Chapter 1176: Taking The First Step
Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation
Tang Wulin’s efforts to help Wu Siduo and the rest to forge three-word battle armor metals were also an opportunity for him to practice soul-forging and take his skills one step further.
Tang Wulin spoke to Yang Nianxia, “I’ll figure out a way to do your battle armor, but you are in charge of the armor for our junior disciple brothers and sisters. You’re already a rank-5 blacksmith now. There’s no other way to elevate yourself other than more practice. I’ll supply you with adequate rare metals.”
“Sure.” Yang Nianxia was overjoyed. Of course, he hoped that he eventually could forge the metals for his battle armor by himself. He was already a rank-5 blacksmith, so he was certainly still very passionate about forging. Tang Wulin supplying him with the required rare metals would be the best option. His skills at forging were hindered mostly because he was running out of materials.
The academy’s shelter only came with basic living amenities and it was lacking in resources.
Only after gaining an understanding of everyone’s requirements did Tang Wulin leave the refuge shelter located below the Sea God Lake and return to ground level once again.
Long Yuxue had been waiting for him all along. Upon seeing him again, she could sense that Tang Wulin had clearly changed. The gloominess in between the lines on his face seemed to have disappeared. He even seemed to be in an upbeat mood.
One could only imagine how excited Tang Wulin was upon discovering his surviving classmates from Shrek Academy, and also Teacher Wu. He was jubilant because it would be much easier for him to rebuild Shrek Academy with their help, but he was even more ecstatic because they had survived! ‘Good to be alive.’ One could only truly understand and embrace these four simple words after experiencing the terror of a life and death situation.
Tang Wulin’s mood still remained just as excited after he returned to the Blacksmith’s Association. He immediately returned to his room and dialed a number on his soul communicator.
“How long?” The person replied in two simple words. Tang Wulin continued to speak after receiving the answer, “Great. I’ll wait for all of you. Come quick. I have some good news to tell everyone when you’re here.”
He then dialed a few other numbers and said almost the same exact words.
‘Great oaks from little acorns grow.’ The first step to rebuild Shrek Academy was finally about to be taken.
For the next few days, Tang Wulin threw himself into forging at his swiftest. Perhaps because of his mood, the success rate of his soul-forging was getting better and better.
The process of forging soul-forged metal for Wu Siduo was not as difficult as forging his own three-word battle armor. Wu Siduo used the most types of metals and that had only involved the fuse-forging of four metals before soul-forging. On the other hand, Tang Wulin’s battle armor consisted of a combination of eight types of metals.
The choice of different fuse-forged metals was due to the difference between everyone’s attributes, and also because Tang Wulin had that piece of Metalwater Harmonizer for himself.
Even for someone with Zhen Hua’s Divine Craftsman status, there was no way he could acquire another piece of Metalwater Harmonizer again. Tang Wulin had completed forging the metals required for his three-word battle armor perfectly.
Even Zhen Hua could not refrain himself from gasping in admiration after examining the foundation fuse-forged metal for Tang Wulin’s three-word battle armor. There was no need to add any other rare metal when elevated to four-word battle armor as he only needed to elevate the soul-forged metal to heavenly refinement metal. Tang Wulin’s four-word battle armor would almost be the best in the world.
The Metalwater Harmonizer served its purpose, but it also had its limits. It could only fuse-forge up to nine types of metals, and it was only effective when used on soul-forged metal. Thus, Tang Wulin would have to rely on his own abilities when he was performing the fuse-forging of four-word battle armor.
As a Divine Craftsman, Zhen Hua was definitely better at fuse-forging than Tang Wulin. However, battle armor made by fusing many types of metals was not for everyone. More accurately, the battle armor’s strength must be linked to the soul master’s physical prowess as well. A soul master without a body powerful enough was incapable of supporting strong battle armor.
While Tang Wulin had spared no effort when helping A Ruheng forge the foundation metal for his three-word battle armor consisting of six types of fuse-forged metals, Sima Jinchi’s body could support five types of fuse-forged rare metals at most.
Even with Tang Wulin’s physique, he could not completely support the fuse-forging of eight types of metals, but he was confident that he should be able to control it once he had absorbed the essence of the twelfth Golden Dragon King Seal.
After cultivating the Body Sect’s Innate Secret Technique, including pretty much completing the first layer of Body Penetrating, Tang Wulin was feeling more and more confident in his physical strength. He believed that it would not be a problem for him if he continued to cultivate in such a manner and later absorbed the twelfth seal.
The Life Seed helped him to stabilize the seal to a good extent. As long as he was unwilling, the seal would not waver on its own easily. It would not be much of an issue at least for ten years, so was very assuring for Tang Wulin.
