Chapter 34: Armed Upgrades

"I understand... I completely understand!" Arthur slapped his forehead, staring intently at the materials on the workbench. "You, my friend, you're trying to create an entirely new 'combat paradigm'!"Lin Jie felt a slight stirring in his heart. He knew this genius craftsman had grasped the deepest strategic intent behind his design.

"From its very inception, the core concept of Grotesque Armament has been 'confrontation'." Arthur paced excitedly around the workshop. "Using UMA power to combat UMA power! Using sturdy scales to counter sharp claws, using stable spiritual anchors to resist maddening whispers! This has been the foundational theory we've held sacred for centuries!"

He stopped and pointed at the mutated brass ingots, his voice trembling slightly with excitement. "Your design philosophy fundamentally overturns all of this! What you want isn't 'confrontation', but 'interference'!"

He picked up a piece of Chaos Brass, its surface glowing eerily with the runes unconsciously left by Gremlins.

"When we've dealt with materials carrying cursed properties in the past, our first reaction was always purification and suppression! Washing with holy water, neutralizing with silver runes, doing everything to weaken its curse. This is such a waste!"

"But you," Arthur looked at Lin Jie with burning eyes, "you take the opposite approach! Instead of suppressing, you 'guide' it!"

"That's why you designed those damned 'spiritual conduction circuits'! You want to transform this passive cursed field into a tactical interference device that can be precisely controlled and actively deployed!"

Although this era didn't have the term "electromagnetic pulse EMP," Arthur's genius mind instantly understood the core of Lin Jie's design—transforming the negative curses of UMAs into an interference capability that could disable enemy weapons.

"Exactly, that's precisely what I want." Lin Jie admitted frankly. He hadn't expected Arthur to dissect his intentions so thoroughly just from a sketch and a few materials.

His purpose in designing this armament wasn't just to confront UMAs, but to give himself self-protection capabilities when facing threats from other humans.

"A vambrace that can create a 'mechanical paralysis' field within a small area..." Arthur murmured to himself, countless application scenarios flashing through his mind. "Against clockwork knights, it could instantly lock their joint gears;against alchemical firearms, it could disable the firing mechanism;and even... when facing certain powerful UMAs that rely on precision machinery to sustain their lives, this single 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. "Void Rubber's characteristic is absorbing light and energy fluctuations. The traditional usage is making cloaks or linings for passive stealth or defense. But I think we could approach it differently."

"What if its absorption isn't passive? What if I actively inject trace amounts of spiritual energy through the conduction circuits to activate it?"

Lin Jie proposed his concept. "Would it act like a squeezed sponge, releasing all absorbed light and fluctuations in the form of a distorted field when reaching a critical point? Thus creating an 'absolute invisibility' zone where light and vision become distorted for a short period?"

Active optical camouflage!

Arthur's mind was once again heavily impacted by this imaginative concept.

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

He solemnly spread Lin Jie's rough sketch in the center of the workbench, then neatly arranged the various top-grade "Spiritual Materials" by category.

He turned around and spoke to Lin Jie in a fervent, requesting tone. "I need your help, Interpreter. I'm about to begin decomposing and shaping these materials. During this process, I need you to remain here the entire time, using your unique perception to tell me the most subtle 'emotional' changes in these materials as they fuse!"

Lin Jie nodded without hesitation.

This wasn't just Arthur's request—it was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for him to learn the profound art of "Grotesque Armament" forging.

Arthur lit the alchemical furnace, put on dragonhide gloves, and selected several of his most comfortable tools from the hundreds on the wall.

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

Arthur didn't simply throw them into the furnace to melt them—that was ordinary blacksmith practice.

He deeply understood that these "spiritually infused" materials had supernatural powers inseparably intertwined with their physical structures, requiring purification first.

He carefully secured a brass ingot onto a precise steam drill press.

"I'm beginning." Arthur's voice was low and focused. "I need to remove the mixed spiritual energies within this material, preserving only the core essence of chaos and destructive curses."

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

Lin Jie immediately focused all his mental energy, adjusting his ability to its most sensitive state, scanning the "spiritual strata" inside the brass ingot like geological radar.

