"A golden wolf pack—led by a Silvermoon Wolf King."
Huo Yuhao's expression suddenly froze, and he warned in a grave tone.
With spiritual sharing, the others also saw an overhead view of dense metal wolves in their minds. Skills like spiritual detection were already god-tier, and with the Skydream Iceworm's enhancements, Huo the Hack's spiritual sharing and x-ray cheat drew gasps of amazement from Ju Zi and Ke Ke.
Clearly, this junior brother had been hiding deep and hadn't revealed this hand before.
"Three ten-thousand-year metal wolves, plus a ten-thousand-year Silvermoon Wolf King. Hundreds of hundred- to thousand-year golden wolves. We're in trouble."
After a brief moment of awe, Ke Ke and Ju Zi noticed the danger.
If it were just the golden wolf pack, it wouldn't be too bad. But with a Silvermoon Wolf King doing centralized command from a distance, it became a major headache. Not to mention, among metal-attribute soul beasts, a ten-thousand-year Silvermoon Wolf King was a particularly strong, overtuned existence.
A single ten-thousand-year Silvermoon Wolf King would be hard for three or four sixth-level soul engineers to take down—let alone a whole well-trained, strict-discipline wolf pack.
"Let's backtrack the way we came!" Ju Zi said nervously.
"Agreed!" Ke Ke's face turned pale with fear, hugging her cushion and trembling.
Even Zi Mu nodded solemnly for once.
"I don't think so…"
In the tense atmosphere, Huo Yuhao suddenly smirked.
"Senior Su Wen is very strong—body strength comparable to a Soul Douluo—and the soul beasts he commands. These wolves probably aren't even enough for one of his fingers to crush."
"…"
At that, the others were stunned, then turned their eyes to Su Wen.
"Leave it to me."
Su Wen nodded with a smile and leisurely drove the all-terrain probe forward at full speed.
Since you want to watch, I'll let you see just how big the gap is…
Seeing Su Wen like this, curiosity flashed in Ju Zi's eyes. But she still cautioned, out of prudence, "The Jingyang Mountains are rich in metallic minerals, so metal soul beasts are common. Their trait is stronger attack power than other attributes—extreme offense—and their defense is in no way inferior. Add that Silvermoon Wolf King, and—"
"It's fine. Leave it to me."
Su Wen grinned.
Seeing this, everyone relaxed a bit.
They started chatting again.
As they passed the fifth peak, the golden wolves chasing the probe came into view. Clearly, they had lost patience with these humans who had barged into their home.
They spread out in layers and blocked the path of the metal sphere.
"Awooo!"
The three leading golden wolves howled at the sky.
The pack parted.
They made a corridor of their own, and a majestic Silvermoon Wolf King stepped out—silver fur at its brow and neck, a body three to four times the size of the three ten-thousand-year golden wolves. Its silver pupils carried kingly majesty as it trod across the grass.
"If we turned back earlier, would they have kept chasing?" Su Wen took his hands off the control sticks and turned to look at Ju Zi.
"…"
She looked blank.
But the corner of her mouth twitched at the same time. You aren't going to overplay this, are you?!!
"Probably not," Zi Mu answered seriously. "Wolves do crave human flesh to some extent—especially us soul masters. This isn't just driving off intruders. They likely see us as prey to hunt. Otherwise, they wouldn't have waited until we were deep inside before acting."
"Then no problem."
Su Wen raised an eyebrow.
The Silvermoon Wolf King raised its head and howled, and countless responses came from all directions.
This formation clearly meant they were surrounded inside and out.
Even if they rolled the all-terrain probe down the slope, they'd have trouble escaping the pack. Metal attribute boosts all aspects—including speed…
"Gulp."
Ke Ke's throat bobbed as she listened to the endless howls outside.
The probe's metal shell began to screech under clawing, like Death was knocking at the door.
It was terrifying.
If she went out, she'd be torn to shreds by the wolves in seconds.
"Gale."
Su Wen smacked his lips.
"Don't overdo it. They're our kind…"
He muttered into the air, confusing the others, but Huo Yuhao's pupils suddenly shrank as he looked up toward the ceiling of the cabin.
