Chapter 60 Four Types of Divine Foundation Metals

Right behind Xu Yucheng was Long Chen.

His spiritual power rating stood at 485, falling just 16 points short of the 501 required for the Spirit Sea realm.

Below him were Jian Mochen and Kuang Zhantian.

Their spiritual power ratings were remarkably close, with one at 477 and the other at 476.

At nine years old, the vast majority of soul masters their age had yet to break through fifty in spiritual power.

Even among the twenty-nine students in the Zenith Class, the average spiritual power rating was only around eighty or ninety.

As for the Seven Stars of Shining Brilliance, their spiritual power was either already at the Spirit Sea realm or at the peak of the Spirit Connection realm, and they were all contemplating how long they might remain stuck at the Spirit Sea bottleneck.

Such were the troubles of geniuses! It was also thanks to the Soul-Awakening Liquid provided by the academy.

Thinking of this, Long Chen instantly swept away his inner depression, replacing it with an expression of pride and arrogance.

Beside him, Xu Zhao noticed the change in Long Chen's facial expression and couldn't help wondering what on earth the boy was thinking.

Paying no further mind to it, Xu Zhao looked at the other three beside him and asked,

"Having witnessed Long Chen's attempt, what are your takeaways?"

"My gains are quite substantial," Xu Yucheng answered first.

"My spiritual power will be able to break through to the Spirit Sea realm very soon. Once I fully digest the insights gained today, I expect the time required to break through as a Level 5 Mecha Maker can be shortened by a month or two."

"A month or two?" Xue Liushuang smiled smugly upon hearing this.

"In that case, when it comes to secondary occupation ranks, I will still break through before you do, leading you by about a month or so."

Originally, her spiritual power talent was on par with Xu Yucheng's.

However, after establishing a martial soul resonance with Weng Daimin, part of the latter's talent in the path of spiritual power was transferred to her through that resonance.

Weng Daimin's spiritual power talent was already the highest among the three of them, second only to the leader. After her martial soul evolved from the Snow Shadow to the Snow Soul Moon Shadow, her spiritual power talent had improved dramatically.

This widened the gap in spiritual power talent between Xue Liushuang and Xu Yucheng.

"Your gains are plenty, but mine are rather ordinary," Weng Daimin spoke last.

"My secondary occupation realm is still a short distance away from Level 4. This observation felt a bit like trying to view flowers in a fog or the moon reflected in the water, somewhat hazy and indistinct to me."

"I can't say I gained nothing, nor can I say I gained a lot. I might only truly understand how much I've gained once I raise my own realm."

Hearing their responses, Xu Zhao began to form a plan in his mind.

"In that case, I should probably start preparing the soulful alloys for our 1-字 battle armor."

He possessed twin martial souls: the Primordial Ancestral Dragon and Mind.

Therefore, the soulful alloy he chose was Nebula Crystal, forged by melting together Heavenly Star Iron and Cloud Copper.

Heavenly Star Iron possessed an affinity for and tolerance toward the elemental powers of the sun, moon, and stars, while Cloud Copper was characterized by its ever-changing and formless nature. The Nebula Crystal forged from these two was the most compatible soulful alloy with his twin martial souls out of all existing categories.

Xu Yucheng's martial soul was the Dark Demon Scythe, and the soulful alloy he used was Silver Crystal, forged from Demon Silver and Mithril.

Demon Silver offered a strong affinity for elemental powers, while Mithril was lightweight, highly sensitive, and capable of vastly improving soul power circulation efficiency. The Silver Crystal forged from them matched the dark attribute of the Dark Demon Scythe as well as the martial soul's high-mobility traits.

Xue Liushuang's martial soul was the Moonlight Sword, and the soulful alloy she used was Cold Crystal, forged from Crystal Steel and Cold Heart Iron.

Crystal Steel was transparent and tough, while Cold Heart Iron was a rare metal nurtured only in extremely frigid regions, possessing an exceptionally high affinity for ice attributes. The Cold Crystal forged from the two exhibited an extremely high compatibility with the Moonlight Sword.

Weng Daimin's martial soul was the Snow Soul Moon Shadow, and the soulful alloy she used was Cold Heart Copper, forged from Cold Heart Iron and Blue Pregnancy Copper.

Being another ice and moon dual-attribute martial soul, Cold Heart Iron suited Weng Daimin equally well, while the unique soul power amplification property of Blue Pregnancy Copper made it a versatile choice.

The Cold Heart Copper forged from both was also the alloy type among soulful alloys that best matched the Snow Soul Moon Shadow martial soul.

Nebula Crystal, Silver Crystal, Cold Crystal, and Cold Heart Copper—if these four soulful alloys only needed a compatibility rate between ninety and ninety-five percent, then the quantity Xu Zhao had already forged would be sufficient.

However, such a compatibility rate could not satisfy his ambitions.

His goal was divine-grade metal with a fusion degree as high as ninety-five percent, capable of accommodating a full seven additional metals in the future to make a total of nine.

Yet even for him, the current success rate of forging such metal was less than one percent, relying largely on luck.

Fortunately, given his family background, he was not short on money.

Therefore, gathering a sufficient quantity of Nebula Crystal, Silver Crystal, Cold Crystal, and Cold Heart Copper as divine-grade metals simply required him to increase the number of attempts at forging these four soulful alloys.

He would use money and sheer repetition to make up for the extremely low success rate of divine-grade metals, thereby gathering enough of them to craft his battle armor.

"It's just that to gather such a large quantity of divine-grade metals, I'm going to be very busy for quite some time!" Xu Zhao sighed inwardly.

Yet who could blame him? Crafting battle armor using an entire set of divine-grade metals was his own idea.

As the sole blacksmith in the team, this heavy task naturally fell entirely upon his shoulders.

If not for the fact that battle armor, being closely linked to a soul master's bloodline, required the soul master's personal participation, and that the manufacturing team needed to be of similar age, Xu Zhao could easily have handed the task of forging these four divine-grade metals over to his teacher, the Divine Craftsman Zhen Hua.

"Sigh, hardships will come to an end, and once I get through this period, everything will be fine."

...

Thus, during the first semester of the intermediate department's first year, Xu Zhao dedicated almost all of his spare time to forging. His diligence greatly gratified his teacher, Zhen Hua.

The master assumed that his disciple had finally seen the light and was willing to put genuine effort into the path of blacksmithing, unlike before, when he would stop spending time on forging the moment his daily tasks were completed.

As the only Divine Craftsman on the continent at the time, Zhen Hua eagerly wished that his disciple could take over his position as soon as possible.

That way, he wouldn't have to suffer from daily headaches upon seeing the mountain of Heavenly Forging orders piled up on his desk.

Although he could stall on the vast majority of these orders indefinitely, there were some that required him to deliver on schedule—namely, the Heavenly Forging orders from the Federal authorities.

Only by completing this portion of the orders could he maintain his lofty, unshakeable status as a Divine Craftsman within the Federation.

Xu Zhao remained unaware of his teacher's thoughts, as he only wished to gather enough divine-grade metals as quickly as possible so he could escape this miserable routine.

Month by month passed.

Xu Zhao's blacksmithing skills advanced by leaps and bounds amidst the costly and frantic forging sessions.

His success rate in forging soulful alloys with a fusion degree exceeding ninety percent had steadily climbed from his previous fifty percent up to a remarkable seventy percent.

His realm as a blacksmith was also steadily closing in on Level 6.