Weapon Fabrication

"I see now... I see it all!" Arthur slapped his forehead and stared intently at the materials on the workbench. "You're trying to create an entirely new combat paradigm!"

Lin Jie's thoughts stirred. He knew the genius craftsman had grasped the deepest strategic intent behind his design.

"From the very beginning, the core principle behind Grotesque Armament has been 'resistance.'" Arthur paced excitedly around the workshop. "Using UMA's power to fight UMA! Using sturdy scales to withstand sharp claws and fangs, a stable mental anchor to withstand maddening whispers! This is the fundamental theory we've upheld for centuries!"

He stopped and pointed at the several ingots of mutated brass, his voice trembling slightly with excitement. "Your design turns all of that on its head! You don't want to 'resist'—you want to 'disrupt'!"

He picked up a piece of Chaos Brass. Runes left unconsciously by the Gremlin shimmered with an eerie light across its surface.

"When we've dealt with cursed materials like this in the past, our first instinct has always been to purify and suppress them! Wash them with holy water, neutralize them with silver runes, do everything we can to weaken the curse. What a waste!"

"But you..." Arthur fixed his blazing gaze on Lin Jie. "You're doing the opposite! Instead of suppressing it, you're 'guiding' it!"

"So that's why you designed that damn Spirit Conduction Circuit. You want to turn this passive cursed field into a tactical disruptor that can be precisely controlled and actively discharged!"

Though the term "electromagnetic pulse" didn't exist in this era, Arthur instantly understood the core of Lin Jie's design with his genius mind: transforming the negative curse of a UMA into a disruption ability that could disable an enemy's weapons.

"That's right. That's exactly what I want." Lin Jie admitted it frankly. He hadn't expected Arthur to dissect his intentions so thoroughly from just a sketch and a few materials.

The purpose of this armament wasn't merely to fight UMA. It was also to give Lin Jie the means to protect himself against threats from other humans.

"An armguard that can create a 'mechanical paralysis' field over a small area..." Arthur murmured, countless potential applications appearing in his mind. "Against Clockwork Knights, it could instantly jam the gears in their joints. Against alchemical firearms, it could disable the firing mechanism. And even... when facing powerful UMA that rely on precision machinery to stay alive, this strike would be like grabbing their heart in your fist!"

Arthur looked at Lin Jie. "Tell me, apart from this Curse-Breaking Module, what other brilliant idea do you have for this Void Rubber?"

Lin Jie pointed to another socket marked on the blueprint. "Void Rubber absorbs light and energy fluctuations. Traditionally, it's made into cloaks or linings for passive stealth or defense. But I think we could approach it differently."

"Its absorption doesn't have to be passive. What if I used the Spirit Conduction Circuit to actively feed a tiny amount of mental energy into the rubber and activate it?"

Lin Jie proposed his idea. "Could it act like a compressed sponge, releasing all the light and fluctuations it has absorbed as a distorted field once it reaches a critical point? That would create an area where light and sight are bent, granting 'absolute invisibility' for a short time."

Active optical camouflage!

Arthur's mind was once again rocked by this wildly imaginative idea.

An unprecedented creative urge burned in his chest like a volcano.

He carefully laid Lin Jie's rough sketch in the middle of the workbench, then arranged the top-grade spiritual materials in neat, separate groups.

He turned and addressed Lin Jie with feverish urgency, almost pleading. "I need your help, Interpreter. I'm going to start breaking down and shaping these materials. I need you to stay here the whole time and use your unusual perception to tell me about the tiniest changes in their 'moods' as they fuse!"

Lin Jie nodded without hesitation.

This was not only Arthur's request, but also a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to learn the profound craft of forging Grotesque Armament.

Arthur lit the Alchemical Furnace and put on the Dragon-Skin Gloves. From the hundred or so tools on the wall, he selected several of his favorites.

The first step in the forging process was to prepare the core material: Chaos Brass.

Arthur didn't toss it straight into the furnace to melt it down. That was what ordinary blacksmiths did.

He knew that materials steeped in spiritual energy had supernatural powers inextricably bound to their physical structure. They had to be purified first.

He carefully secured a brass ingot in a precision Steam Drill Press.

"I'm starting," Arthur said, his voice low and focused. "I'm going to strip out the chaotic spiritual energy inside this material, leaving only the core essence of chaos and destructive curses."

"Its 'mood' will be very unstable. I need you to tell me the exact location of every tremor and every point of resistance."

