I've also recently started a new translation, please check it out and show your support! Douluo: AFKing to Become a God
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"The alloy required for Teacher's wife's battle armor has already been prepared. I'll complete the forging in the next few days. As for Na'er…"
After Yun Ming disappeared, Xu Yuan fell into deep thought.
The task for Teacher's wife was manageable. Although Heaven-Forging was challenging, it was something Xu Yuan could accomplish by focusing and working hard at the forge. However, Na'er's situation wasn't so simple.
Xu Yuan had already formed a basic understanding of Na'er's existence.
Na'er wasn't a fragment of Gu Yuena; she was created from one of Gu Yue's ribs and carried the humanity that Gu Yue had discarded when she transformed, giving rise to a new consciousness.
It could be said that the Silver Dragon Spear now possessed a spirit with a fully formed human body, possessing all aspects of humanity.
If there was anything special about her, it was the memories of Gu Yue that constantly surfaced in Na'er's mind after she began cultivating.
But wasn't this common among soul beasts?
Memory inheritance was a frequent occurrence in bloodline transmission.
"Na'er is an individual—a newly born individual—separate from Gu Yue, yet also part of Gu Yue's current puzzle."
Although Xu Yuan's reasoning made sense, he couldn't deny that Gu Yue's current body was incomplete.
After all, the Silver Dragon Spear was originally created from one of her ribs.
If Gu Yue wanted to restore her full Silver Dragon King body, absorbing Na'er would be essential.
However, without Na'er, Gu Yue would lose the vessel that carried her humanity, reverting her back to her original identity as a hundred-thousand-year-old soul beast who had transformed into a human.
In such a state, would she still be considered a soul beast?
"This might be the core argument I can use to persuade Gu Yue," Xu Yuan sighed, sensing significant resistance ahead.
Gu Yue wasn't particularly strong—like Tang Wulin, she wasn't among the top tier of her peers. Xu Yuan had surpassed her by a wide margin. But even so, she was still stronger than Tang Wulin.
In the original storyline, before the final battle, she had never absorbed any power from the Abyss, yet she had consistently outpaced Tang Wulin in strength. How much more so now?
She didn't need to merge with Na'er.
Merging with Na'er was merely a means to restore herself, but it wouldn't affect her innate talent or the speed at which she accepted the sealed powers within her.
When Xu Yuan had previously encountered Gu Yue in the Spirit Pagoda, he guessed that she had steadily unlocked her seals and was gradually regaining her former strength.
Without Tang Wulin repeatedly using excessive power, the seals were resolved smoothly, and everything progressed perfectly as expected. Her current state might not be inferior to the version of Gu Yuena from the original timeline who had merged with Na'er.
"A confrontation is inevitable. Only by demonstrating strength can respect be earned."
Xu Yuan knew that upon his return to Shrek City, he would inevitably face off against Gu Yue.
And it wouldn't just be Gu Yue—he might also have to confront Di Tian and Xiong Jun.
Xiong Jun's destructive power undoubtedly reached the quasi-god level, while Di Tian was infinitely close to godhood.
All of their strength stemmed from themselves.
Even without battle armor, they were still infinitely close to godhood.
Over the years, they might have absorbed some power from human society. Though they likely didn't have a full set of four-word battle armor's Heaven-Forged metals, they should have had the opportunity to obtain one or two pieces.
"I heard from Uncle that the Spirit Pagoda's Beast God Platform plan was shelved before, but Leng Yaozhu recently brought it up again. They're planning to establish it in the Underworld."
The current Underworld was Yun Ming's domain.
This was also a potential entry point.
After organizing his thoughts, Xu Yuan returned to the Heaven-Forging Peak where the Forging Department was located, preparing to begin forging.
However, before he started, he spotted Wang Jinyang in the Forging Department.
"Jinyang's secondary profession is forging?"
Xu Yuan actually knew this, but he hadn't paid attention to it, causing him to forget.
Seeing Wang Jinyang looking energetic, Xu Yuan grew curious about his junior brother's forging skills.
"Senior Brother Xu." Wang Jinyang greeted Xu Yuan respectfully.
His reverence for Xu Yuan was greater than for their eldest senior brother.
"Hmm, preparing for an exam?"
"Yes, I've already met Master Zhen Hua's requirements and am preparing to take the test for Level Four Blacksmith." Wang Jinyang replied.
"Oh?"
