Before the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor was upgraded, Chu Chengzhou had three ways to raise his strength to the level-100 tier.
First was the fusion trait of the True Spirit Banner martial soul: take himself as primary, the summoned spirit as auxiliary, enter the human-form fusion state, and with his own rank-99 soul power plus the one rank gained by converting a hundred-thousand-year summoned spirit, he could steadily step into level 100.
Second was the Elemental Fusion secret art. The eleven basic elemental soul powers ultimately fused into Chaos Force, and with Chaos Force driving the Sun-Shooting Divine Arrow and Flower Bloom in an Instant, both offense and defense would steadily enter the level-100 tier.
And with his soul power already at rank-99 Limit Douluo, he could exceed the level-100 threshold by quite a bit.
Third was attribute-amplifying soul skills or soul bone skills, such as Ning Rongrong's attribute amplification that ignores level gaps with percentage boosts, and the full-attribute amplification bone skill Power of the Holy Dragon from the external spirit bone Holy Light Dragon Armor.
Now that he had the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor, he possessed a fourth way to push his strength to the level-100 tier.
Moreover, the amplification of the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor only conflicts with the third method. It does not conflict with the effects of the Spiritization trait or the Elemental Fusion secret art.
So while it seems the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor just adds one more method atop the three he already had to reach the level-100 tier and looks a bit chicken-rib, in reality its role is not small at all.
As expected, when crafting gear, if craftsmanship is unchanged, the better the materials, the stronger the performance.
As for what his second brother-in-law Tang Hao said—"Using top-grade materials to forge a divine weapon doesn't make you the best smith, at most a synthesizer; forging a divine weapon out of common iron, that is a divine craftsman"—that kind of BS toxic pep talk is just for listening to, not for believing.
As one of the "three master smiths of the former continent," what has Tang Hao ever forged? Hoes and iron pots for the villagers of Holy Soul Village?
Not bragging or hating, but in forging, even a hundred Tang Hao can't compare to him.
On the path of forging, as the one and only true divine craftsman of this age, whatever Grandmaster Chu says is an aphorism and the industry standard.
Of course, Chu Chengzhou also understood that the reason the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor did not feel like chicken-rib was entirely because its actual effect exceeded his expectations.
Otherwise, if the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor were only an ordinary four-word battle armor, letting a rank-99 Limit Douluo merely equal a demigod, then for him, aside from fusing it with soul bones when he becomes a god in the future to thicken the base of the evolving godly equipment, it really would be useless.
"Brother, your armor is so beautiful. Way prettier than ours."
At this moment, Xiao Wu's voice sounded beside him.
To be fair, the appearance of the Nine Heavens Chaos Armor was far beyond the soulforged pure-metal armor Chu Chengzhou had made for them before. The light, elegant headband alone crushed the very bulky helmet of the pure-metal armor.
As Xiao Wu finished, Ning Rongrong, Zhu Zhuqing, and Hu Liena nodded in agreement.
Compared with men, who focus more on practicality, women may tolerate something being less useful, but find it hard to accept poor looks.
Between looks and performance, looks come first, even if performance suffers a bit.
"Of course. The higher the tier, the better it looks."
Chu Chengzhou answered with a smile without hesitation.
Just like the fighter jets in his previous life: the more advanced the jet, the better it looks. The ugly ones? Industrial garbage, missile targets.
As for the terrifyingly powerful mushroom bomb? Round and chubby. Doesn't it look cute too?
Hearing this, the four girls looked at each other, then spoke in unison: "We want them too."
"Relax. There will be bread, and there will be milk. But—you know the deal."
The four girls: "..."
Two mornings later, after forging heavenly-forged battle armor for the four, Chu Chengzhou mounted the Time Dragon summoned spirit and left Sea God Island. He released the True Spirit Domain to devour the abundant water-elemental power of the nearby seas, continued leveling up the Tree of Life summoned spirit Xiao Qing, and headed west.
Destination: the Sun Moon Continent, the Demonic Great Forest.
Target: the Evil-Eyed Tyrant Emperor, Xie Di, ranked second among the Top Ten Ferocious Beasts of the later era.
The speed of a million-year divine dragon was simply fast. By that very evening, Chu Chengzhou had crossed tens of thousands of li of ocean and arrived at the Demonic Great Forest on the Sun Moon Continent.
The Demonic Great Forest is the largest soul-beast habitat on the Sun Moon Continent, with a majority of dark-attribute soul beasts.
Within the Demonic Great Forest there is an undisputed hegemon clan: the Evil Eye clan, a relatively rare spiritual-type soul beast line. The Evil-Eyed Tyrant Emperor, Xie Di, is the king of this clan.
In addition, unlike the Star Dou Great Forest and the Extreme North—where the former's ferocious beasts are busy squeezing the silkworm babies dry and the latter is rarely visited by humans, so the fierce beasts of both seldom appear in the sight of human soul masters—the king of the Demonic Great Forest, the Evil-Eyed Tyrant Emperor Xie Di, is very high-profile and fearsome by reputation. Not only is it known to the powerhouses of the Sun Moon Continent's soul master world, it has even been enshrined as a totem by the Sun Moon Empire due to its overwhelming strength.
This counts as one of the Sun Moon Empire's biggest stains.
The Sun Moon imperial family's hereditary martial soul is the Sun, yet they venerate an "evil big eyeball" as their totem. That is truly accepting a thief as father.
But there was no helping it. The Sun Moon Continent's soul master world not only lags behind Douluo Continent in overall strength, even its top experts are far inferior.
To say nothing of anything else, aside from the rising stars Bibi Dong and Chu Chengzhou, Douluo Continent still has three demigod-level powerhouses. Even not counting the overseas Bo Saixi, there are Qian Daoliu and Tang Chen.
As for the Sun Moon Continent, as far as Chu Chengzhou knew, its soul master world currently has no demigods, no rank-99 Limit Douluo, and perhaps not even any rank-98 Titled Douluo.
Moreover, Xie Di is an especially troublesome spiritual-type ferocious beast. Even if the Sun Moon Continent had a rank-98 Titled Douluo, they would probably not last a single move before Xie Di.
Because it is so hard to deal with, and even the combined strength of the entire soul master world might not be enough to kill it, the Sun Moon Empire had no choice but to bow and enshrine Xie Di as the empire's totem.
Can't beat it—then what? Humans and soul beasts are naturally opposed, and it cannot be made to join you, so the only choice is to turn blades into jade and silk.
Chu Chengzhou estimated that Xie Di likely feared the gods of the God Realm, afraid its high profile would draw a god down to slay the beast. And for a super ferocious beast like it, eating humans would not greatly raise its strength; otherwise, humans on the Sun Moon Continent would likely have long since become blood food or slaves.
But on this day, the carefree life of the Demonic Great Forest's supreme king, the Evil-Eyed Tyrant Emperor, was about to end.
A young man who does not speak of martial ethics crossed the ocean riding a divine dragon. Wherever he passed, mighty soul-power pressure spread out. Within a hundred li, whether human or beast, all were cowed.