Another half month later, morning.
High above the sea hundreds of li from Seagod Island, as the last bolt of Chaos Tribulation thunder fell, the bluish tribulation clouds in midair gradually dispersed.
"Heh~, the Chaos Thunder Tribulation is still that same chaos tribulation as before, but this Lord Chu is not the same Lord Chu as before."
Casting a glance at the dispersing tribulation clouds, Chu Chengzhou, who had passed four rounds of Chaos Thunder Tribulation and forged four portions of Nine Heavens Chaos Gold, spoke with slight disdain.
Times had changed. Back when he forged Nine Heavens Chaos Gold, he fused with the spirit summon Xiao Hei, the Dark Devilgod Tiger, whose years were only in the hundreds of thousands. Now, the one he fused with was Xiao Guang, the Time Dragon spirit summon, whose years had reached a million.
Besides the spirit summon, he himself had recently raised his soul power level from a freshly entered level-99 Limit Douluo to the peak of level 99.
With himself as primary and the spirit summon as auxiliary, after fusion, his strength had greatly increased compared to before. Even the eleventh-layer Chaos Tribulation thunder could no longer do anything to him.
With the soul power flower above his head unbroken via Blooms In An Instant, the elevenfold Chaos Thunder Tribulation did not take a single hair from him, apart from consuming a good deal of soul power.
Needless to say, these four portions of Heavenly Refinement grade Nine Heavens Chaos Gold, smelted from nine rare metals of different attributes, were to forge for Xiao Wu, Ning Rongrong, Zhu Zhuqing, and Hu Liena.
Strictly speaking, Nine Heavens Chaos Gold had been designed to suit his own needs, while the martial souls and attributes of the four differed from his, so Nine Heavens Chaos Gold was not the best fit for them.
However, this Heavenly Refinement Divine Craftsman was lopsided, with the craft but lacking in knowledge reserves, and he did not possess other formulas for high-performing extreme-count fusion alloys.
Managing to tinker out Nine Heavens Chaos Gold owed much to the secret art Element Fusion. By imitating and sensing the proper matching points among multiple elements, he finally worked out Nine Heavens Chaos Gold.
Lacking other excellent fusion-alloy formulas, Chu Chengzhou could only make do.
It was fine to make do. Like soul bones, aside from differences in years, the differences among soul bones only exist before a soul master ascends to a god position.
When a soul master ascends and the soul bones within the body transform into divine equipment, under the baptism of the laws, regardless of the soul bone's former attribute, all will be converted to match the god position's attribute and become parts of the divine equipment.
Battle armor not only integrates with the martial soul, it can also integrate with soul bones. For example, when Xiao Wu in the future attains the Seagod position, under the baptism of the laws, all the soul bones in her body and the Heavenly Refinement battle armor forged from Nine Heavens Chaos Gold will shift attributes and merge into one, forming the Seagod divine equipment. In that case, minor flaws do not matter.
Moreover, for them, it was not only the material aspect of the Heavenly Refinement battle armor that had flaws. Other aspects inevitably had some as well.
A truly perfect set of battle armor must be forged personally by the soul master. Throughout the entire process of making Heavenly Refinement battle armor, the only part the four could participate in was the blood-recognition to claim the metal.
You could not have Xiao Wu and the others learn forging and battle armor manufacturing just to chase perfection.
Impossible.
The three great hardships of life: poling a boat, smithing iron, grinding tofu. Without cheats, why take up smithing. Exhausting work with no guarantee of any achievement worth praise.
"There's still half a day left."
Putting away the newly forged portion of Nine Heavens Chaos Gold, Chu Chengzhou opened his attribute panel for a glance and muttered to himself.
This afternoon, Battle Armor Forging (Red) would auto-level to Battle Armor Forging (Gold). If nothing unexpected happened, he could start forging Heavenly Refinement battle armor then.
Precisely because the battle armor forging skill was about to level up, Chu Chengzhou had set aside upgrading the Life Tree spirit summon Xiao Qing for now and came to forge Nine Heavens Chaos Gold.
Of course, the delay was not long. Xiao Qing's years had already reached over nine hundred thousand. In another day it should advance to a million.
Afternoon, Seagod Island.
On the sandy beach along the ring-shaped coast, taking a break amid busyness, Chu Chengzhou lay back and sunbathed at leisure.
Abruptly, a flood of insights about battle armor surged up in his mind.
Without a doubt, the gold-grade battle armor forging skill corresponded to the later era's Heavenly Refinement Four-Word Battle Armor.
Not only was the structure of the battle armor further optimized, the various soul guidance arrays required were also finely categorized: main control core array, energy-gathering resonance array, ability amplification array, auxiliary function array.
A long while later, after digesting the insights, Chu Chengzhou impatiently took out the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor he had already forged earlier, which only lacked the inscription of soul guidance arrays.
"Mm~, the structure is a bit unreasonable, and there are no wings."
Just as he was about to begin inscribing the soul guidance arrays, his hands stilled.
When he had forged Nine Heavens Chaos Armor before, the battle armor forging skill was only at purple grade, and modeling a Heavenly Refinement Four-Word battle armor shell after Thousand Refinements One-Word battle armor naturally left many shortcomings.
Without hesitation, Chu Chengzhou pointed a finger. Crimson soul power light surged, melting the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor for reshaping, eliminating structural irrationalities and adding wing components.
After that, the power of chaos welled up and condensed into an engraving knife glowing with hazy azure light. He began inscribing soul guidance arrays on each battle armor component one by one.
The various arrays of Heavenly Refinement battle armor were far more complex than those of Soul Refinement battle armor. Three hours later, as night fell, Chu Chengzhou finished inscribing the soul guidance arrays for the final component of the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor.
Then he drew all battle armor components into his body. In the next instant, as a hazy azure halo bloomed, the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor manifested at once, its whole body like green jade, three pairs of wings unfurled behind, the headpiece like a green-jade hair circlet.
As soul power circulated within, under the resonant amplification of the arrays inscribed on the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor, Chu Chengzhou's aura surged by a large margin, breaking through the intangible limit and stepping into the level-100 threshold.
"Level 100? Not bad. Looks like my Nine Heavens Chaos Armor is something."
Sensing that his peak level-99 soul power had been boosted by the armor to level 100, Chu Chengzhou looked surprised, then delighted.
In later eras on the continent, a full set of Heavenly Refinement battle armor could only let a nine-ring Titled Douluo be on par with a level-99 Limit Douluo, and a level-99 Limit Douluo wearing Heavenly Refinement battle armor could only match a demigod, still short of level 100.
Unexpectedly, the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor forged from Nine Heavens Chaos Gold that had weathered eleven layers of Heavenly Refinement elemental thunder tribulation actually let him, a level-99 Limit Douluo, directly cross that half step and, in soul power intensity, equal a level-100 soul master.