Lin Jie immediately focused all his attention and adjusted Touch of Afterimage to its most sensitive state, scanning the spiritual strata inside the brass ingot like geological radar.

"Bottom left, about a third of the way in. I feel a sharp sting," Lin Jie quickly judged. "The spiritual energy there is resisting your cut."

At his words, Arthur immediately started the drill press, selected the thinnest bit, and slowly and steadily drilled into the spot Lin Jie had indicated.

"Bzz—"

A faint, grating sound rang out. Thin black smoke rose from the hole, carrying the stench of sulfur.

What came out wasn't metal shavings, but a viscous black substance like asphalt.

"Impurity," Arthur said tersely.

As the impurities were removed, Lin Jie could feel the brass ingot's agitation ease slightly.

The process was like a surgeon carefully excising a tumor from a patient.

Lin Jie pointed out one "impurity spot" after another, and Arthur removed each with a different tool.

Hours later, once the last impurity had been removed, the unremarkable brass ingots had undergone a complete transformation.

Their color had deepened. The "cursed runes" left by the Gremlin seemed to have come alive, slowly shifting across their surfaces and radiating a pure, powerful aura of chaos.

"Perfect..." Arthur removed his goggles and looked at the purified, top-grade material before him with satisfaction.

He glanced at Lin Jie, whose face had grown somewhat pale, and his eyes held genuine respect. "You did well, Interpreter. Without your guidance, this would have taken me at least three times as long, and the chance of failure would have been over fifty percent."

After a short rest, the forging entered its second stage: making the armguard's "main platform" and "Spirit Conduction Circuit."

This time, Arthur showed off the astonishing skill of a master clockmaker.

He chose a special leather that was both flexible and tough, measured Lin Jie's arm precisely, then cut the leather into dozens of ergonomic pieces with a specialized leatherworking knife.

Next came the most crucial step: etching the Spirit Conduction Circuit.

This was an advanced concept from Lin Jie's blueprint, and Arthur was trying it for the first time.

He took some high-purity gold that had been melted into liquid, dipped a specialized Alchemical Etching Pen into it, and began drawing intricate circuits on the inside of the leather pieces, holding his breath.

The golden lines formed a strange pattern on the black leather, combining the feel of futuristic technology with the beauty of classical mysticism.

"Now comes the crucial fusion," Arthur said, his voice turning deadly serious. "I'm going to embed the Chaos Brass into the leather base and connect it through these circuits. This is when spiritual rejection is most likely to occur. Lin Jie, I need you to focus completely and tell me about the slightest shifts in energy flow and every 'mood' it gives off!"

Lin Jie nodded solemnly.

Arthur placed a purified Chaos Brass ingot in the Alchemical Furnace and heated it to a semi-molten state at a precise temperature.

Then, using a pair of huge iron tongs, he pressed the searing metal against the leather base, its circuits already etched.

"Sizzle—"

The sharp smell of scorching filled the air at once.

And in Lin Jie's perceptual world, a violent, silent battle erupted!

He saw the powerful force of destruction and disorder within the Chaos Brass surge toward the gold circuits that represented restraint and guidance.

It instinctively resisted the planned route, trying to break through the circuits and contaminate the entire armguard!

"Rejection! Strong rejection!" Lin Jie shouted at once. "The energy's surging at the third main circuit on the left! It's about to get out of control!"

Sweat beaded on Arthur's forehead, but he didn't panic in the slightest.

He immediately picked up a small silver hammer that had been tempered in holy water and tapped the searing brass ingot quickly, in a rhythmic pattern.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

Each strike seemed to hold a mysterious power that could "soothe" and "order." It wasn't just physical shaping, but a taming of the spiritual energy as well.

Guided by Lin Jie, every one of Arthur's strikes landed precisely on the most turbulent points of the "rejection energy."

"Its power is starting to recede... You're forcing it back into the grooves!"

"Good! Now... try connecting it to the circuit... I can feel a faint resonance! They're starting to accept each other!"

"Steady, Mr. Arthur! Now—fuse them completely!"

As Lin Jie shouted like a battlefield commander and Arthur hammered in a storm, the violent chaotic force was finally tamed!

It stopped resisting and began to flow slowly through the golden channels prepared for it.

Finally, the last strike fell. As all the materials cooled, the entire workshop sank into utter silence.

A prototype unlike anything ever made, perfectly fusing an advanced concept with masterful craftsmanship, lay quietly on the workbench.