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"Young Master Chu!"
Seeing Chu Chengzhou's arrival, Ma Jake stood up to greet him.
"Old Ma, how's the optimization of the Thousand-Refined Battle Armor's soul guidance arrays going?"
Chu Chengzhou asked with a smile.
"Not ideal. There's been some progress, but the optimization isn't significant."
Ma Jake shook his head.
Battle armor had just entered the world, and unlike Chu Chengzhou who could cheat, Ma Jake couldn't dramatically optimize the Battle Armor's compatible soul guidance arrays in such a short time.
"The Thousand-Refined Battle Armor's soul guidance arrays don't need further optimization. Here's the textbook—you can study it slowly!"
"Oh, and here's the metal forging secret technique. It covers everything from Thousand-Refined to Heaven-Refined levels. You can learn it when you have time."
As he spoke, Chu Chengzhou handed Ma Jake the Creation Hammer secret technique and the "deluxe version" Thousand-Refined Battle Armor manufacturing methods he had written earlier.
One thousand nine hundred ninety-eight days later—precisely speaking, one thousand nine hundred ninety-seven and a half days—he would master the Chaos Law and ascend to the Chaos God position. It was time to teach the metal forging and Battle Armor manufacturing techniques to his own people.
In any case, even if outsiders accidentally learned them, they couldn't possibly threaten him.
The Heaven-Refining Divine Craftsman was unique in the current era—which meant that before he left the Douluo Star, no matter how skilled other forging masters on the continent became, they couldn't forge Heaven-Refined metal.
Without Heaven-Refined metal, Four-Word Battle Armor couldn't be manufactured.
As for after he became a god and left the Douluo Continent?
Even Level 99 Limit Douluos wearing Heaven-Refined Four-Word Battle Armor would be nothing more than slightly larger ants before divine power.
Of course, not just Ma Jake—his father-in-law Ning Fengzhi could learn them too.
Hmm, having such a good son-in-law—the Ning family must have accumulated considerable virtue in their ancestors.
"Wait—you've already completed the optimization of the Thousand-Refined Battle Armor's soul guidance arrays?"
Ma Jake's eyes widened as he looked at Chu Chengzhou in disbelief.
If he remembered correctly, Chu Chengzhou had only heard about soul guidance arrays before—he'd never even practiced them! How could you possibly be better than me?
"Mhm mhm, I've written everything on paper!"
"Old Ma, you must admit your boss is a genius. And geniuses—we can do what ordinary people can't, know what ordinary people don't know—doesn't that just come with the territory?"
Patting Ma Jake's shoulder, Chu Chengzhou said calmly.
Whether I'm talking nonsense or not—you just believe me!
Opening his mouth several times, Ma Jake found himself unable to speak. Perhaps although he lived in the same world as Chu Chengzhou, they weren't actually in the same world?
Without paying Ma Jake any mind, Chu Chengzhou entered the rare metals warehouse in the small courtyard.
Having reached the peerless realm and possessing Chaos soul power, his current strength was nearly at its peak before godhood. After all, even million-year soul bones and soul rings couldn't cause another qualitative leap in his strength.
Of course, there was still a gap—but it was more about potential than immediate combat power.
Thus, it was time to forge the strongest nine-element Heaven-Refined metal, preparing to craft the most powerful Heaven-Refined Battle Armor later.
Nine was the ultimate number—soul power attributes followed this rule. Presumably, at most nine different metals could be fused during forging, and at most nine elemental attributes could participate in metal Heaven-Refining.
"Eh~, what if during Heaven-Refining I only inject Chaos soul power into the metal?"
Suddenly, this thought flashed through Chu Chengzhou's mind.
If only Chaos attribute was injected during metal Heaven-Refining—the attribute count would be singular. Would it fail to attract the elemental lightning tribulation for baptism, unable to complete Heaven-Refining? Or would it trigger eleven layers of elemental tribulation lightning? Or perhaps the ultimate nine layers of tribulation lightning?
Shaking his head, not overthinking it, Chu Chengzhou began selecting rare metals from the warehouse.
After a full circuit, Chu Chengzhou couldn't help but frown.
Possessing Chaos power, he naturally wanted to use nine different attribute rare metals for Heaven-Refining.
The rare metals in his warehouse were all the stock from the Seven Treasures Merchants Association headquarters in Tian Dou City long ago. But among the eleven basic elemental attributes, he only found seven: metal, fire, earth, light, darkness, wind, and lightning. He lacked water, wood, time, and space attribute metals. Even for nine-metal fusion forging, he was still missing two attributes.
Moreover, the wind-attribute Wind Spirit Iron and lightning-attribute Mysterious Lightning Gold were extremely scarce—only small samples remained.
'For water-attribute metal, I could probably substitute Deep Silver. After all, Deep Silver's original name is Deep Sea Sunken Silver—it's strongly related to water, right? As for the ninth metal... never mind, I'll check at the Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect.'
Rubbing his chin, Chu Chengzhou thought to himself.
Of course, nine-metal fusion forging didn't necessarily require nine rare metals with completely different elemental attributes. Nine rare metals with some repeating elemental attributes but different types could certainly be fused together.
But doing so would make it difficult for him to forge high-performance Heaven-Refined metal.
The principle had some commonality—if he could perfectly fuse nine-element soul power, then when fusing nine rare metals with different elemental attributes, if the fusion ratios were unreasonable, he would surely detect it. He could then increase or decrease one or multiple metals to create an alloy with the most powerful performance according to usage requirements.
Just like iron plus carbon equals steel—but even among steels, good steel can forge precious swords and blades, while scrap steel can only make hoes. And if the quality is too poor—shattering on impact—it wouldn't even be worthy of being made into hoes.
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Seven Treasures Glazed Tile Sect.
"No visit without reason to the Seven Treasures Hall. Speak—young man, what business brings you to me this time?"
Ning Fengzhi asked the suddenly appearing Chu Chengzhou.
"Tsk~, we're father-in-law and son-in-law. That kind of talk feels too distant."
"Come off it—you wouldn't visit me without reason!"
Ning Fengzhi said unhappily.
"Fine, since you put it that way, I won't give you this good stuff. I'll just leave."
As he spoke, Chu Chengzhou made a show of leaving.
"Come back! What good stuff is it?"
Ning Fengzhi hurriedly pulled Chu Chengzhou back, pressing for details.
"Who am I to you?"
Chu Chengzhou countered.
"Haha... my virtuous son-in-law! Sit, don't be polite! Someone, serve tea!"
"You're so calculating~"
"What kind of talk is that—we're father-in-law and son-in-law!"
Ning Fengzhi stated with righteous words.
Chu Chengzhou: "..."
Rolling his eyes, Chu Chengzhou handed Ning Fengzhi the Creation Hammer secret technique and Thousand-Refined Battle Armor manufacturing methods he had rewritten before coming.
"Hmm? You're willing to give me the complete metal forging secret technique? Oh, and what is this Battle Armor thing?"
After a brief perusal, Ning Fengzhi asked in surprise.
"I am already invincible under heaven. A mere blacksmithing technique isn't worth much."
Waving his hand, Chu Chengzhou's face radiated confidence as he continued: "As for Battle Armor—it's a special soul guidance device that can turn weaklings into experts and make experts even stronger."
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