Alloy Combat Blade

Half a month later, on a bitterly cold morning.

Outside, breath froze into ice. Frost flowers condensed on the windowpanes like intricate crests carved from ice crystals, slicing and refracting the faint morning light and casting scattered, dreamlike rainbows across the room.

Standing in the warmly heated room, Rosaline, about to head out, draped herself in a thick cloak. When she turned around, she saw that her teacher had also changed into a beige trench coat over a gray sweater with a warm turtleneck, lending her slender figure an intellectual charm that did not quite match her face.

These clothes had come from an underground warehouse beneath an abandoned garment factory. Perhaps thanks to the Origin Civilization's powerful preservation technology, some unusual nanofiber material, or some special treatment, nearly half the clothing had escaped microbial decomposition, photo-oxidation, and thermal degradation over six long centuries, eventually falling into their hands. Otherwise, with the two of them knowing practically nothing about textiles, they would have had no thick clothes to add in winter and could only have stayed cooped up at home all season.

"Let's go, Teacher!" After walking over and helping her teacher adjust her collar slightly, Rosaline announced excitedly.

Their destination today was the Eastern District of Ish City, near Grayport City. Based on what they had learned in the dream, there should have been a New Eden Government military base on Ish Island there.

Now that she had Elemental Decay Completion Technology, Ivette planned to recover some military-grade magic equipment, see whether any of it could still function normally, then repair the Elemental Capacitors and put them straight to use.

Of course, that would mostly depend on luck. If any military equipment was well-made enough to still work after six hundred years, she would replenish its battery and bring it home. If it could not be activated, then so be it. They were only trying their luck anyway.

Half an hour later, the two arrived at the entrance of the abandoned military base on their Magitech Motorcycle. Perhaps because the cold had affected their activity, they encountered almost no Mutant attacks along the way. The world seemed to have fallen silent, transformed into a vast expanse of white.

After entering the base and eliminating several humanoid Mutants along the way, they entered several weapon storage rooms with their doors wide open. Ivette tested each remaining piece of magic equipment inside, but unfortunately, no matter how much magic power she fed into them, there was no response.

After inspecting several rooms in a row, Ivette had a feeling that they might return empty-handed today.

However, at that moment, Rosaline made a discovery in an empty hall deep inside the base that resembled a large training ground.

It was a Semi-Mechanical Aberration. Unlike the other Semi-Mechanical Aberrations, though, this one had two military-grade Alloy Combat Blades in place of its hands. The instant it spotted Rosaline, the intruder, it activated both blades, allowing her to clearly see the electric light flickering across them and hear their attention-grabbing hum.

Ivette soon arrived after hearing the commotion and dismantled the Semi-Mechanical Aberration. Once the flesh clinging to its body and blades had been removed, they found that beneath it were bionic mechanical hands. In other words, the two Alloy Combat Blades had merely been held in its hands and could be taken off for immediate use.

"So cool..." Rosaline gripped one of the Alloy Combat Blades and activated it. Looking at the constantly trembling blade and the electric light bursting from its cold gleam, she wore an expression of amazement.

Ivette was surprised as well. They had scavenged for so long without finding anything, and she had thought they would return empty-handed. Who would have expected their first equipment drop to come from a Mutant?

From that perspective, although Semi-Mechanical Aberrations were often more dangerous than biological Mutants, they did have recoverable equipment. In the future, they could make a point of targeting them more often.

"Teacher, what do you think of this blade? Is it powerful?" After turning off combat mode, Rosaline stroked the blade as it returned to stillness and asked curiously.

"Not bad." After connecting it to the Magic Guide Terminal and checking its parameters, Ivette nodded slightly.

This blade was called the "Ripper Model 7." It belonged to the New Eden Commonwealth's independently developed series of military weapons and had two effects: High-Frequency Oscillation and High-Voltage Current.

Since the Magic Circuit could not be read—and even forcing a read only produced encrypted gibberish—Ivette could not determine the specifications, quality, or actual parameters of the two attached spells. But judging from the effect of a casual test alone, if paired with Muscle Unlimit, its power truly would not be inferior to Wrath of Thunder cast by her personally. At the very least, instantly killing a basic Mutant should not be a problem.

However, the battery decay issue was still very much present. The reason it had worked before was apparently because the Mutant itself could supply power to it. Now that it had been removed separately, the Elemental Capacitor was no longer up to the task.

Moreover, High-Frequency Oscillation and High-Voltage Current really did consume energy rather quickly. If she did not perform Elemental Replenishment on the battery and simply gave it to Rosaline, her mana bar would probably be nearly empty after half an hour of use.

After searching for a while longer and confirming that there were no new discoveries, Ivette brought Rosaline back to the manor before noon. She promptly began the Elemental Replenishment work, restoring the two military-grade magic weapons to their best possible condition.

That afternoon, watching Rosaline enthusiastically practice various blade-slashing movements again and again in the manor's cold wind, Ivette silently decided to prioritize the optimization of Scarlet Armor and Muscle Unlimit.

It was not entirely for her apprentice's sake, either. In truth, even she was somewhat tempted by these two military weapons from the Origin Civilization.

After all...

What boy could resist the allure of swords and blades?

Right?

Of course, from a practical standpoint, spell bombardment made up of the traditional four major spells of Ice, Fire, Wind, and Thunder was certainly far more useful than an Alloy Combat Blade in hand. Their firepower was simply not on the same level.

But having more options was always a good thing.

Time flew by. Before they knew it, three months had passed in an instant, and the season shifted from the snow-covered winter into late spring and early summer.

After a period of careful iteration, Scarlet Armor and Muscle Unlimit were finally optimized to a point very close to their limits, greatly reducing their magic power consumption.

In particular, Ivette had thoughtfully altered Scarlet Armor's coverage mechanism—now, even the clothes on their bodies could be protected, so they no longer needed to worry about their clothes exploding off during overly intense battles.

Rosaline was very happy about this, because during this period, she had already begun high-intensity training in blade techniques and close combat.

It was not because she wanted to change classes. In fact, melee weapons and magic cultivation did not conflict. It was simply that her magic pressure was currently low. With the same spell and the same amount of magic power input, the effects she produced were far inferior to her teacher's.

But the two enhancement spells built into the Alloy Combat Blades were different. The magic pressure for High-Frequency Oscillation and High-Voltage Current came from the High-Voltage Capacitor within the blades, allowing her to wield them and possess destructive power no weaker than her teacher's.

Thus, driven by the simple wish of "sharing Teacher's burden," she naturally preferred this weapon, which allowed her to display greater immediate combat power.

As for Ivette, after practicing with melee weapons for a while, she silently gave up on that option.

Well, it took too much time. She had plenty of other things she could do with that effort.

Since completing the full optimization of Scarlet Armor and Muscle Unlimit some time ago, her next goal had been to optimize the Regeneration Pump, adding an ability that could be used for emergency treatment of Mutant virus infections.

The problem with this research direction, however, was that she knew nothing about the mysterious virus that caused biological mutation. She only knew that it could spread through blood, so they had to be careful not to let Mutants tear open wounds on them.

Therefore, in order to study the Regeneration Pump's filtering or purification effects on this mysterious virus, biological experiments on all sorts of small animals would probably be unavoidable for quite some time to come.

And so, at the lush green manor on the wasteland, the master and apprentice's daily lives returned to peace. Exploration, meditation, study, experiments... day after day.

Amid such a leisurely rhythm, three years passed in a hurry.