Having just heard that the locust tree cores in Mingdu were bought up, and then seeing a teacher from the Sun Moon Imperial Soul Tool Academy preparing to go into seclusion, Lin Xiao couldn't help but wonder.
However, he didn't sense any evil soul master aura from that teacher, leaving him unsure whether his suspicions were off or if the teacher had another purpose for acquiring the locust tree cores.
The soul tool testing area was divided into two parts: the arena and the testing rooms. The arena was mostly for combat control soul engineers to spar, with some other soul engineers occasionally testing their soul tools in real combat.
The actual testing area consisted of large, isolated rooms separated by walls.
Soul tools under testing could be unpredictable in power and might accidentally harm nearby people, so the walls prevented injuries and protected against others spying. After all, no soul engineer wanted their experimental ideas stolen.
Lin Xiao entered the testing area, closed the door, and glanced at the pile of materials on the table.
Since acquiring his sixth soul ring, he had spent most of his days here. Becoming a Level 3 soul engineer only required independently crafting a single Level 3 soul tool, but to progress further, one couldn't rely on making just one type of soul tool.
Lin Xiao casually picked up a piece of metal from the table, then set it back down, pulling out the storage soul tool Shangguan Qing had given him.
Inside was a porcelain bottle, undoubtedly containing the famous Mysterious Water Pill. As soon as he opened it, a faint medicinal fragrance wafted out. Though it was made with the blood essence of numerous water-attribute soul beasts, there was no trace of a bloody smell—only a pleasant herbal scent.
The bottle held a deep blue pill the size of a cherry, adorned with intricate white patterns of varying shades. Over time, a faint mist formed at the bottle's opening.
It was indeed a fine item. Even though Lin Xiao wasn't an expert in pills, he could tell from its appearance alone that it was extraordinary.
As for the other items, there were about a dozen bluish metal ingots and some irregularly shaped ores, likely sourced by Shangguan Qing from who-knows-where.
Lin Xiao weighed the metal ingots in his hand, shaking his head with a hint of regret.
He hadn't wanted the locust tree cores for crafting soul tools but to serve as a vessel for the soul he controlled. Sometimes, he needed that soul to act outside on his behalf, but with many soul masters in the Holy Spirit Sect capable of interacting with souls, he had to find a way to conceal it.
These metals could substitute for locust tree cores in crafting soul tools, but they couldn't house a soul.
Oh well, they're still metals. Might as well feed them to my left arm bone.
Placing the metal ingots on the table, Lin Xiao pressed his left hand down, a faint metallic sheen already emanating from his arm. But in the next moment, he stopped.
His gaze swept over the materials, and he picked out a few more.
Since they were going to be fed to his soul bone anyway, he might as well use them to test his "alloy" experiment. Even if it failed, the materials wouldn't go to waste, and it would help rule out a flawed approach.
Smelting, forging, casting… these tasks, seemingly suited for blacksmiths, were also part of crafting soul tools. Except for rare, naturally pure materials, most metals required this process before becoming soul tools. Only through repeated refinement could a metal's full potential be unleashed.
In Lin Xiao's previous world, such work had environmental requirements, as impurities could easily mix in if one wasn't careful. But here, with soul power, those issues could be avoided entirely. And with mental strength, one could monitor the metal's changes at all times.
Though Lin Xiao's alloy experiment differed slightly from other soul engineers' forging processes, with his control over soul power and mental strength, the task felt somewhat monotonous. His hands repeated the process mechanically, while his thoughts wandered elsewhere.
In truth, whether in the three great empires or the technologically advanced Sun Moon Empire, soul tools could never develop as rapidly as the industries in Lin Xiao's memories. One major reason was that some parts of the soul tool crafting process were too primitive.
Simple tasks like this required soul engineers to do them by hand. A complete soul tool had countless parts and required numerous metals. Even in the research and experimentation phase, forging metals alone consumed significant time.
Perhaps he could create a soul tool specifically for refining metals, like in his memories. It might not have the "spirit" of a soul engineer's hand-crafted work, but for mass-producing low- to mid-level soul tools, it would be more than sufficient.
As Lin Xiao entertained the idea of a soul tool for crafting soul tools, the mental strength he was using to monitor the metal suddenly dropped sharply.
His hands paused instinctively, and he snapped back to attention.
The two metals he had been smelting had completely fused, retaining a hint of their original bluish hue. The blue now shimmered like stars evenly distributed across the ingot.
Lin Xiao was momentarily stunned but quickly realized that what he had failed to achieve countless times had somehow succeeded in this careless moment.
Upon closer inspection, he discovered his mental strength hadn't vanished—it had merged into the metal. Or rather, this new "alloy," formed from the fusion of two metals, had the unique property of transmitting a soul master's mental strength.
Ideas flooded his mind instantly.
Soul engineers relied heavily on mental strength to control soul tools, especially long-range ones, which could even adjust attack direction and angle through mental strength. Thus, soul tools often included arrays specifically for transmitting mental strength.
But now, if this metal could be integrated into soul tools, it could eliminate the need for many of those arrays.
This was just the simplest application. In the hands of a Level 9 soul engineer, its potential would be far greater.
What had started as a simple idea, after countless failures, had led Lin Xiao to nearly abandon hope. He had treated it as mere preparation for feeding his left arm bone, like seasoning a dish.
Yet now that his idea had come to fruition, and a new material had been born from his hands, he was momentarily unsure how to proceed.
Keep it for himself? Trade it for cultivation resources? Or hand it over to someone else…?
Lin Xiao stored the starry metal ingot and returned to the table. He needed to think carefully.
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