Xu Yuan was surprised.
Master naturally referred to Zhen Hua.
Previously, Wang Jinyang had gone to Tiantou City to condense his blood qi under Mu Ye's guidance and received pointers from Zhen Hua.
Xu Yuan was well aware of Zhen Hua's standards.
If Wang Jinyang had completed Zhen Hua's tasks and was now taking the exam, then passing was almost guaranteed. Moreover, Wang Jinyang was likely already among the top Level Four Blacksmiths.
A Level Four Blacksmith was required to achieve Thousandfold Refinement Grade One.
According to Zhen Hua's criteria, one had to successfully Thousandfold Refine all common metals on the market, increasing the success rate to at least ten percent, or even twenty percent.
This was an extremely high standard for a Level Four Blacksmith.
Wang Jinyang was only fifteen, not yet sixteen.
Reaching Level Four Blacksmith at this age was already exceptional.
Among the Blacksmiths Xu Yuan had seen, only Tang Wulin was stronger. Even Lin Yuhan from the Star Luo Continent probably couldn't compare.
Though Wang Jinyang wasn't yet a Level Five Blacksmith, he definitely had the chance to succeed in Spirit Forging within the next year.
According to Zhen Hua's requirements, once certified as a Level Four Blacksmith, one could attempt the next level.
"Not bad. Being able to meet Master Zhen Hua's standards places you among the top Level Four Blacksmiths." Xu Yuan encouraged Wang Jinyang.
He could sense that Wang Jinyang's current state was somewhat unique.
Since joining the Blood God Legion, his cultivation speed had increased dramatically, like a normal soul master.
After more than a year, his soul power had likely increased by at least eight levels.
Wang Jinyang looked slightly embarrassed.
Within the Blood God Legion, he was considered one of the younger leaders.
However, today, he had encountered an even more monstrous prodigy—younger by several years, appearing no older than ten, yet already at Soul Elder rank with a soul power level of thirty-seven.
At ten years old with thirty-seven levels of soul power, if he trained in the Blood God Legion for a few more years, wouldn't he approach fifty levels by twelve?
It was simply terrifying.
Wang Jinyang stole a glance at his senior brother in front of him.
What level was Senior Brother at when he was twelve?
Only Xu Yuan didn't know what Wang Jinyang was thinking; otherwise, he would have recognized who he had encountered and reminded him that Xu Tian was only nine.
Xu Tian's situation was special, and even Xu Yuan wouldn't compare himself to this younger cousin.
Starting cultivation a year early—what could you do about it?
At five years old, his martial soul had already matured to the point of self-awakening.
This was likely an extremely rare case in the world of soul masters.
And his ability to constantly nurture his martial soul by drawing on the surrounding spatial energy could be considered a bug.
Without watching Wang Jinyang's assessment, Xu Yuan went alone to the cliff at the mountaintop and prepared the forging platform.
"Sacred Light Source Crystal, forged from five rare metals, represents my highest achievement in maintaining divine alloy quality. When my skills improve in the future, I can add Celestial Star Iron, Diamond Essence Gold, and Star Copper. This should be enough to lay the foundation for Teacher's wife's battle armor to ascend to the god-level, or five-word battle armor."
For his teacher's wife's battle armor, Xu Yuan naturally adhered to the highest standards.
Knowing that the future belonged to gods, he naturally planned for the path to ascend the battle armor to god-level when designing it for others during Heaven-Forging.
He took out five rare metals with light attributes, melted them, and directly mixed them together for forging.
The sound of hammering echoed across the Heaven-Forging Peak.
No other Blacksmiths approached Xu Yuan's location—this was a rule of the Forging Department to prevent disturbances during his Heaven-Forging.
The art of a Divine Craftsman's Heaven-Forging didn't need to be publicized. Even Level Three or Four Blacksmiths' forging processes didn't need to be disclosed, and they had privacy rights.
Xu Yuan had conducted a few public forging sessions before, with someone maintaining order on-site, and no accidents occurred. However, his forging frequency was high, and it wasn't feasible to have someone maintain order around the clock.
Boom!
A holy light shot into the sky, blossoming in the air and illuminating the endless mountains, resembling a beacon of hope.
Not only the soul masters at the Heaven-Forging Peak but also those in other regions of the Endless Mountains were drawn to the radiant light rising from the peak.
"Whoosh~"
"Who's forging?"
