hidden high-precision soul tool technology achieved a qualitative breakthrough, and the advent of three-word battle armor entered the countdown.
Northern Province, Elemental Sacred Academy, inside a forging chamber before a forging table, Mu Yang held a spirit-gold carving blade, engraving a soul tool array onto a piece of battle armor.
"Three-word battle armor—complete!"
After a long while, Mu Yang exhaled deeply, put down the spirit-gold carving blade, and stared fervently at the soul-forged spirit-gold battle armor components arranged on the forging table.
In the realm of metal forging, high-quality alloys generally outperform most single metals of the same forging level.
Previously, when the forging techniques only reached the Spirit Forging level, the performance of single rare metals was sufficient, so Mu Yang hadn't considered alloying rare metals, nor had he deduced any fusion forging methods.
According to later classifications, forging levels ranked from lowest to highest are: Hundred Refinement, Thousand Refinement, Spirit Forging, Soul Forging, and Heavenly Forging.
Metal fusion forging refers to the process of blending two or more metals together and is not part of the forging level hierarchy. The metals to be fused could be at the Hundred Refinement level, or even at the Soul or Heavenly Forging levels.
Before reaching the Soul Forging tier, the properties of rare metals were good enough on their own. Combined with the limitations of forging levels, there was no need to pursue alloyed metals deliberately.
However, once one reached the Soul Forging level, aside from a few extremely rare metals, the properties of most rare metals began to fall short. To better exploit the capabilities of soul-forged metals, it became necessary to replace the original single metal with a superior fused alloy.
Mu Yang himself had no forging lineage and did not possess any excellent alloy formulas.
If it were another Soul Forging Grandmaster, without a teacher's guidance, the only way to acquire a quality alloy formula would be to painstakingly experiment like scientific researchers in his previous modern world, exploring through endless trials combined with some luck.
But for Mu Yang, a quality fusion alloy formula was nothing but the simplest of tasks.
Of all the rare metals available on the market, Mu Yang bought a small amount of each.
After testing the approximate properties of each rare metal, he used his innate ability to deduce the rare metal alloys that provided the greatest amplification effect for the ice, fire, and wind elemental attributes, as well as the ice-flame attribute that combines ice and fire.
The deduction efficiency was extremely high. On the first day, he deduced the rare metal alloy with the strongest amplification effect for ice elemental energy. On the second day, he deduced the most effective alloy for fire elemental amplification.
Then there was no third or fourth day of deduction, because whether for ice amplification or fire amplification, the most effective was the same alloy: a fusion of refined gold and magic silver.
After long consideration and analyzing the metal properties of this alloy, Mu Yang named it Spirit Gold, signifying a metal that could flexibly amplify all elemental attributes, and abbreviated it as Spirit Gold.
In truth, Mu Yang, who had never read the "Legend of the Golden Dragon," didn't know that in later generations on the Douluo Continent, a spirit-forged alloy formed from refined gold and magic silver, capable of amplifying all elemental attributes, was also called Spirit Gold.
As expected, once Mu Yang completed the fusion forging of Spirit Gold, he discovered that its metallic properties were indeed not limited to ice and fire elemental amplification, but included all elemental amplification, including fused elements.
Moreover, Spirit Gold's amplification effect on all elements was extremely strong. Its elemental amplification ratio surpassed the soul power amplification ratio of Blue Copper at the same forging level.
Thus, Mu Yang no longer wasted time deducing other fusion alloys. With Spirit Gold, which could amplify all elements, it was already more than sufficient.
After all, battle armor wasn't for sale; all users were his own people. Whether it was himself, his relatives, or the higher-ups of the Elemental Sacred Academy, they were all elemental-type soul masters. As long as Spirit Gold battle armor was arranged for them, there was no need to mess with other flashy options.
As for the issue of all the battle armor having the same material and color? All in that rich golden color of the nouveau riche?
That didn't matter. Battle armor just needed to be effective. It was only worn during battles anyway, not for daily use.
Besides, although the material and color of the battle armor were the same, that didn't mean the style had to be exactly identical. Each set could have stylistic features unique to its wearer.
For additional chapters
Versatile mage {40 chapters}
Douluo Dalu:This Soul Master is to Weird {30 Chapters}
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