Douluo: Emerald Poison Emperor-Chapter 214: Douluo: Emerald Poison Emperor []

Looking at the small silver metal slime that had transformed into a bracelet, Lou Gao's heart was filled with mixed emotions. It felt as if an old father had just witnessed his once-obedient daughter running off with a delinquent. When Lou Gao's fingers touched the metal slime in its bracelet form, and Xiao Yin instinctively emitted a wary reaction, this feeling reached its peak in Lou Gao's heart.

Lou Gao remained silent for a long, long time, before finally showing a strange expression. He sighed helplessly, then smiled faintly.

"It seems that this living, spiritual metal is no longer just a lifeless material. It can even choose its own master. With the abilities of the Hall Master, I'm sure my craftsmanship won't go to waste, will it?"

"It definitely won't disappoint Elder Lou," Chen Ming replied, stroking the silver bracelet on his right wrist.

...

Over the next half month, Chen Ming stayed in the blacksmithing city of Gengxin City, discussing the future of forging techniques with Lou Gao, sharing his insights into the laws of the world, and even helping Lou Gao improve his health using life energy.

While people outside assumed Lou Gao hadn't appeared in public for the past half month because he was nearing the end of his life, the truth was that Lou Gao was enthusiastically hammering away at the forge. Meanwhile, Chen Ming assisted by controlling the flames in the furnace, sensing changes in the metals, and informing Lou Gao accordingly.

One month after arriving in Gengxin City, Lou Gao successfully forged his first soul-forging-level product: a wrist guard. The main material was the Geocore Flame Crystal provided by Chen Ming, supplemented with various special metals.

Although the wrist guard's primary attribute was fire, Chen Ming requested Lou Gao to dye it green and embed a seemingly useless green gem in it. Chen Ming named it the Green Gem Wrist Guard.

Despite its green appearance, and its ability to enhance physical strength, the wrist guard's main function was still to amplify fire element power.

When fully activated, the wrist guard would undergo a unique transformation, enveloping Chen Ming's hand and forearm in blazing flames. In this state, Chen Ming referred to it as the Flame Fist Form.

Truth be told, by future standards, the materials used for the Green Gem Wrist Guard were already sufficient to create battle armor. However, while the materials were up to par, true battle armor required elements of soul tools to function perfectly. Only by combining both could genuine battle armor be forged.

To Lou Gao, the Green Gem Wrist Guard was already an exceptional creation. It could merge with a soul master's body and life force, grow like an external soul bone, and eventually rival even the martial souls of Titled Douluo in strength.

However, in Chen Ming's eyes, it still fell far short of the future's battle armor standards.

Forging in this manner, even if a full suit of armor were created, its amplification effect would only barely reach the level of a one-word battle armor from the future. This meant it didn't fully utilize the potential of the materials. For Chen Ming, the wrist guard offered some improvements, but nothing extraordinary.

During this time, Chen Ming and Lou Gao also used Xiao Yin as the core to create a special belt. Under Chen Ming's control, Xiao Yin could temporarily house a soul bone and partially activate its abilities.

For example, the head soul bone Chen Ming had obtained from slaying the Man-Faced Demon Spider had the ability Concealment, a skill that only appeared in ten-thousand-year-old spiders. When Xiao Yin housed the soul bone, it could activate about 30-40% of its power. This allowed Chen Ming to suppress his aura, but it couldn't achieve the near-physical invisibility of the Man-Faced Demon Spider.

However, if the head soul bone was replaced with a spirit bone from another body part, or if the skill was offensive rather than functional, Xiao Yin's current state couldn't activate the spirit skill at all.

This could be considered a soul tool since it incorporated some array-like structures. However, Chen Ming had no idea how it would be classified by soul tool standards. He suspected that a true soul tool expert might scold him for wasting such precious materials.

After all, soul-forged metals were considered top-tier materials for crafting three-word battle armor even 20,000–30,000 years into the future. Thankfully, Xiao Yin had properties similar to liquid memory metal. When better techniques were available, it could be reassembled without worrying about wasting such valuable materials.