"It looks like it, and it must be Heaven-Forging."
"Not just that."
"He frequently performs Heaven-Forging. In the past, there were even times when he did multiple Heaven-Forgings in a single day, but the commotion wasn't as big as today's. I estimate that this Heaven-Forged metal might be extraordinary."
At the Blood God Mountain summit, after completing registration and familiarizing himself with the Blood God Legion's procedures, Xu Tian looked toward the Heaven-Forging Peak.
"Heaven-Forging?"
Within the Blood God Legion, it must be Brother.
"Not in a rush. Given my current situation, I doubt Brother would be satisfied. My physical fitness still lags behind significantly."
Although he had stepped out of home for the first time in the past few days and showcased his talent, earning endless praise, Xu Tian hadn't lost sight of his true self.
He clearly understood that his current thirty-seven levels of soul power were just superficial.
If his spiritual power and physical fitness couldn't undergo a transformation within the next six months, even reaching forty levels of soul power wouldn't allow him to acquire his fourth soul ring normally.
"Spiritual power isn't difficult. I've already connected with the stars that resonate with the help of Dad. If things go smoothly, six months should be enough to break through to the Spirit Sea Realm. The problem lies in my physical fitness."
Xu Tian's small face wrinkled, looking deeply troubled.
His immature physical development made improving his physical fitness very slow. Even with the cultivation methods of the Body Sect, he still couldn't keep up with the pace of his soul power growth.
"I don't want a thousand-year soul ring for my fourth soul ring."
Xu Tian sighed deeply.
It wasn't greed.
Once he had embarked on this path, there was no turning back.
At nine years old, he was already at thirty-seven levels of soul power, with spiritual power at the Spirit Connection Realm, carrying a purple soul spirit and possessing three purple thousand-year soul rings.
However, if he couldn't break through to the Spirit Sea Realm before reaching forty levels, he wouldn't be able to fuse a second soul spirit or obtain his fourth soul ring.
Moreover, even if he managed to break through to the Spirit Sea Realm before forty and gained the opportunity to fuse a second soul spirit, he wasn't willing to fuse another thousand-year soul spirit.
Even at the Spirit Sea Realm, one could only fuse three purple soul spirits or one black soul spirit.
To obtain a ten-thousand-year soul spirit, he would need to upgrade his first soul spirit to ten-thousand-years. The difficulty of this was imaginable. Fortunately, his father was Xu Shengqun of the Spirit Pagoda, with insider information indicating that the technology to artificially upgrade soul spirits to ten-thousand-years had recently broken through and would soon be made public, giving him some confidence.
But even if the issue of upgrading soul spirits was resolved, he still faced many challenges. Transitioning directly from bearing three thousand-year soul rings to four ten-thousand-year soul rings placed extreme demands on his physique.
And this wasn't due to ambition.
It was a necessity.
Otherwise, fusing another thousand-year soul spirit for his second soul ring would doom his fifth and sixth soul rings to also be thousand-year soul rings, wasting his immense talent.
One misstep leads to countless setbacks.
If he didn't want to waste his talent and maximize its potential—or even surpass the limits of his innate talent—he couldn't afford to miss any opportunity to pursue perfection.
The current challenge of the fourth soul ring was just a small hill on his path.
The real despair would come at the fifth soul ring.
Because if his first soul spirit was ten-thousand-years and he wanted to fuse a second soul spirit that also needed to be at least ten-thousand-years, he would need to elevate his spiritual power to the Spirit Abyss Realm!
Assuming all cultivation issues were resolved smoothly, Xu Tian estimated that he could break through to fifty levels within three years. However, he hadn't yet reached the Spirit Sea Realm, and the distance to breaking through to the Spirit Abyss Realm was unknown.
"How did Brother do it back then?"
Xu Tian was troubled.
"When I asked Dad, he wouldn't tell me about Brother's spiritual power progress back then. What's there to hide? It's not like I can't handle it."
Xu Yuan didn't know how troubled his little brother was at the moment.
He was currently basking in the holy light, feeling physically and mentally refreshed.
"This Sacred Light Source Crystal turned out well. The combination of five different rare metals with light attributes naturally gave rise to properties similar to Teacher's wife's martial soul. This holy light, simply shining on the body, soothes fatigue. Bathing in this light feels wonderful."
Xu Yuan paused briefly to experience the wonders of the holy light, then continued swinging his forging hammer, delivering the final strike.
