"Look quickly, there is an extremely powerful soul power fluctuation inside Shrek City!"
Those outside the city were instantly shaken by the overwhelming surge of soul power. From their perspective, they first sensed a burst of spiritual power erupting from within the city, followed by dark clouds rapidly gathering overhead.
Just as people were filled with confusion, a massive blue net,shimmering like starlight,appeared high in the sky. It descended from above, covering everything. Instantly, the oppressive black clouds dissipated, and the sky returned to clarity.
Before anyone could even react, a soul power fluctuation so strong they did not dare face it directly exploded from within Shrek City.
"That… that definitely isn't the oppressive aura of a rank-nine soul tool!"
A white-haired intellectual, fully equipped with devices to conceal his presence, stared wide-eyed. He had only ever felt such power from an experimental, top-secret soul tool that wasn't even completed,yet the fluctuation coming from Shrek was even stronger!
"Impossible! It makes no sense! Absolutely no sense! He's only eighteen!"
The white-haired man had originally intended to secretly gather some intelligence. Now he seemed nearly deranged. A faint pulse flickered from the jade ornament on his chest, helping him regain composure.
But the shock in his heart refused to subside. He would rather believe Shrek Academy suddenly produced a rank-nine soul engineer than accept the idea that this super soul tool activation ceremony was orchestrated entirely by that young man.
Inside his personal laboratory in Mingde Hall, he had a room dedicated solely to that young man's creations,custom-made soul tools from his earlier days and later the combat-soul apparatuses. Every time he passed by, he couldn't help but stop and admire them.
The elegance of the minimalist mechanical design, the refined soul power circuitry,he found them truly captivating.
He had once led Mingde Hall in petitioning the empire: they had to capture this young man alive and bring him to the Sun–Moon Empire. Alive was mandatory. His death would be a loss to the entire world of soul toolcraft.
But regardless of the emperor's intentions, the young man named Chen Fu never left the city, and all spies sent to the Lin Pavilion vanished without a trace.
Now, Jing Hongchen finally understood. The two openly displayed Limit Douluo auras inside Shrek City seemed to mock him blatantly: "Go ahead, send more if you dare!"
Watching the rising blue radiance from Shrek, Jing Hongchen's feelings were tangled. Part of him wanted the young man to fail through carelessness. Another part desperately hoped he would succeed.
For mortals to forge a divine artifact,that was the dream Mingde Hall had pursued for generations. If this young man succeeded, it would prove that the path was real.
Meanwhile, unlike the conflicted Imperial Soul Tool Academy dean, the elders surrounding Sea God Lake were ecstatic. With the ceremony progressing perfectly according to the blueprints, the possibility of advancing their cultivation felt almost within reach.
Compared to the excited Titled Douluo elders, the more than one hundred staff and students of the Soul Tool Academy were completely consumed by frenzy.
Chen Fu communicated with people in only two ways: either he said nothing, or he said the truth directly. Although he never explicitly stated that the soul tool's core purpose was to create gods, he had hinted enough for them to imagine the possibility.
Worried about leaks? Impossible. Not only had Youlan sealed the entire city, but the constant rotation of Douluo Pavilion elders guarding the installation sites made the situation's severity obvious.
To the academy's teachers and students, the two months spent working alongside Chen Fu were priceless. Through the communication support of the second-generation combat-soul apparatus, Chen Fu could answer everyone's questions simultaneously.
And to motivate better work, he taught them many of his core beliefs: not to blindly trust authority, not to follow trends without thinking, to research things meaningful to the world, the importance of energy, and the philosophy of "raising people through tools."
Though he did not teach them real advanced technology, he did instill in them the foundational mindset of a responsible researcher,one who explores the unknown and shoulders social responsibility.
Teaching people how to think is better than giving them the final results. Chen Fu hoped they would eventually walk a path different from his own, allowing mutual validation.
"Yuhao, did you see that net? It's a byproduct of the combat-soul apparatus."
Tianmeng's voice snapped Huo Yuhao from his trance as he stared up at the sky. Overuse of the apparatus caused mental fatigue,this had become common knowledge.
"I see it… Teacher Ning Tian's database has records about this. The soul core consumes a soul master's spiritual power to exchange for knowledge from the database. It's a mutually agreed trade, but I didn't expect Teacher Chen Fu to take it this far…" The elegance of soul tools deeply fascinated Huo Yuhao.
[All Ascension modules functioning normally. Activation at 100%. Auxiliary modules on standby.]
Buried deep under soil and water, the high-precision conduits activated as the internal Ark energy cores lit up. Streams of concentrated soul power raced along the conduits, the dense flow generating a soul power siphon effect. Wisps of soul power floated through the air, flowing along the conduits, drawing a futuristic multi-layered ring pattern over Sea God Lake.
Mu En silently watched the fully activated, spirit-fluid-like key in Chen Fu's hand,Zhe Fan. He no longer knew what to say.
From the day he met the young man, Mu En had already concluded: he was shamelessly cunning. Of all things he could obsess over, he obsessed over locks.
Whenever you thought you had him cornered, he would reveal another hidden card, leaving you with nothing but a mess to clean up.
Mu En even began to question whether the Shrek-forged Chiri,built strictly according to traditional soul tool craftsmanship,was actually proof that the so-called lockless first-generation Ark, which used microstructure technology and layered wiring from the start, was actually itself a kind of lock.
How could someone be this devious?
"Mu Lao, you are the executor of the Ascension Project. Please avoid unnecessary distractions."
After Youlan took control of the Ascension system through the golden giant tree, the four third-generation experimental energy cores,Nuclear Arks,placed inside Youlan's divine ring began to burn one by one. Vast soul power poured continuously into Youlan. The usually unseen module, Overwrite, operated at full power to increase Youlan's control over reality.
Each Nuclear Ark could only burn for one minute.
"Understood."
According to the plan, Mu En sat cross-legged on the wide metal soul tool platform built at the former location of the Sea God Pavilion. This position was at the center of the circular conduits, allowing every high-energy particle on the rings to strike the target at the exact same moment.
As for the original Sea God Pavilion building, it had been relocated overnight by Gluttonous Douluo and the others under Ming Feng Douluo,without waiting for Mu En's opinion.
As Xuanzi said: "I've invested too much into this already. Forget moving a building,if we needed to drain Sea God Lake dry, we'd drain it."
Mu En remained silent. The sunk cost was simply too high…
The temptation of the Ascension Project had driven nearly all informed Titled Douluo into madness.
No one had become a god in tens of thousands of years… They had endured the darkness quietly all this time. Why must hope appear now?
Do not disappoint us, young man.
I never disappoint.
Hum,!
Massive soul power began to rotate around Sea God Lake.
In a burst of white light, Mu En cast one last glance at the young man. In his eyes there was always the same unchanging confidence and calm.
Just like when he once overclocked his brain to calculate the Cold Nuclear Equation even at the brink of death.
Even when computers could not function.
Even when all experimental data had been rendered useless.
I will still succeed.Because I have lost everything,
I will obtain what I deserve.
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