He was planning for the revival of Shrek as he forged.
Firstly, he would need to elevate the overall ability of the more than two hundred students of the former Shrek Academy as much as possible. He would need to allocate adequate supplies for them. At the same time, he would need to accumulate his resources and wealth so he could make preparations to rebuild Shrek in the future.
Since he was planning to rebuild Shrek, he could never allow the academy to be worse than before. The original Shrek was a city and it was even the greatest city on the continent! One could only imagine the number of resources needed to build such a place. Moreover, the original site was already nonexistent, as what remained was a stretch of boundless water.
Thus, the process of accumulating resources should be given primary importance among his priorities.
Secondly, his focus was to manage the issue with the ecosystem in the Sea God Lake. He would focus on completely eliminating the residual side effects left behind by the Godkiller-rank fixed soul ammunition so that the Life Seed could grow into the Ancient Life Tree and became the core of Shrek Academy in the future.
These two matters could not be completed within a short period of time, but they took precedence.
However, at the very least, he had found a goal, and he was no longer fighting alone anymore.
Tang Wulin first forged a piece of rare metal for each of the five of them including Wu Siduo. Additionally, he helped them to fuse-forge the metal to their original two-word battle armor. They would need a certain amount of time to absorb and complete the fusion for elevating two-word battle armor into three-word battle armor.
He then headed to another place. It was the Tang Sect’s division in Heaven Dou City.
Ever since the Tang Sect met with such a destructive blow, the entire sect suddenly shrank in size. Its reach was vastly weakened on the surface, and many of its original divisions in major cities had even closed.
The only division of the Tang Sect that still remained on the surface and retained its grand scale was Heaven Dou City’s division. More precisely, this place was the Tang Sect’s headquarters now.
The Tang Sect originated from Heaven Dou City. The headquarters was set up here when the sect was rebuilt over ten thousand years ago. It could be said that this division and the Tang Sect headquarters in Shrek Academy were the sect’s double nuclei.
Tang Wulin had never visited this place ever since he returned to Heaven Dou City because he was afraid of attracting unwanted attention. There was no doubt that the Tang Sect headquarters was being scrutinized by countless unseen eyes for some time. Tang Wulin wondered how many were fixated on this location.
It was not that there were no forces attempting to threaten the Heaven Dou City division, but they were hindered by the Tang Sect. In addition, Mo Lan was practically acting as Heaven Dou City’s consul and she took great care of this division so that it was not attacked by the major powers.
The entire Tang Sect division seemed to be keeping an extremely low profile. The stream of people was also many times smaller. Everyone could tell that the entire Tang Sect was heading downhill after the catastrophe.
Tang Wulin disguised himself and arrived by the doorsteps of Heaven Dou City’s Tang Sect division.
A peculiar look flashed past his eyes and vanished immediately as he looked at the simple and unsophisticated courtyard and the huge name plaque. He walked straight in without the slightest hesitation.
The unsophisticated style of the place grew more pronounced as soon as he walked into the headquarters. The buildings here were already thousands of years old, but the place was well maintained. He wondered how many Tang Sect’s seniors had studied and grown up here.
One of the reasons that the Spirit Pagoda did not go against this place was because the founder of Spirit Pagoda, the Holy Ice Douluo Huo Yuhao had studied here long ago! It was through the combined efforts of Huo Yuhao and his generation of the Shrek Seven Monsters that the Tang Sect was rebuilt.
Thus, Spirit Pagoda would never show any overt signs of harassment over here, despite the ill intentions it had for the Tang Sect. This was done as a sign of respect, not only to the history but also the Holy Ice Douluo.
As for the other forces, even though they wished to do something to this place, they were also under immense pressure.
The Tang Sect’s founding father was Tang San, and the Spirit Pagoda’s founder Huo Yuhao grew up around here. These two were already officially recognized as men who had achieved Godhood by historians.
Thus, even the federal government’s Hawk Faction made the decision not to take any action against the newly reformed Tang Sect headquarters after an internal discussion.
After all, the Tang Sect was already keeping a very low profile for the time being. The federal government could not hound it too much, or the Tang Sect would cause a lot of trouble once it was restored.
As for judging at the current situation, the Tang Sect was still very aware of the present state of affairs. They did not intend to resist the Federation. Compared to the overly influential Spirit Pagoda, the Tang Sect was genuinely way below them for the moment.
Tang Wulin continued walking straight through, but before he could pass the second courtyard, he was stopped.
Two youths dressed in Tang Sect attire blocked his path.