"Forging, huh." Arthur scratched his head. "Speaking of that, soul forging is really tough. I still haven't succeeded even once."
Soul forging was a threshold, a qualitative leap, and even with his intuition, Arthur hadn't managed it yet. Always falling just a little short.
"You little punk." Mu Chen shook his head with a laugh. "Since when was soul forging easy? Do you know what the current record is for the youngest person to achieve it?"
He slowly let out a number: "Thirty-four."
"You're still young, no need to rush."
Mu Chen's teaching philosophy had always emphasized building a solid foundation, one step at a time. Everything else would naturally fall into place in the end.
"Enough about that." Arthur pulled out his soul communicator and fired off a few messages, while saying to Mu Chen, "Since you're already here, Teacher, this makes things easy."
"What do you mean by that?" Mu Chen suddenly had a bad feeling about this.
Not long after, Tang Wulin led the class's forging group in, filing into the association hall and lining up in a row.
Their eyes lit up, breathing quickening, as they watched Arthur dump one sack after another of rare metals onto the ground.
"Everybody gets a share!"
Arthur cleared his throat and raised a hand, pointing toward the forging room behind him.
"Take as much as you can handle, based on your own ability. Whoever can manage the Thousand Forging, try to complete it. It'll serve as material for battle armor later."
"Those who can't manage it yet, help with purification, lend a hand."
"Aye!"
The students of the forging group surged forward as if they'd been given a shot of adrenaline.
Shrek Academy actually had its own dedicated Blacksmith Association.
But that association operated independently of the federal Blacksmith Association, answering directly to Shrek.
If Arthur worked there, he'd inevitably find his hands somewhat tied, since Mu Chen and Zhen Hua had no authority over that place.
So it was more convenient to forge at the outside association instead.
Time passed, and the first-year class's academy-wide battle armor initiative charged ahead at full steam.
Progress on crafting the battle armor was going remarkably smoothly.
In just a single month, the majority of students had obtained at least one battle armor component.
Some couldn't quite handle the strain yet, but at least they had something. Nearly everyone slept at night hugging their own battle armor pieces.
Looking across the entire history of Shrek Academy's incoming classes, this was simply unheard of.
History had been made.
And the reason for it all came down to one person: Arthur.
This guy hammered metal without ever taking a break!
Cultivation? Meditation?
Sorry, he'd long since put those on full autopilot.
And the toll forging took on him?
The Red Dragon had this to say: you just worry about breathing, I'll take care of the rest.
Over the course of that month, Arthur transformed into a merciless forging machine.
The hardest step in crafting battle armor, that being materials, had somehow ended up in surplus.
Instead, it was the design group and manufacturing group that lagged behind.
Gu Yue's brain was practically smoking from the effort, barely managing to keep pace with Arthur.
The manufacturing group had several people collapse from exhaustion that month, and they still couldn't keep up.
On this particular day, in class.
Wu Changkong looked out helplessly at the students in the classroom.
Not a single one of them was paying attention to the lesson.
He rambled on and on at the podium, while the students below were each absorbed in their own business.
The design group's students, Gu Yue especially, had over a dozen sheets of paper spread out before her, covered edge to edge in patterns, her pen flying across the page as her brow knit into a deep furrow.
Gu Yue threw herself into it wholeheartedly, since this was tremendously helpful for advancing her career as a designer. Her original ambition had always been to one day design battle armor made specifically for soul beasts.
The manufacturing group's side of the room was even more chaotic, a scene of total disarray.
Several students were slumped in their chairs, faces pale, still clutching unfinished components in their hands.
"I can't, I just can't," one boy said, waving his hand weakly. "Class Rep's efficiency isn't even human. We work ourselves to the bone for three days straight, and we still can't use up half a day's worth of what he produces."
Ye Xinglan, meanwhile, lay face-down on her desk with her eyes shut.
She looked like she was resting, but in truth she'd been out cold for a while already.
Wu Changkong had no way to counter any of this. Battle armor genuinely mattered more than any regular coursework right now. It was the single most important standard for graduation.
"Settle down for a moment."
Wu Changkong's voice wasn't loud, but it was enough to cut through the noise in the classroom.
He walked to the center of the room, his gaze sweeping across every exhausted yet determined face.
Finally, his eyes landed on the piles of components and blueprints, and his tone softened a little. "The battle armor initiative does take priority over regular coursework, that's true, but you all need to remember: your health comes first."
He paused a moment, then said, "For now, get some proper rest."
"Because before long, our first-years and second-years will be holding an exchange event. The theme of the event will be an all-around competition, covering forging, design, manufacturing, repair, and every other aspect. And at the end, there will be live combat as well."
The moment those words left his mouth, the students who'd been drooping just seconds ago sprang back to full life instantly.
"An exchange event? Against the second-years?"
"Compete with us in forging, design, and manufacturing? That's hilarious. How many pieces of battle armor have they even made? And they want to compete with us?"
"Crush them!"
"There's live combat too? Now we finally get to properly cross swords with our seniors!"
After explaining the rules, Wu Changkong instructed, "I'm not going to decide who takes part, that's up to you all. Arthur will be responsible for compiling the roster and reporting it to me."
Hearing this, Arthur immediately rose from his seat and began assigning roles. "Quiet down. I'll personally handle the forging.
The design group will be led by Gu Yue, everyone's seen her ability with their own eyes this past month. Every single battle armor component in your hands has had her hand in it."
"As for the manufacturing group, go get some proper rest. The competition doesn't matter, don't wear yourselves out over it."
"The repair group can pick their own representatives."
"Now, as for the live combat portion."
Arthur turned to Wu Changkong. "Teacher, according to the rules, the second-years are supposed to field one fewer person than us, right?"
Wu Changkong nodded slightly. "That's correct. By the academy's usual exchange match rules, the number who take part is up to you, and the second-years send one fewer."
"That's no fun at all." Arthur shook his head. "It's already unfair enough with more of us against fewer of them. Making them field one less person on top of that would put them at way too much of a disadvantage."
"Hold on." Wu Changkong looked confused. "What do you mean by that?"
"What do you mean, more of us against fewer of them?"
"Heh heh heh." Arthur's smile looked perfectly innocent, but the words that came out of his mouth sounded like a devil's whisper. "All of us first-years are going in!"
Sometimes when a person hits a certain level of speechlessness, they genuinely start laughing. Shen Yi, standing nearby, laughed out of pure exasperation.
"Everyone? All at once? Do you have any idea how many people that is combined across both grades?"
"What are you even trying to do!"
"Besides, that's against the rules."
Against the rules?
Arthur acted like he didn't understand. "Not my problem. If anyone has an issue with it, tell them to go take it up with Ya Li."
Arthur: Got something to say? Go say it to Ya Li!
Ya Li: Got something to say? Go say it to Yun Ming!
Yun Ming: ...
"Isn't this exciting?" Arthur went on. "Though honestly, we're still coming out ahead, since the second-years have definitely had some people weeded out already, so their total headcount is lower than ours."
"Tell you what, let's throw the third-years into the mix too. We'll take the disadvantage and go up against the second- and third-years combined, all of them."
The moment those words left his mouth, forget about Shen Yi, even the rest of the class started losing their nerve.
(Awkward note: earlier in the original novel it was established that Feng Wuyu became a Saint Craftsman at thirty-four, setting the record.
Just a few chapters later, it says he didn't even start learning forging until he was forty.)