Headscar had noticed that his lord had been in a very good mood lately.
Sometimes, he tossed Headscar the food he hunted without even looking at it. Though it was the dry season, when food was scarce, Headscar found himself growing stronger and stronger. Distinct dark purple markings had appeared in his fur, and young, beautiful females made eyes at him when he hunted by the water.
It was then that Headscar realized he was no longer a greenhorn just starting out. He was qualified to start a family.
But young Headscar longed to distinguish himself through great deeds. He did not want to start a family of his own.
As Headscar saw it, if he had a family, he would have to take responsibility for protecting it, and the area around Blackwater Swamp was not suitable for Nightmare Leopards to live in.
He followed Black Typhon on campaigns in all directions and watched Famu bite through the throat of an iron-hoofed behemoth.
He could not help feeling that this was not how a snake ought to hunt.
Famu had also begun vibrating less often. The Typhon had grown quiet and taciturn, but the oppressive force he exuded had become increasingly palpable and fierce. At times, Headscar saw Black Typhon coiled atop a rock, his scales flared like a thicket of thorns and heat rising from his body. Headscar did not dare approach, because at such times Black Typhon was as hot as a ball of fire.
"Sir, I must remind you that your Dead Sun Armor gene acquisition level is insufficient to support your use of Bloodburn."
Famu contracted his Furnace Core, which drew back the excess heat.
He looked at the sun hanging in the sky. Its light was dazzling.
With the torrential rain over, terrifying heat swept across the swamp once more. The sun had grown even more scorching.
Lately, Famu had been trying to get his hands on the Bloodburn ability. The deeper he studied it, the more curious he became about the Dead Sun Armor. After using his Furnace Core to deliberately imitate the activation of Bloodburn, his body temperature rose noticeably, and he heated the surrounding environment as well. The heat extended over a circular area with a radius of about five meters.
But Famu had not truly learned Bloodburn. He was merely using the heat of the sun to raise the temperature of his Furnace Core and his body.
His black scales were well suited to absorbing heat. Famu spent several hours in the sun during the hottest part of the day, then began trying to raise his body temperature and emit heat at sunset.
In essence, he was transferring the heat he had absorbed from the sun to his own body and the surrounding environment.
But the fundamental problem remained unsolved, and could not be solved.
Famu could not create a high-temperature field on his own. The Child of the Earth's Furnace Core converted heat energy at an extremely low rate, so it could not release vast amounts of heat through its Furnace Core as the Dead Sun Armor did, much less form a high-temperature Domain underwater.
Famu considered an ability involving the conversion of bioenergy and heat energy like this absurdly powerful. The high-temperature Domain was an accompanying effect of Bloodburn; its true core was that, after conversion, the heat energy would activate muscle strength, skeletal strength, and Earth Vein Energy.
Famu speculated that the Earth Vein Energy stored in the Dead Sun Armor's Furnace Core was first converted into bioenergy by the Furnace Core organ. Then, at high temperatures, this bioenergy belonging to the Dead Sun Armor underwent a second conversion, producing an erupting high-temperature torch. But his attempts could only go that far. At most, Famu could use heat absorbed from outside sources to simulate Bloodburn.
As the Scepter had said, his Dead Sun Armor gene acquisition level was insufficient. Without igniting the hybrid gene, a Typhon could not possibly learn Bloodburn.
"I've detected that you are considering hunting the Dead Sun Armor. Would you like me to activate high-energy-consumption mode? I can search for its location."
The Scepter made the proposal.
"Are you sure you can find the Dead Sun Armor by activating it here?"
"The Dead Sun Armor is in the western part of the Samei Rainforest, but I cannot directly mark its coordinates from here. I will provide you with an expedition route that passes through the territories of other Furnace-Core Creatures," the Scepter replied.
Furnace-Core Creatures were food for the Scepter, so that meant using the Furnace-Core Creatures along the way to sustain the expedition.
"If there are Furnace-Core Creatures, they must be Typhons," Famu said.
Famu did not consider Typhons ordinary prey.
In a rainforest where civilization had been established, who knew what consequences hunting his own kind might bring?
Besides, an expedition to the Dead Sun Armor would be a long journey. Famu was not at the end of his rope. He could even be considered well-off now, and there was no need to take the risk at all.
Not long after activating the Staff of Life, Famu had put the Scepter System into low-energy-consumption mode. In that mode, the Scepter System could only handle simple questions, such as what a species was and what its nutritional value was. Even then, it could only identify a creature once it came within five meters of Famu.
Unexpectedly, though, the Scepter's intelligent conversation system had not been crippled by the low-energy mode. Famu could chat with the fellow.
That was also why Headscar thought Famu was becoming increasingly unfathomable.
Famu and the Scepter would chat for an entire day at a time.
Black Typhon would lie on a rock all day without moving from his spot.
The Scepter System's high-energy-consumption mode was precious. One Dead Sun Armor Furnace Core was only enough to sustain it for twelve hours. That was also the Scepter System's hourly rate for working; it accepted only Earth Vein Energy as a power source.
On closer thought, this was quite reasonable, even cheap. The Life Scepter System had once been powered by a small helium-3 fusion reactor, a super-reactor of the caliber used to power planetary-scale space stations. Running at full power, it consumed roughly as much electricity as a city with a population of ten million.
Famu's Scepter was a stripped-down system that had been separated out and placed in the black coffin. The fact that it could run on Earth Vein Energy was already remarkably economical. Of course, that also had to do with Earth Vein Energy itself being a super energy source.
The sun set, and Famu waited for the heat on the surface of his body to dissipate before returning to his nest.
His consciousness sank into the Spiral Tree.
"Kether, bring up the Dragonization Blueprint."
The darkness fell away at that moment.
A laboratory appeared before Famu.
There were incandescent strip lights, a robotic-arm workstation, and holographic projections floating in the air. Several large screens were arrayed like wings.
It was almost identical to Famu's surroundings at the research institute before his death.
This was an illusory scene the Scepter System had simulated for Famu.
It served no practical purpose, but it made it easier for Famu to work out his ideas in his mind.
At the center of the laboratory, the largest screen displayed a complex biological diagram.
The Typhon's modification plan for its current stage.
It was far more complex and rigorous than Famu's preliminary design. It was the result of his collaboration with the Staff of Life, and it represented Famu's next step.
Famu had always thought his own ideas were already bold, but the Staff of Life was bolder still.
Famu had based his biological structures on prehistoric reptiles. He was very familiar with those creatures, and the research materials and anatomical studies on them were well established. The Staff of Life's design looked as though it had drawn on movies; the plan it gave Famu came incredibly close to a fantasy creature. For example, it proposed growing shoulder blades on the torso, enlarging the torso, and growing membranous wings.
"Just look at a body as big as ours. Can it fly with these wings?" Famu had been deeply puzzled at the time. He did not believe such a biological structure would actually work.
"It can," the Scepter answered with certainty.
"Sir Jiuxun, your thinking is still confined to biological plausibility, but this is not the age of humanity. It is the age of the earth veins. If everything here conformed to human understanding, earth-vein creatures such as Typhons and the Dead Sun Armor would never have appeared. A high degree of earth-vein adaptability will produce monsters beyond your imagination."
"Have you ever considered that Earth's Earth Vein Tides defeated humanity? In that case, might something on the same level as human civilization emerge under the Earth Vein Tides?"
"Could a super civilization have been born in this world too?"
"It might be a single creature," the Scepter said.