Over a month, Chen Ming didn't just assist Lou Gao but also learned some forging techniques himself. He even practiced the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer, a skill praised to the skies in the original works.

However, after personal experience, Chen Ming found the technique decent for forging and appreciated its unique power-stacking method, but it was far less effective in combat.

After all, fighting wasn't the same as forging. Metal obediently stayed in the furnace, allowing the hammer strikes to stack power, but how could a person stand still and let you hit them repeatedly?

Theoretically, the Disorder Splitting Wind Hammer's Nine-Nine-to-One strike would be devastating. But in practice, even stacking power during forging was challenging, let alone using it in combat. It was fine for crafting, but not for fighting. If anyone managed to get hit by the final strike of the Nine-Nine-to-One technique in a duel, Chen Ming would find it hilarious.

Despite the short time he spent learning, Chen Ming's exceptional control and learning abilities allowed him to make rapid progress. In just one month, he surpassed Lou Gao's disciples and reached a level close to what this era considered a master craftsman.

Compared to legends like Tai Tan and Tang Hao, Chen Ming lacked only experience in forging.

When it came to higher-level techniques like spirit forging, Chen Ming could achieve them due to his unique abilities, but such creations wouldn't feel like authentic works of a blacksmith. They'd be more like forced fabrications, still far from true battle armor. Even Lou Gao found it difficult to evaluate Chen Ming's current forging skills.

Chen Ming himself estimated that with his talents and current strength if he focused entirely on forging, he could become a true divine craftsman within ten—no, five years. At that level, every creation of his would trigger heavenly tribulations, achieving heavenly refinement.

But as always, Chen Ming emphasized practicality. Five years was far too long for him. If he focused on improving his strength first, he could likely achieve divine craftsman status in just a few months.

While helping Lou Gao recover, Chen Ming inquired about his research on soul tools. Although he didn't expect much, Lou Gao's response still disappointed him.

In this era, soul tool technology on the Douluo Continent had truly been lost.

It was said that a thousand years ago, several families specialized in storage soul tools. However, during times of chaos, these families were destroyed, leaving only a few descendants. The knowledge of soul tools had essentially died with them.

In recent centuries, some people tried to recover soul tool knowledge through archaeology. Their efforts weren't very successful, and they only managed to rediscover basic maintenance techniques.

Most of the soul tools seen at auctions nowadays were merely refurbished antiques. Beneath their shiny exteriors, they were all ancient relics dug up from underground.

The Blacksmith City had collected some fragmented knowledge about soul tools, but it was extremely incomplete, mostly derived from disassembling soul tools for rare materials.

When Chen Ming asked if there was any information on offensive soul tools like soul ray guns, Lou Gao was completely baffled. It was the first time he'd even heard such a strange term.

To the people of the Douluo Continent, soul tools simply meant storage tools. They had no idea soul tools could serve other purposes.

After hearing this, Chen Ming gave up and decided to visit the future Sun Moon Continent, where he could gather soul tool techniques or recruit soul engineers to continue his research into battle armor.

He borrowed an underground chamber from Lou Gao and began preparing for his journey to the Sun Moon Continent.

Inside the lead-lined chamber, Chen Ming lit an oil lamp and retrieved the Blue Silver Emperor from his storage soul tool.

The moment it was taken out, the Blue Silver Emperor skillfully wrapped its leaves around Chen Ming's wrist, rubbing against his palm to beg for life energy.

Although Chen Ming had only taken it out occasionally during this time to feed it soul power and life energy, without planting it in soil or giving it water and fertilizer, the Blue Silver Emperor was in better condition than when it had been left in the cave.

Its leaves, originally about ten centimeters long, had doubled in length due to Chen Ming's care. The golden threads on its leaves had grown thicker, and its once fragile and dormant core had regained some vitality.

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PS: Damn, is this NTR? lol