Come on, A Shui, put on a show for everyone!

"Huh? Isn't this Kazan's precious lunchbox?"

It took Wang Shui quite some time to dig the battered, enormous metal box out of the mountain of scrap parts, and he had to crank the power all the way up to move it aside.

How strange. Didn't Kazan always take his little lunchbox whenever he went out?

Although it was heavy, to Kazan it was no more than a brick. He normally tossed it into his awakener space and used it to eat and drink whenever he needed to. Something he used so often shouldn't be hidden here, should it?

Wait, hidden?

A wicked grin suddenly spread across Wang Shui's face. He first checked the tooth marks and finger impressions on the metal box, then fetched a "plasma jet cutting torch" from the repair bench and sliced through the thumb-thick metal rod on top of the box in a few quick passes.

There was no helping it. Wang Shui had made this box for Kazan himself, using a main battle spacecraft's keel alloy that some guy had gotten hold of. Wang Shui hadn't done much processing, either. Just folding it into a box had taken over a month of his after-work hours, the only time he normally had to study and improve himself. Kazan had paid for it with what little savings he had.

When Kazan received his sturdy little lunchbox, he jumped for joy, and the neighbors thought there was an earthquake.

But looking at it now, the solder along the seams had already cracked. It probably couldn't hold drinking water anymore.

Ordinary flame cutting, plasma jets, and the like were useless against this damn thing. Compared with the box, the "lock" Kazan had casually made by squeezing a metal rod into shape was the real point of entry.

Even after cutting the lock, opening the box was no simple matter. Wang Shui's detachable powered arms were missing, so he could only use the metal tentacles on his mechanical exoskeleton to pry his masterpiece open bit by bit.

Sure enough, once the lunchbox lid swung over with a clang and stayed there without bouncing back, Wang Shui saw the treasure inside.

A genuine treasure.

[CZ90 Silver Dragon], the engine of a tier-three medium siege armor unit. Its bright silver, mirrorlike surface even gave off an illusory firefly glow. It was beautiful, though of course, the engine in the box wasn't complete.

Wang Shui had recognized it at a glance only because it had a serial number. He looked it up online and found the metal's specifications along the way.

This alloy shared its name with the engine and had been specially developed for its manufacture. The publicly available information online was limited to descriptions of its toughness, stability, corrosion and impact resistance, and its unusual property of insulating against almost all energy internally while possessing excellent surface conductivity. It could also withstand temperatures of tens of millions of degrees, and even resist ablation at over a hundred million degrees for short periods. It was extremely strong.

It was gorgeous. Wang Shui saw an image of the complete engine, its massive form displaying an indescribable intricacy, full of industrial beauty.

Unfortunately, the piece before him was only about a third of the entire engine. The severed cross section bore a clean cutting mark. Something had cleaved this huge thing apart with a single sword stroke. There were no other marks on the cut surface, only a large, tooth-marked gap. Kazan had bitten off a chunk the size of two of Wang Shui's fists.

That lunkhead. Wang Shui really had no idea how his stomach worked, if it could digest even this stuff.

As Wang Shui remembered it, Kazan was a hybrid of a metal-related race and a lesser giant. Eating various metals seemed to be a racial trait of theirs, and metal helped them grow and develop. Kazan was always saying his mother had told him there was a kind of metal that would make him smarter if he ate it, so he would taste any metal he found.

Wang Shui felt that Kazan's mother had made that up to keep him from being a picky eater, but he kept his mouth shut.

Tsk, there's a chunk missing, but there's still plenty left. Wang Shui snapped his fingers and confiscated it on the spot. The kid's even learned to hide things now. Your Brother Shui needs to borrow your snacks to make some self-defense tools.

Barring any surprises, the metal shouldn't be consumed in the process. At worst, he could return it to Kazan afterward.

Even if Wang Shui unscrupulously pocketed the metal, all he would have to do was coax the big fellow a little. At most, he could say Brother Hei had eaten it. Kazan absolutely idolized Brother Hei.

He certainly wouldn't mind such a small matter. Besides, this wasn't Wang Shui's first time tricking a kid out of his snacks. Moving the [Silver Dragon Alloy] hadn't been particularly difficult. His next problem was how to work it.

Heat treatment was definitely out. This stuff clearly required alchemy, but that was definitely beyond Wang Shui right now.

Shaping ordinary metal was simple. Once alchemically controlled energy permeated it, it could be kneaded however one pleased.

But an alloy also produced through alchemy, especially high-level alchemy, had an extremely complex internal structure and properties, and its formula was troublesome too. Viewed through alchemy, its interior resembled a maze. With Wang Shui's current skills, he couldn't even find the entrance.

Come to think of it, cracking metal formulas and alchemical techniques was a sizable industry in its own right.

Wang Shui had thought of this as soon as he saw the alloy. Naturally, he had an idea in mind before putting in the effort to move it. Alchemy for cracking alloy techniques was rarely found online, but the notebook he had bought for ten silver coins happened to contain a record of it.

Fully cracking it was probably impossible, but Wang Shui only wanted to find a technique for changing its shape. Plans couldn't keep up with changes, and things had come back around to studying alchemy.

The more urgent things became, the more he wanted to seize every moment to get things done, the faster time slipped away.

A day and a half passed in a flash. On the morning of the fourth day, Wang Shui hurried back to the shabby repair shop and casually tossed his rain-soaked grayish-white shoulder cape onto a pile of scrap metal.