In the next moment, the entire probe shuddered, as if something heavy had pressed down from above.
Then—
Everyone gaped as a six-meter-tall white ape with deep purple patterns at the corners of its eyes trailing down its neck appeared in view, staff in hand. The staff whirled, flinging countless golden wolves aside. What looked like unbreakable layers of formation were smashed apart like rotten wood.
Even more surprising—
The ten-thousand-year Silvermoon Wolf King lost its will to fight the instant it saw the ape. Terror filled its eyes, and it sprinted madly away.
The white ape stood quietly.
Watching the Silvermoon Wolf King flee with its underlings, a trace of mockery flashed in its eyes.
"A tornado!"
Ke Ke's eyes widened, pointing at Gale's feet.
In an instant, winds howled. A lead-gray tornado ballooned like a world-ending calamity, expanding its coverage at a speed visible to the naked eye. Dust and stones flew; countless animals, rocks, and even plants were swept up inside.
The Silvermoon Wolf King did its utmost to flee, but it still couldn't escape the pull of the tornado. Its hind legs lifted first as its front paws clawed desperately into the ground in panic. Soon, its whole body was sucked into the vortex.
They stood at the center of the storm.
In the eye.
Ke Ke and Ju Zi stared dumbly through the clear glass.
Pssst~
A pressure valve vented inside the cabin, and the hatch slowly opened.
Su Wen stepped out, looked up at the SSS-grade natural-disaster tornado that seemed almost to tug at the clouds in the sky. In his previous life, seeing a tornado of this scale would have turned his heart to ice. But now, it was under his control.
That feeling of moving mountains and seas, commanding nature itself, really could be intoxicating.
"Alright. Put it down."
"Roar~"
Gale nodded, and the massive tornado covering dozens of miles finally dissipated.
Golden wolves fell from the sky like dumplings, thudding to the ground in twos and threes, all unconscious.
"Dragon Vortex?"
Ju Zi asked in astonishment.
"Mm. Didn't expect you to know the name of that move," Su Wen nodded with a smile.
"The move that wiped the entire Sun Moon Empire Royal Team—everyone in the academy knows. We're probably the first batch besides the team members to see it in person…" Ju Zi pursed her lips. As the terrifying tornado died down, she could only see Su Wen's overwhelming ability to marshal the forces of heaven and earth.
There was envy too.
If she could do that, then maybe her parents' killers…
As for Huo Yuhao, his scalp went numb.
The scale of the power was terrifying enough, but what was even scarier was Su Wen's control over the tornado—completely at will.
"Tsk."
Su Wen clicked his tongue.
He walked up to the Silvermoon Wolf King. "Do you not understand what it means when I say you're the ones surrounded by me?"
Seeing it unconscious, he shook his head. "Forget it—killing you would waste a soul ring… Scram."
"Awooo—"
In the next instant, the Silvermoon Wolf King sprang up, tucked its tail, and bolted for the distance.
Everyone: "…"
…
"What? You ran into a Silvermoon Wolf King and a golden wolf pack? How deep did you go into the Jinggang Mountains?!!"
In the lab.
Xuan Ziwen's voice nearly changed pitch.
"Nobody got hurt, right?"
He hurried to check his students.
"Su Wen soloed it. You don't know how handsome it was—he stood there in the wind grinning, a white ape at his side, hands in his pockets, and watched as the ape one-shotted the whole mob." Ke Ke gesticulated wildly.
"Handsome! So handsome! I finally get why Meng Hongchen can't forget Su Wen."
"Mm…"
Xuan Ziwen raised an eyebrow.
"Alright, you two fangirls—go get some rest. I still have to report today's losses to the academy. If I weren't one of the developers of the all-terrain probe, it would be troublesome…"
After seeing the others off, he looked at Su Wen, his expression turning solemn. "On behalf of Ju Zi and the others, thank you."
"You're too kind."
"There's another matter. For some reason, the Sun Moon royal house seems to be tracing Wang Shaojie's death back to you…" Xuan Ziwen deliberated for a moment, then spoke slowly.
