Weapon Crafting

"I understand... I understand everything now!" Arthur slapped his forehead, staring fixedly at the materials on the workbench. "You fellow, you're trying to create an entirely new 'combat paradigm'!"

Lin Jie felt a stir in his heart; he knew this genius craftsman had touched upon the deepest strategic intent behind his blueprints.

"From the moment of its inception, the core philosophy of Grotesque Armament has been 'confrontation'." Arthur paced back and forth in the workshop, agitated. "Using the power of UMA to counter the power of UMA! Using sturdy scales to resist sharp claws, using stable spiritual anchors to counter maddening whispers! This is the foundational theory we have held as gospel for hundreds of years!"

He stopped and pointed at the pieces of alienated brass, his voice trembling slightly with excitement: "Your design philosophy subverts all of this at its very root! What you want to do is not 'confrontation', but 'interference'!"

He picked up a piece of Chaos Brass, its surface glowing with an eerie light from the runes left unconsciously by a Gremlin.

"In the past, when dealing with materials with cursed properties, our first reaction was always purification and suppression! Washing them with holy water, neutralizing them with silver runes, doing everything possible to weaken the curse. That is a waste!"

"And you," Arthur looked at Lin Jie with burning eyes, "you are doing the exact opposite! Instead of suppressing, you are 'guiding'!"

"That is why you designed those damn 'Spirit Conduction Circuits'. You want to turn this passive curse field into a tactical interference projectile that can be precisely controlled and actively released!"

Although the term "EMP" did not exist in this era, Arthur, with his genius mind, instantly understood the core of Lin Jie's design—transforming the negative curses of UMA into an interference capability that could disable enemy weapons.

"Exactly, that is precisely what I want." Lin Jie admitted frankly. He hadn't expected Arthur to be able to dissect his intentions so thoroughly based on just a rough sketch and a few materials.

His purpose in designing this armament was not only to counter UMA, but also to ensure he had the power to protect himself when facing threats from other humans.

"A gauntlet capable of creating a 'mechanical paralysis' field in a small area..." Arthur muttered to himself, countless application scenarios flashing through his mind. "Facing a Clockwork Knight, it could instantly lock the gears in its joints; facing an alchemical musket, it could cause the firing mechanism to fail; even... when facing certain powerful UMA that rely on precision machinery to sustain their lives, this strike would be equivalent to directly gripping their heart!"

Arthur looked at Lin Jie. "Tell me, besides this Curse-Breaking Module, what astonishing ideas do you have for this Void Rubber?"

Lin Jie pointed to another reserved interface on the blueprint and said, "The property of Void Rubber is to absorb light and energy fluctuations. The traditional usage is to make it into a cloak or lining for passive stealth or defense. But I think we can try a different approach."

"Its absorption doesn't have to be passive. What if I use the Spirit Conduction Circuit to actively inject a trace amount of spiritual power into the rubber to activate it?"

Lin Jie proposed his hypothesis, "Could it act like a compressed sponge, and upon reaching a critical point, violently release all the absorbed light and fluctuations in the form of a distorted force field? Thereby creating an area of 'absolute invisibility' in a short time that causes both light and line of sight to deflect?"

Active optical camouflage!

Arthur's brain was once again hit hard by this imaginative concept.

An unprecedented desire to create burned in his chest like a volcano.

He solemnly laid Lin Jie's rough sketch in the center of the workbench and arranged the top-tier "spirit materials" neatly by category.

He turned around and said to Lin Jie in a tone of fanatical request: "I need your help, Mr. Interpreter. I am going to begin decomposing and shaping these materials. During this process, I need you to stay here the entire time and use that peculiar perception of yours to tell me the most subtle 'emotional' changes of these materials as they fuse!"

Lin Jie nodded without hesitation.

This was not just Arthur's request; it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to learn the profound discipline of forging "Grotesque Armament".

Arthur lit the Alchemical Furnace, put on his Dragon-Skin Gloves, and selected a few of his most comfortable tools from the hundreds hanging on the wall.

The first step of forging was to process the core material—"Chaos Brass".

Arthur did not throw them directly into the furnace to melt; that was the method of an ordinary blacksmith.

He knew well that for these materials "infused with spirit," their supernatural power and physical structure were already inseparable, and they needed to be purified first.

He carefully fixed a brass ingot onto a precision Steam Drill Press.

"I'm starting." Arthur's voice was low and focused. "I am going to excise the complex spirit within this material, leaving only the core essence of chaos and destructive curse."

