The luminous figure said nothing more: "I can only tell you the method; how you carry it out is up to you."
Before Tang Wulin could ask another question, the surroundings began to warp and twist.
After a spell of dizzying vertigo, he jolted awake, his entire body soaked through with cold sweat.
"Tang Wulin, what's wrong?" Xie Xie, who had long since shed his former aloofness, had been keeping a close eye on Tang Wulin even while deep in conversation with Yun Xiao and Zhou Zhangxi. He noticed immediately that Tang Wulin had broken out of meditation. "Did we disturb you?"
Tang Wulin didn't answer right away. He sat still, replaying everything that had just happened.
Was it a dream? But it had all felt so vivid, so undeniably real.
"No, I'm fine."
He shook his head, rose, and headed to the washroom to splash cold water on his face, forcing himself to calm down.
By the time he returned, his roommates had already stopped talking. The dormitory lights were off, and everyone had quietly settled back into their own bunks.
It had to be said that Su Qiu had left an indelible mark on all of them, Zhou Zhangxi in particular.
Under his watchful influence, they had all, without quite realizing it, become remarkably considerate of one another.
They must have thought they disturbed me, Tang Wulin thought, a quiet warmth spreading through his chest.
He climbed back into his bunk and turned his mind to the problem at hand.
The most pressing matter now was to find those three things.
Time slipped quietly by.
That evening, Arthur arrived at the Blacksmith Association to practice his forging.
With the help of his intuition, which allowed him to experience the sensations of the next forging rank ahead of time, Arthur's true skill level was now close to Spirit Forging, and that was with forging taking a back seat to his other cultivation.
Mu Chen often marveled at this. If Arthur threw himself into forging wholeheartedly, there was no telling what heights he might reach, even as Arthur continued to shatter the record for the youngest cultivator to break through each forging rank.
But Mu Chen's admiration was just that; admiration. He had no intention of pressuring Arthur to prioritize forging above all else.
After all, Arthur's talent as a Spirit Master was plainly the stronger gift, his power growing at a visible, steady pace every single day, as though plateaus simply did not exist for him.
To forcibly shift his focus toward forging would have been to get things exactly backwards.
Boom, boom, boom.
From inside one of the forging rooms came the rhythmic thunder of a hammer striking metal, each beat carrying a particular, almost musical cadence.
Mu Chen stepped through the door. He seemed to be in an unusually good mood today.
"Phew." Arthur finished his session and let out a long, slow breath.
This time he had deliberately suppressed that instinctive sixth sense of his, and so the attempt at Spirit Forging had failed.
Even so, he could feel the barrier clearly now. Breaking through to Spirit Forging might only be a matter of days.
"Master, something good must have happened today. You look so pleased." Turning to see the unmistakable cheer on Mu Chen's face, Arthur couldn't help asking.
"Ha! You could tell, could you?" Mu Chen burst out laughing. "A remarkable talent walked through the doors of the Blacksmith Association today; a nine-year-old, and already a Rank 3 smith!"
"Nine years old..." Arthur paused, then the realization clicked into place. "Is it Tang Wulin?"
"Oh?" Now it was Mu Chen's turn to be surprised. "Arthur, you know him?"
"He's my classmate."
"Well, isn't that something. What a coincidence." Mu Chen rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
With a twitch of his eye, he watched Arthur very naturally scoop up the freshly forged metal and tuck it into his arms, then reach casually into the corner of the forging room and pull out a rare, and extremely valuable, piece of metal to continue practicing with.
This kid.
The metals Arthur practiced with were never chosen for being suitable; they were chosen for being expensive. And once forged, they went straight into his pockets without a second thought.
Mu Chen shook his head with a resigned sigh and decided it wasn't worth saying anything. The boy was his student, after all. Let him take what he liked.
Boom, boom.
The hammering resumed.
But halfway through the session, Arthur suddenly stopped. The little cowlick at the top of his head stood straight up.
He snapped his gaze toward something outside the window, in a specific, unseen direction.
Every instinct he had was screaming at him: get away from that place.
No. Get away from this entire city.