"He wasn't a direct royal, but royal clans are a tangled web. His cousin serves under the Fourth Prince. There may be trouble. But don't worry—this is Mingde Hall. As long as you don't wander off, they can't touch you."
"…"
Su Wen's smile faded.
It wasn't that he feared the Sun Moon royals. Even a fight in Mingdu wouldn't faze him. The problem was…
Who leaked it?
Ju Zi?
She was close to Xu Tiannan. If she told Crown Prince Xu Tianran, that guy could seize the chance to stir up trouble—turn the Fourth Prince, a strong rival for the throne, against Su Wen, then come out afterward to play the peacemaker.
Ke Ke—her brain was probably walnut-sized, just like in the original.
Zi Mu wouldn't.
Wang Shaojie had already gone up in smoke and wouldn't be coming back to talk.
But there was one more person…
Su Wen's eyes narrowed.
Seems someone is tired of living.
Outwardly, he only nodded. "I understand, Teacher Xuan. I won't be going out casually these days."
"Good." Xuan Ziwen looked a bit apologetic. "Rest assured—once I've handled this, we'll study soul tools together. With you here, I think my current project will wrap up soon."
"…"
Su Wen pondered for a moment.
"Teacher Xuan, have you considered—when soul tool tech hits today's bottleneck—is there another way to raise the ceiling of soul tools? For example… metal forging."
"Metal forging?" Xuan Ziwen was surprised.
"That's right. If soul tools have hit a bottleneck, why not try strengthening the metal? Right now, in the Sun Moon Empire, most of a soul engineer's effort goes to core formations, while metal work is just glossed over. Even if you refine formations to perfection and innovate, the gains are tiny. In metal forging… there's a lot of room to improve." Su Wen said.
Xuan Ziwen looked enlightened.
He sighed. "Xiao Wen, of course I know that. The entire Sun Moon Empire knows that. But do you know? Forging metals is practically a blind spot for us. The truly great smiths on the original continent are tightly controlled by the other empires. What's left are scraps that Mingde Hall disdains, and the prices are sky-high."
"Everyone knows forged metals have higher activity—even life force. But several high-level meetings already concluded: forged metal plus core formations will indeed double the power, but the cost is too high. The time to cultivate blacksmiths would be better spent on assembly lines producing multiple soul tools of the same tier. The Sun Moon Empire today still relies on quantity, not finely honed individuals…"
Hearing this, Su Wen understood.
Most Sun Moon soul tools had developed to the point of assembly-line production. In the time it took to forge metal, they could have produced dozens of line-made soul tools.
Granted, those assembly lines were still a bit behind the factories of his past life, but the trend was close.
Another important point:
Forging consumed vast amounts of rare metals. The Sun Moon Empire might be rich in rare metals and constantly collecting them from other nations, but faced with the massive production of soul tools, supply was still tight…
"Have you never thought of trying anyway?" Su Wen pressed, smiling. "Shrek Academy has the only Divine Craftsman on the continent, and we've just opened a forging department. With the Nine Treasure Glazed Tile Sect—richest on the continent—backing us, rare metals are practically at our fingertips."
"Shrek's soul tool manufacturing is still immature. That means there will be a large surplus of rare metals to spare for experiments combining forging and soul engineering."
"The Sun Moon Empire can't afford the materials. Shrek Academy can."
"Teacher Xuan, haven't you felt even a little tempted?"
"…"
Xuan Ziwen exhaled a deep breath.
"You kid…"
His face stayed calm, but in his heart, a heat he couldn't suppress rose. When he was young, he had happened to touch on this exact topic. But, for all the reasons he had just stated, the Sun Moon Empire hadn't been able to delve deeper. The project had been forcibly terminated…
"Teacher Xuan, I created the forging department myself. I control all the resource allocation. No need to worry about being blocked from above. If you come, you can direct everything yourself."
"And… my expectations for combining forged metals with soul tools are far beyond what you imagine—something that could upend the era."
"…"
Xuan Ziwen breathed out, closed his eyes.
Gritting his teeth: "Say no more!"