Eastsea City Blacksmith Association.
Arthur hammered away at the forge, wondering whether he could now channel his intuition into producing a Spirit Forged piece.
"Bang!"
That wasn't the sound of a hammer, though. It was a door being kicked open.
"Arthur! Did you go to the Glorybound Blacksmith Association?" Mu Chen strode in, his expression anxious.
Sparks scattered across the back of Arthur's hand. He yanked the hammer back.
"Oh, I felt like I was close to a breakthrough, so I went there to practice for a bit."
"A breakthrough?" Mu Chen straightened up sharply. "Thousand Refinement?"
"No, Spirit Forged."
Mu Chen slapped his thigh, his excitement deflating into exasperated amusement. "You could already Spirit Forge ages ago."
"What on earth did you go all the way there for? And now look at the mess." He pulled out his soul communicator, which hadn't stopped buzzing. "This thing's been going off nonstop. It's about to explode."
The business about forging through intuition wasn't something Arthur could easily explain to others, so he said nothing about it.
"Is it Master Zhen Hua?" Arthur asked. He'd accepted the man's Heaven Refined metal, so calling him "Master" seemed like the least he could do.
"Who are you calling what?" Mu Chen's face darkened. "I'm your master."
"It's just a title," Arthur said, holding out the Heaven Refined metal as a peace offering. "Look, we came out way ahead."
"If it bothers you, I won't call him that."
"Now that you mention it..." Mu Chen's expression shifted instantly, the irritation vanishing without a trace. He clapped Arthur on the shoulder. "I know you better than that."
The essential adult skill: changing faces on demand.
"Even if that old man is a Divine Smith, you definitely wouldn't be moved by the title alone."
"Call him Master? Why wouldn't you? Call him that all you like. Keep calling him Master and get more of that good stuff out of him."
"Work him to death!"
Every Heaven Refinement took an enormous toll. Without sufficient cultivation, no one could withstand it. The greatest bottleneck standing between Mu Chen and Divine Smith was exactly that: his cultivation wasn't high enough.
Zhen Hua could barely hold on himself, and even he was beginning to falter. His qi and blood were on the decline.
In the present age, Heaven Refined metals were being depleted with every piece used. Once gone, they were gone.
That was precisely why both Mu Chen and Zhen Hua regarded Arthur as something precious.
The talent he'd shown wasn't just enough to say he would certainly become a Divine Smith. His cultivation potential pointed toward the absolute limit as well.
A Divine Smith at Limit Douluo cultivation? He could Heaven Refine however and whenever he pleased.
When it came to the toll of Heaven Refinement, Mu Chen had watched Arthur grow up and knew exactly how terrifying the boy's abilities as a soul master were.
Zhen Hua hadn't seen Arthur's soul master talent firsthand, but he knew Mu Ye. And anyone who could get Mu Ye to take them as a disciple, compelling that old friend of his to cut contact for a stretch of time, had to be extraordinary indeed.
Mu Chen switched off his buzzing communicator entirely. The world went blissfully quiet.
He laughed with obvious satisfaction. "Since that old man already knows, there's no point hiding it anymore."
"I'm entering you in this year's Sea Heaven Alliance Grand Tournament on behalf of our Eastsea Blacksmith Association. The forging competition."
"Ha! A nine-year-old Spirit Forger. That'll give them all a heart attack!"
"Nobody there can beat you anyway. It doesn't matter how perfect your forging is technically. The whole point is to show off, so show off however you like."
Arthur laughed right along with his teacher. "Leave it to me."
"I can't speak for everything else, but when it comes to showing off..." He caught himself. "I mean demonstrating technical brilliance, there's absolutely nothing to worry about."
"We'll make them cry!"
"Exactly! That's the spirit! Ha!"
Both of them stood with their hands on their hips, laughter echoing through the forging room.
Mu Xi, who had been about to walk through the door, froze in the hallway.
She had come to ask Arthur whether he'd be joining her for the forging competition at the Sea Heaven Alliance Grand Tournament, and to spend a bit of time with him while she was at it.
Now she found she had no desire to go in.
Those two were absolutely insufferable.
And yet they happened to be the two most important people in her world.
How embarrassing.
---
In the weeks that followed, everyone threw themselves into training, pushing themselves harder, hoping to show their very best at the Sea Heaven Alliance Grand Tournament.
Arthur approached things differently. He spent most of his time thinking about how to display every facet of himself as smoothly and impressively as possible.
He couldn't help it. He happened to be exceptional in every area.
There would be quite a crowd watching, after all.
Showing off, it turned out, was its own kind of art form.
And Shrek Academy would be there this time.
A perfect opportunity to give them a genuine shock, the kind only a true monster could deliver.
Though he couldn't go too far. Getting the Holy Spirit Cult worked up into a panic would be inconvenient.
What a headache.
---
Inside Class Zero, Teacher Wu Zhangxi finished going over what the students needed to keep in mind for the tournament, then added at the end, "Arthur, Tang Wulin. The academy told me the Blacksmith Association invited you both to compete in the forging division of the Sea Heaven Alliance Grand Tournament. Is that right?"
"That's right," Arthur and Tang Wulin answered in unison.
Arthur could forge?
The rest of the class turned to stare. They'd known about Tang Wulin for a while. But Arthur, too?
Gu Yue's expression remained composed, as though she'd already known. And one really ought not to underestimate her information network. The fact that Arthur could forge was too minor to even warrant an entry in her observation journal.
Na'er, on the other hand, was genuinely surprised. She had never collected information on Arthur in secret, and she never would.
"I checked the schedule," Wu Zhangxi continued. "The forging competition doesn't overlap with our own matches. There's no conflict."
"Oh," Tang Wulin said, then immediately got to what he actually cared about. "Teacher Wu, does the competition have prize money?"
Wu Zhangxi glanced at him. "There's prize money for top sixteen in the team event and top thirty-two in the individual event."
"Your meal allowance already rivals the entire intermediate division combined. And you want extra on top of that?"
In fact, Tang Wulin's appetite had been tapering off recently, and everyone had noticed the savings piling up.
Tang Wulin stuck out his tongue.
He couldn't help it. Growing up without money had left its mark, and being tight with money wasn't something he could just unlearn. Even if the prize was a single coin, he wanted it.
"Teacher Wu, can I also enter the individual event?" he ventured. "What if I made it to the top thirty-two?"
The hardships he'd endured because of poverty were things he would never forget.
"Do whatever you like," Wu Zhangxi said flatly.
"Then I'm signing up. Nothing to lose. You never know," Tang Wulin said with quiet determination, confident in his own strength. Ever since he woke up after that strange episode, whatever had been there before, the old Tang's presence and the Golden Dragon King's power alike, had all gone silent.
But Tang Wulin felt better than he ever had. Freer than he could remember being.
It was as though countless invisible chains had once bound him, and now every last one of them had fallen away.
He could feel his Blue Silver Grass spirit soul growing at a startling pace, strengthening by the moment.
His soul power was rising just as quickly, at a speed more reminiscent of recovering spent power than actual cultivation. It had slowed somewhat recently, but he was approaching level twenty, and even at this reduced pace he was advancing far faster than he ever had before.
By then, with two thousand-year soul rings, he felt confident he could place well.
After this stretch of time in Class Zero, with Wu Zhangxi's guidance, Tang Wulin was no longer the complete novice he'd once been.
Thinking back to the first time he had seen the Golden Dragon King's seal, and the way his Blue Silver Grass had withered so listlessly against it, he was beginning to understand.