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

Lin Jie immediately concentrated all his spirit, adjusting his [Touch of Afterimage] ability to its most sensitive state, scanning the "spirit strata" inside the brass ingot like geological radar.

"One-third of the way down on the left, I feel a sharp, stinging sensation." Lin Jie quickly provided his judgment. "The spirit there is resisting your cutting."

Hearing this, Arthur immediately started the drill press, chose the finest drill bit, and slowly and steadily pierced the position Lin Jie pointed out.

"Zzz--"

A slight, grating sound rang out, and faint black smoke rose from the drill hole, mixed with the stench of sulfur.

What was drilled out was not metal powder, but a viscous, pitch-like black substance.

"Impurities." Arthur said concisely.

As these impurities were removed, Lin Jie could clearly feel the restlessness of the brass ingot calm down a little.

The process was like a doctor performing a precise surgical tumor removal for a patient.

One "impurity point" after another was pointed out by Lin Jie and then cleared away by Arthur one by one using different tools.

Several hours later, when the last bit of impurity was cleared, those few unremarkable brass ingots had undergone a transformation as if reborn.

The color became deeper, and the "curse runes" left by the Gremlin on the surface seemed to come alive, flowing slowly and emitting a pure and powerful aura of chaos.

"Perfect..." Arthur took off his goggles, looking at the purified top-tier materials in front of him, a look of satisfaction on his face.

He looked at Lin Jie, who was a bit pale on the side, and there was a hint of genuine recognition in his eyes. "You did well, Mr. Interpreter. Without your positioning, this process would have taken me at least three times as long, and the failure rate would have been as high as fifty percent or more."

After a short rest, the forging entered the second stage—making the "main platform" of the gauntlet and the "Spirit Conduction Circuit".

This time, Arthur displayed his breathtakingly exquisite craftsmanship as a top-tier clockmaker.

He selected a special leather that was both flexible and tough as a base, precisely measured the data of Lin Jie's arm, and then used a specialized leather-cutting knife to cut the leather into dozens of ergonomic components.

Immediately following was the most critical step—etching the "Spirit Conduction Circuit".

This was entirely an advanced concept from Lin Jie's blueprint, and it was also Arthur's first attempt.

He took out high-purity refined gold melted into a liquid state, dipped a small amount of the gold liquid with a specialized "Alchemical Etching Pen," held his breath, and began to draw complex circuits on the inside of the leather components.

Golden lines traced across the black leather, forming a marvelous pattern that blended the aesthetic of futuristic technology with classical occultism.

"Now, this is the critical moment of fusion." Arthur's voice turned incredibly grave. "I am going to inlay the Chaos Brass onto the leather base and connect it through these conductive lines. This process is most prone to spiritual rejection. Lin Jie, I need you to focus all your attention and tell me the most minute energy flows and 'emotional' feedback!"

Lin Jie nodded solemnly.

Arthur placed a refined ingot of Chaos Brass into the Alchemical Furnace, heating it to a semi-molten state at a precise temperature.

Then, using a pair of massive iron tongs, he pressed the scorching metal onto the leather base that had already been etched with lines.

"Sizzle—"

A pungent, charred smell instantly filled the air.

Yet, in Lin Jie's world of perception, a silent and violent war had erupted!

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

It instinctively resisted the planned path, attempting to break through the lines and corrupt the entire gauntlet!

"Rejection! A strong rejection reaction!" Lin Jie shouted immediately. "The energy is surging toward the third main line on the left! It's about to lose control!"

Beads of sweat seeped from Arthur's forehead, but he did not panic in the slightest.

He immediately picked up another small silver hammer tempered in holy water and began to strike the scorching brass ingot rapidly with a rhythmic cadence.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The strikes seemed to carry a mysterious power capable of "soothing" and "regulating," acting not just as physical shaping, but as taming on a spiritual level.

Under Lin Jie's guidance, every one of Arthur's strikes landed precisely on the most violent points of that "rejection energy."

"Its power is starting to retract... you are forcing it back into the pre-set grooves!"

"Very good! Now... try to connect it with the lines... I can feel a faint resonance! They are starting to accept each other!"

"Steady! Mr. Arthur! This is it, fuse them completely!"

Amidst Lin Jie's shouts like a battlefield commander and Arthur's storm-like strikes, that violent, chaotic force was finally successfully tamed!

It no longer resisted, instead flowing slowly into the golden channels prepared for it.

Finally, as the last strike landed and all the materials cooled, the entire workshop fell into an extreme silence.

A prototype of a Grotesque Armament, unprecedented and perfectly fusing advanced concepts with exquisite craftsmanship, lay quietly upon the workbench.