Boom!
In the sky, light elements converged, forming a new sun-like presence.
This time, Xu Yuan's Heaven-Forging only attracted one element—light!
Yes, only one element.
However, under the influence of the five rare metals, the light element split into five different types of light, merging to form the holy/sacred element.
In the sky, light elements gathered, forming a massive sphere of light. Within the sphere, endless light elements condensed and compressed into sacred elements.
A holy bolt of lightning descended.
Xu Yuan didn't absorb the metal into his body but allowed it to rise into the air, undergoing a comprehensive baptism from the Heaven-Forging lightning tribulation.
Single-color lightning tribulation.
This was likely the first instance of such a phenomenon in the history of forging on the Douluo Continent.
Back then, Feng Wuyu's Heaven-Forging of Dark Sunstone was the first non-sentient alloy to undergo Heaven-Forging, yet it still used four elements matching the Dark Sunstone.
Each bolt of holy lightning seemed like a gift from the universe. Each bolt struck the surface of the metal, melting and integrating smoothly into the metal, making its sacred aura increasingly dense.
At the entrance to the Underworld, three Limit Douluos appeared, gazing toward the Heaven-Forging Peak.
"This dense sacred aura—it's probably being prepared for Holy Spirit Douluo's battle armor," Leng Yaozhu said expressionlessly.
Zhuo Shi smirked but said nothing.
Chen Xinjie remained silent for a moment before speaking. "Has Holy Spirit Douluo also advanced to the Limit level?"
Zhuo Shi glanced at Chen Xinjie beside him in surprise.
"Don't look at me. It's not hard to guess."
"That's right. Sister Ya Li broke through not long ago, but given her special circumstances, we didn't send her to the front lines."
"I'm not criticizing her. Across the entire continent, no one has the right to criticize Holy Spirit Douluo." Chen Xinjie spoke gravely.
This was likely the continent's first Limit-level healer.
It was hard to imagine how she had taken the final step.
What puzzled Chen Xinjie was something else—why was Shrek Academy's luck so terrifying at this time?
Logically, Xu Yuan's appearance should have marked the peak of Shrek's fortune. Even if numerous extraordinary geniuses emerged, it should have been during Xu Yuan's generation, waiting for the eight members of Shrek's Seven Monsters to grow and achieve the Limit level.
Why had everyone from Xu Yuan's previous generation also broken through?
"Thirty-eight levels." Xu Tian slowly opened his eyes.
"This Blood God Legion truly is a place of opportunity. I just arrived here and already broke through one level."
The holy light illuminated his small face, highlighting his worried expression.
Beside him, soul masters of the same age were captivated by the holy light and didn't notice his expression.
For ten consecutive days, Xu Yuan kept forging.
Ten Heaven-Forged Sacred Light Source Crystals were carefully stored away.
"The Federation's actions are quite swift. Now that the situation has stabilized here, they immediately began arranging the cultivation of the younger generation."
Xu Yuan had only learned two days ago that his adorable younger cousin had arrived and entered the Underworld.
"Thirty-eight levels—truly a child favored by destiny. However, the cultivation of spiritual power will likely trouble him for a long time."
Xu Yuan chuckled.
His estimation was similar to Xu Tian's. At most, within three years—by twelve years old—Xu Tian would reach fifty levels.
This calculation assumed that Xu Tian focused on enhancing his spiritual power and blood qi while compressing the time spent cultivating soul power, even engaging in secondary professions.
If he focused solely on cultivation, Xu Tian might reach fifty levels within a year and a half.
However, that wouldn't make much sense.
At twelve years old…
"Thinking back, I barely broke through to the Spirit Abyss Realm at twelve."
And at nine years old, Xu Yuan's spiritual power had already exceeded a thousand.
Keep in mind, Xu Yuan had one less year of cultivation than Xu Tian.
"Ah, never mind. Let Uncle worry about Xiao Tian's matters. I've already taught everything I can. The rest depends on Xiao Tian's own opportunities."
Xu Yuan briefly reviewed the current situation and then left the Blood God Legion.
He tore open space in front of him.
A rift opened in space.
Stepping into the rift, Xu Yuan found the corresponding node for Shrek and quickly approached.
Shrek City.
Xu Yuan's figure appeared.
"Tsk, much more precise than the last time Teacher guided me."
Xu Yuan flew toward the inner courtyard of Shrek Academy below.
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