Something terrible was coming.
A typhoon had made landfall over East Sea City that day.
The howling wind drove sheets of rain across everything in its path.
By the time Tang Wulin stepped into the forging workshop, the world outside had gone nearly dark.
He pulled the door and windows shut and let out a long breath.
He retrieved the three items from his storage soul tool, and in the same instant, his heartbeat surged.
Were the luminous figure and the Golden Dragon King's memories actually real?
Now, at last, he had all three: the century-old Scarlet Flame Fruit, the century-old Ice Crystal Fruit, and the blood of a dragon-type soul beast.
He opened the first box. A wave of scorching heat rolled over him, and he felt the temperature in the room spike immediately. The Scarlet Flame Fruit inside was larger than any illustration he had seen in books; even looking directly at it made his eyes feel seared.
He opened the second box. A gust of cool air surged out, as though reaching to neutralize the heat. The Ice Crystal Fruit, no bigger than his thumb, glowed with a soft blue light, and it seemed to hold its own in silent opposition against the Scarlet Flame Fruit, though the latter's radiance appeared ever so slightly stronger.
Tang Wulin hesitated. He had no idea how to proceed.
He closed his eyes and called out inwardly to the luminous figure, but received no answer for a long moment. Just as he was beginning to wonder if it had all been a dream, a voice rang out:
"You've found everything?"
His consciousness slipped into the dark space.
"Old Tang?" Tang Wulin asked, his voice tense.
"It's me," the figure replied. "Since you've gathered all three, let us begin."
"Breaking the seal will mean enduring tremendous pain. One moment of weakness and you will be lost," the old voice said gravely. "Nothing in this world comes without cost. If you wish to absorb the essence of the Golden Dragon King and grow stronger, then you must earn it through suffering."
No. I don't want to.
Tang Wulin thought of the warning: one wrong move and he would be torn apart from the inside.
If I die, what becomes of my mother and father?
And yet his eyes steadied, resolve settling in.
"What do I need to do?"
"Find somewhere you won't be disturbed for a few days..." The old voice trailed off, then shifted abruptly: "No, never mind. You can start right now."
"Seal the spirit fruits in an airtight container, pour the dragon blood in to seal them completely, and wait until it settles before drinking it all down. Before you take it, make sure your mind and spirit are calm and still."
With the instructions given, Tang Wulin's consciousness returned to the workshop.
He called Xie Xie to let him know: "I'm riding out the typhoon at the workshop. I won't be coming back tonight."
"Understood. I'm actually going into seclusion to push for my second ring; I'll crush Class One when I come out!" Xie Xie's voice came through faintly over the line. Tang Wulin exchanged a few words with him, then ended the call.
He prepared everything.
He stared down into the cup. A deep violet liquid churned with slow, rising bubbles, murky as swamp water.
Tang Wulin set his jaw, closed his eyes, raised the cup, and drained it in one go.
Contrary to what he had feared, the liquid went down smoothly, and a warmth spread through his body in an instant.
Centering himself, Tang Wulin stepped back, sat down cross-legged, and began circulating his soul power to drive the medicinal effect forward. He was still wondering how the old figure would assist him when a sharp, violent pain erupted without warning.
His blood felt as though it had begun to boil. Heat vented from every pore. The scorching sensation tore a cry from his throat, and his body shook violently.
Beginning at his forehead, a faint golden lattice of lines bloomed across his skin, branching and spreading across his entire body, sharpening from a ghostly haze into vivid clarity.
"ROAR!"
Then, in an instant, everything changed.
With a thunderous dragon's roar, the very space around the room split open.
A massive dragon claw came hurtling straight toward Tang Wulin, who was fully absorbed in breaking through the seal.
"I've been waiting for you!"
Tang San's divine consciousness coalesced.
As a God King, his divine sense had long since detected Di Tian lurking in the shadows. He had made his preparations well in advance, guarding against exactly this kind of ambush.
And yet he had been too confident.
The moment he sensed Di Tian, he had assumed everything was under his control.
He had not noticed the Silver Dragon King at all.