Huo Yuhao straightened his back. He was never willing to invest too much emotional attachment in disposable items. He had two spare Katanas like this one; one was roughly the same length, while the other was only sixty centimeters—a wakizashi meant for dealing with special situations.
The traditional forging methods on Douluo were very similar to Ashina's tamahagane forging technique. Steel forged only a single time was completely unusable as a weapon. It had to be repeatedly folded and hammered to remove impurities and select the best parts, with only the sections possessing better luster and fewer impurities being chosen for further forging before a satisfactory material could finally be obtained. On Douluo Continent, this material was called hundred-refinement steel, whereas in Ashina, it was commonly referred to as tamahagane. In practice, the methods used were more or less identical.
In Ashina, owning a Katana forged from tamahagane was a tremendous honor, indicating that the person could at least be called a true samurai. Ordinary Ashina soldiers who had transitioned from bandits merely used Katanas cast from coarse iron filled with impurities; during close combat, they didn't even need to clash hard against enemy weapons. Even when slaying an enemy without armor protection, simply hacking into the enemy's bones could easily chip the blade.
As for the owners of Katanas forged from tamahagane, they had to be, at the very least, samurai from the Keep or commanders among the Ashina troops to be qualified to use them. From this perspective, the productivity of hundred-refinement steel on Douluo Continent far exceeded that of the backwater Ashina Castle.
Logically speaking, a Katana made of such hundred-refinement steel could at least be considered a fine blade. Even if it lacked a legendary status because none of its successive owners had achieved earth-shattering feats with it, it still didn't deserve to be dismissed as a mere consumable.
Unfortunately, this was Douluo Continent. The blades here no longer faced just the weapons and armor of human enemies, but also relentless winds and fires, freezing ice, and various other bizarre elemental attacks. In such an extremely harsh environment, a fine blade forged from hundred-refinement steel could hardly withstand the devastation of several fierce battles.
Huo Yuhao knew very well that to truly possess a fine blade in the truest sense, it had to be forged from expensive rare metals.
"I need to go to the Soul Beast Forest to hunt Soul Beasts first. To craft and wield even stronger Katanas, I must first reach a sufficient soul power rank. The toughness and sharpness of a fine blade forged from tamahagane are already enough to slice through the tough skin of most Soul Beasts. Even if I do run into a few tricky ones, I can handle them using other methods."
Huo Yuhao pondered silently as he walked to the kitchen to pack the rations needed for the journey, never expecting to see a busy figure already inside.
"Yuhao, you're heading out to hunt Soul Beasts, aren't you?"
Huo Yun'er's gentle and soft voice made Huo Yuhao's body stiffen. His lips trembled, and he lowered his head, unable to bear looking at her tender, water-like face. When he left previously, he had promised that once this last business deal was finished, he would stay home to spend a few days of peace with his mother. Yet his own subconscious actions had completely betrayed him.
He could afford to wait, but the chronic illness that had plagued Huo Yun'er for a decade could not wait that long. He had to speed up, rushing his mother to Shrek at the absolute fastest pace possible. Only in Shrek City could he access the top-tier medical resources of the entire Douluo Continent. Only there would Huo Yun'er's illness have a chance of being completely cured.
How could Huo Yun'er not know what Huo Yuhao was thinking? Since the day before Yuhao's martial soul awakening, she had already faintly sensed the changes taking place in him. Huo Yuhao was still Huo Yuhao, yet he had grown and changed overnight. Although every time Huo Yuhao went out, he told her he was going to do business with some friends, how could those small trading ventures possibly allow her to move into such an impressive residence in just two years?
Although Huo Yuhao always treated his various large and small wounds upon returning home, Huo Yun'er personally washed and mended all of his clothes. How could she possibly not know that Huo Yuhao was keeping secrets from her?
Every time, she wanted to tell Huo Yuhao that her illness was not important and that he didn't need to rush around like this on her account. Just being able to see her son turn out successful in the last few years of her life, and having him cook a table of extraordinarily delicious food for her every time he came home, made her feel that the grievances she suffered in the first half of her life were not worth mentioning. Yet the determined look mixed with worry and urgency in Huo Yuhao's eyes made it impossible for Huo Yun'er to voice those words, no matter what.
Huo Yun'er reached out, gently stroked Huo Yuhao's little head, and pressed a heavy bundle of food into his arms.
"Wheat cakes take a lot of effort to make. Mom baked them for you in advance. If you aren't in a hurry while eating on the road, remember to tear them into small pieces and boil them in hot water. Eating them dry is too choking."
As soon as the parcel was in his hands, Huo Yuhao knew what it was.
This bundle of more than ten jin of wheat cakes was not easy to prepare. Barley grains had to be stewed into a paste, dried under the scorching sun, and even required a stove placed underneath to ensure they were thoroughly dried. Then they had to be steamed, boiled, and dried again. Repeating this process ten times, the weight of the original hundred jin of barley would drop to less than ten jin before it was considered completely done.
When eating, taking out a small piece and boiling it in hot water made a full pot of meal. Huo Yun'er did not know that Huo Yuhao possessed a Storage Soul Tool, so she had gone to great lengths to prepare food that would last him more than a month.
Despite the reluctance in his heart, after resting at home for a night, Huo Yuhao still made up his mind to leave at the break of dawn. He carried very little: just two Katanas, one wakizashi, a dozen shuriken forged from scrap metal, fewer than a hundred Gold Soul Coins, and some daily necessities.
Over the past three years, the vast majority of the wealth Huo Yuhao had accumulated was left right on the bed in his room. If he truly lost his life in the Soul Beast Forest, Huo Yun'er would inevitably discover it when she went in to clean his room. The savings of nearly a thousand Gold Soul Coins would be more than enough for her to live out the rest of her life alone.
Although Huo Yuhao had great confidence in his own strength—given time to set up an ambush, he even had the confidence to trap and kill a thousand-year Soul Beast, since a thousand-year Soul Beast's power was only between a Soul Elder and a Soul Ancestor, and he had killed powerful Soul Masters of both ranks—though those were achieved through traps and ambushes, ninjas were not samurai after all. Unless the situation was critical, Huo Yuhao had no interest in fighting enemies far stronger than himself head-on.