Over these two days of research, Wang Shui had finished reading those hundred-odd introductory alchemy books. He was highly efficient, mainly because he skipped content he had no immediate use for and focused on knowledge related to "metal alchemy." Only yesterday had he become barely able to follow the reasoning in that notebook, rather than understanding nothing beyond its headings.

Old Moran deserved some credit too. Wang Shui had gone to consult him and had also bought some alchemical tools from him at a low price. It sounded a little unbelievable, but that was how the world worked for the socially anxious: people with good social skills had an easier time getting by.

He had just gone out to buy a few things. Now that he had more or less all the knowledge and tools he needed, Wang Shui was ready to begin his performance.

In the little courtyard, Wang Shui placed the [Silver Dragon Alloy] on a large steel-clad wooden table. Wearing the [Hermit's Hand], he peered inside and carefully examined its metal structure while taking notes.

Using the notebook's reasoning and the principles of the [Reflection Array], Wang Shui and Old Moran had designed an unpacking tool to analyze the surface-layer alchemical techniques. But to complete the mapping, he still needed to fully analyze the internal conditions unique to this piece of alloy.

Yes, unique. The alchemy they had designed could only analyze one specific target at a time. For another piece of [Silver Dragon Alloy], it would have to be redesigned. This targeted design greatly reduced the complexity of the alchemy.

Cracking the technique wasn't difficult. It reminded Wang Shui of learning to crack single-player games long ago. With the help of a memory-search tool, things weren't as complicated as he had imagined.

Using the [Hermit's Hand]'s see-through effect, Wang Shui completed the physical analysis in just over an hour. The various parameters piled up in an electronic document, which he dragged out into a long screen.

Then Wang Shui opened the virtual alchemical drafting software and began designing the [Reflection Array]. The last time he had used alchemy, he had still been using the most basic "00" array, a circle with an inscribed six-pointed star. This time, he was using the Reflection Array, designation "C-01," and the complexity had skyrocketed.

Once the design was complete, the method of drawing the array was different too. With such an enormous amount of data this time, a steel plate and energy alone wouldn't suffice.

Wang Shui took out a thick plastic box packed with white paper cards, with a metal-barreled pen clipped to its exterior.

What came next required patience. Wang Shui copied the alchemical array he had just designed from the virtual drafting software, his soft metal-nibbed pen leaving blue writing and patterns on the specially made cards.

Wang Shui copied very slowly. He didn't want to waste these cards that cost two bucks apiece.

By the time he finished copying all 108 cards, evening was approaching, though it had been raining outside all along, and the courtyard lights had remained on.

Wang Shui first checked everything over. Once he confirmed there were no mistakes or omissions, he immediately-brewed himself a cup of tea to rest and settle his mind. This blended medicinal tea could also increase an awakener's "perception" and "mind" attributes by one point each for six hours after drinking it, while accelerating energy recovery.

After confirming that the medicinal tea had taken effect, Wang Shui activated the array on the topmost card, then grabbed the deck and tossed it into the air. Connected by energy, the cards spread out in all directions, forming a constantly moving "satellite network" around Wang Shui, with energy flowing through the deck without dissipating.

Holding the pen, Wang Shui used it as a casting medium to communicate with the array. Only after it ran through two cycles without issue did he press his left hand against the [Silver Dragon Alloy].

The array's energy enveloped the alloy, and complex reflected diagrams of its structure and metallic properties instantly flooded Wang Shui's brain. The cards moving through the air first buffered the data to protect the interaction array, while the [Array: Computing Terminal], Wang Shui's biological brain, had already begun preprocessing the data. The specific alchemical structure began taking shape in the air as lines of blue energy.

Wang Shui observed and calculated the exposed structure, then quickly derived a formula based on the notebook's knowledge and Old Moran's guidance. His right hand guided the pen across the blank cards beside him as his mind continued calculating.

Once he stopped writing, the cards on the table, now covered in words and symbols, quickly connected to the array. Without needing to fly into the air, they changed the properties of the entire array.

The new energy structure extended along Wang Shui's left hand into the [Silver Dragon Alloy]. He soon sensed the traces of alchemy scattered throughout the material, and the energy structure he had newly converted was extremely similar to those traces. This was the effect of reflection.

After wandering for a long time, Wang Shui's energy began to run low, and his recovery couldn't quite keep up. Among the deck circling overhead, cards that no longer served much purpose began to burn on their own. Every card reduced to ash gave the array another ten seconds of operating time.

The second card, the third... Wang Shui spared them little attention. Burning cards to extend its operation was a feature written into the array. He needed to concentrate on establishing the connection.

Suddenly, Wang Shui felt the strain on his mind ease, and the resistance against his hand gave way too. His left hand plunged straight into the [Silver Dragon Alloy]!

It worked! Wang Shui quickly pulled his hand out, extended his mind over the alloy, and divided it into equal portions.

After a brief calculation, the alloy split into thirty equal portions and transformed into straight-edged throwing knives thirty centimeters long. Their shape resembled straight daggers, though their length qualified them as short swords. They were three centimeters at their widest and one centimeter at their thickest, with uniform forms and surfaces as smooth and gleaming as mirrors.

Wang Shui let out a forceful breath and toppled backward, landing squarely in the chair he had prepared beforehand. His jumbled thoughts slowly recovered, and every breath of cool air carrying the scent of rain made him a little more comfortable.

Once he regained a little control over his body, Wang Shui hurried over to the table and picked up a throwing knife-or rather, a short sword-to examine it closely.

Fuck, it seems a little too long...