Zhen Hua listened to Su Ming's method and fell into thought.
"Xiao Ming, your approach places very high technical demands. Not only must the Spirit Infusion be correct with real-time adjustments, but you also have to account for the variables of the Spirit Soul."
"Let's develop it first. Successfully completing one instance of Artificial Rare Metal might give us a different feeling. Then, looking back to improve the earlier techniques would be twice as effective. Otherwise, no matter how easily we improve the initial steps or how excellent the technique becomes, if it doesn't align with our subsequent goals, it will just be a castle in the air—pleasing to the eye but useless."
Hearing this, Zhen Hua couldn't help but nod.
That statement was correct.
He also picked a Spirit Soul Orb. The Spirit Soul inside was also made from fire elements, a fire monkey.
He almost completely controlled the fire monkey, even having a feeling like he could crush it.
Compared to Su Ming, Zhen Hua's power was undoubtedly more aggressive. The potential minor errors Su Ming mentioned might genuinely not exist in his case.
By now, Mu Ye had heated up an ordinary iron block for each of them.
"Teacher, let me try first."
Su Ming took the lead in attempting.
Then, at the critical moment of forging, it completely failed. The iron block shattered, and the Spirit Soul dissipated.
The spirituality couldn't fuse into the iron block!
This was a fatal problem.
After protecting Su Ming, Zhen Hua's first action was to gather the iron pieces and the not-yet-fully-dissipated spirituality, sensing their state.
His expression turned grave.
"As expected, there are far more problems than imagined," he said. "This Spirit Soul ultimately lacks intelligence and cannot cooperate with our intention to fuse it into the metal."
Cooperation.
It wasn't just about not moving erratically during forging; it also needed the willingness to invade and assimilate the metal's structure. Otherwise, the blacksmith simply couldn't achieve it single-handedly.
Spirituality, this thing was truly too special.
"Can we mix in the spirituality from our own Spirit Souls?"
Su Ming proposed an idea.
Hearing this, Mu Ye had something to say again.
"If that's the case, why not just strip away the characteristics of this external Spirit Soul? Or only strip away a part. That way, this Artificial Spirit Soul might survive, could be used by you again in the future, and this process could be replicated continuously. It would be equivalent to mastering the forging technique for one template—succeed once, and you can use it repeatedly from then on."
Mu Ye's words struck a chord with Su Ming.
Zhen Hua felt the same.
When they first had the idea of using Artificial Spirit Souls to create Artificial Rare Metal, they had subconsciously assumed they would fuse the entire Artificial Spirit Soul into the metal.
Because in their understanding, Artificial Spirit Souls were too weak. Like the two they just used, both were ten-year level, and their structure was inherently fragile. Without the environment provided by the Spirit Soul Orb, they would die on their own within three days.
They didn't even have the ability to sustain themselves.
Such tiny Spirit Souls were naturally disposable consumables.
But now, Mu Ye had torn open this subconscious assumption of theirs.
"Returning to the origin, our initial need was actually just for the characteristics. Using Artificial Spirit Souls for experimentation is precisely for the characteristics of the Spirit Soul."
"In that case, we should proceed step by step. Let's try using our own Spirit Souls first. While using our Spirit Souls to bestow spirituality upon common metal, also bestow characteristics. Find the method for that, then try using Artificial Spirit Souls to replace our own Spirit Souls."
Once Zhen Hua said this, Su Ming was the first to smile wryly.
"Xiao Ming, what's wrong?"
"Teacher, I just realized, bestowing characteristics upon metal... isn't that similar to bestowing heritage upon metal during Soul Refinement? Is the Artificial Rare Metal technology we envisioned actually a Sacred Blacksmith level technique?"
Zhen Hua was stunned, then nodded.
Right, of course it's a Sacred Blacksmith level technique.
"Oh right, Xiao Ming, you're only a Level Six blacksmith."
Su Ming blinked, somewhat speechless.
"You attempting Soul Refinement now is definitely impossible. The basic requirements for Soul Refinement are too high. Not only do you need to compress the entire process of Spirit Refinement and Fusion Forging, which currently takes you several hours, to under one hour, but you also then need to spend at least ten times that duration bestowing heritage upon the metal. Even with your foundation, you'd need to be at least Spirit King level to attempt it, and also have One-Word Battle Armor."
"However, you can delve into this Artificial Rare Metal, because the loss isn't as high. You can completely treat it as a warm-up for impact Soul Refinement."
As Zhen Hua spoke, he had Su Ming stay and continue participating in the subsequent research.
Simultaneously, he also recognized the core issue and switched the main research role, taking the lead position himself.
[Douluo 2]
"So, these are the forging principles of my plane."
Electrolux taught Su Ming for three days before fully explaining the forging concepts of the Shengmo Continent to him.
Su Ming held his head, indicating he couldn't digest it all in a short time.
The fundamental definitions of forging were simply different between the two sides. He was greatly impacted and needed time to slowly accept it.
"Haha, it's fine if you don't understand fully. Continue developing your own path. Whenever you encounter problems, I'll correct you."
"Thank you, Elder Yi."
Douluo 2 and Douluo 3, two eras, two Su Mings, plus two external brains, developing a brand new forging technology.
This was Su Ming's advantage, pooling the wisdom of people from different eras.
Before, he was just a pure transporter of knowledge. Now, he was slowly stepping into the field of developing new knowledge.
This was progress.
Not just Electrolux and the others, Su Ming also thought of Xuan Ziwen, and the Sword Fanatic Ji Juechen.
These were all talents he could utilize across time and space.
"Phew, it's been about half a month since we started developing this forging technique, and we're still stuck."
Infusing the spirituality and characteristics of one's own Spirit Soul into metal to complete Artificial Rare Metal? No problem, that technique had already been broken through.
But, how to next utilize external characteristics and infuse them into metal?
The Su Ming in Douluo 3 hit a bottleneck, and Zhen Hua over there also had to trial and error continuously.
The Su Ming in Douluo 2 lacked materials, so he just posed this problem and pondered it theoretically with Electrolux.
"Let's first find a batch of materials containing characteristics."
Su Ming finally left seclusion.
After leaving seclusion, seeing Su Can's message, he hurried towards Su Can's research institute.
"Grandfather, is the Blacksmith Association branch built?"
"Just waiting for you, the Branch President and Sub-Sect Leader, to take your positions."
Su Can indicated that the family had resolved all trivial matters. The Association branch was now established and began recruiting blacksmiths. Ten members had already joined the Association and passed the Su family's assessment, willing to delve deeply into forging.
The Body Sect sub-sect was also built.
It wasn't that the Su family's efficiency was high, but rather establishing a Body Sect sub-sect was simple—you just needed to gather the people.
No fixed mountain gate was needed. As long as there was a fixed gathering point, the Body Sect existed, serving as the spiritual anchor for all Body Sect disciples.
"The Body Spirit Masters your teacher took to Snow Demon Mountain for training in previous years have all been brought back by our Su family. Additionally, we've recruited some independently growing Body Martial Spirit Spirit Masters we hadn't discovered before. Altogether, there are twenty-seven people. Also, we've identified eight Shrek spies. How to deal with them is up to you."
***
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(Chapter end)