"One-third down on the lower left, I feel sharp stinging." Lin Jie quickly provided judgment. "The spiritual energy there is resisting your cutting."

Upon hearing this, Arthur immediately started the drill press, selected the finest drill bit, and slowly but steadily drilled toward the position Lin Jie indicated.

"Zzz—"

A faint, piercing sound emerged, with thin black smoke rising from the drill hole, carrying a sulfurous stench.

What was drilled out wasn't metal powder, but an asphalt-like viscous black substance.

"Impurities." Arthur said succinctly.

As these impurities were removed, Lin Jie could clearly feel the brass ingot's restlessness calming slightly.

This process was like a doctor performing precise surgical tumor removal on a patient.

One "impurity point" after another was identified by Lin Jie, then cleared by Arthur using different tools.

Several hours later, when the last impurity was removed, the previously unremarkable brass ingots had undergone a complete transformation.

Their color deepened, and the "curse runes" left by Gremlins on the surface seemed to come alive, slowly flowing and emitting pure, powerful chaotic energy.

"Perfect..." Arthur removed his goggles, looking at the purified top-grade materials before him with satisfaction.

He glanced at Lin Jie, who looked somewhat pale, with genuine recognition in his eyes. "You did well, Interpreter. Without your positioning, this process would have taken me at least three times longer, with a failure rate over fifty percent."

After a brief rest, forging entered the second stage—creating the vambrace's "main platform" and "spiritual conduction circuits."

This time, Arthur displayed his breathtakingly exquisite skill as a top-tier watchmaker.

He selected a special leather that combined flexibility with toughness as the base, precisely measured Lin Jie's arm dimensions, then used a specially made leather-cutting knife to slice the leather into dozens of ergonomic components.

Next came the most critical step—etching the "spiritual conduction circuits."

This was entirely Lin Jie's forward-thinking concept from the design drawings, and Arthur's first attempt.

He took out high-purity electrum melted into liquid form, dipped a special "alchemical etching pen" into a small amount of the golden liquid, held his breath, and began drawing complex circuits on the inner side of the leather components.

The golden lines formed a wondrous pattern on the black leather, blending futuristic technological aesthetics with classical mystical beauty.

"Now, the critical moment of fusion." Arthur's voice became extremely serious. "I need to embed the Chaos Brass onto the leather main body and connect it through these conduction circuits. This process is most prone to spiritual rejection. Lin Jie, I need you to focus all your mental energy and tell me the most subtle energy flows and 'emotional' feedback!"

Lin Jie nodded solemnly.

Arthur placed a purified Chaos Brass ingot into the alchemical furnace, heating it to a semi-molten state at precise temperatures.

Then he used massive iron tongs to press this scorching metal toward the leather base with etched circuits.

"Sizzle—"

An acrid burning smell instantly filled the air.

And in Lin Jie's perceptual world, a silent but intense war erupted!

He saw the powerful force of destruction and disorder within the Chaos Brass suddenly charging toward the electrum lines representing restraint and guidance.

It instinctively resisted the predetermined paths, trying to break through the circuits and contaminate the entire vambrace!

"Rejection! Strong rejection reaction!" Lin Jie immediately shouted. "Energy is impacting the third main circuit on the left! It's about to go out of control!"

Sweat beaded on Arthur's forehead too, but he showed no panic.

He immediately picked up another small silver hammer tempered with holy water and began lightly tapping the scorching brass ingot in a rhythmic, rapid pattern.

"Clang! Clang! Clang!"

The strikes seemed to carry a mysterious power of "soothing" and "organizing," not just physical shaping but spiritual taming.

Guided by Lin Jie, Arthur's every strike landed precisely on the most violent points of that "rejection energy."

"Its power is starting to retract... you're forcing it back into the preset grooves!"

"Good! Now... try connecting it with the circuits... I sense a faint resonance! They're starting to accept each other!"

"Steady! Master Arthur! Right now, fuse them completely!"

Amid Lin Jie's battlefield commander-like shouts and Arthur's storm-like hammering, the violent chaotic force was finally successfully tamed!

It no longer resisted, but slowly flowed into the golden channels prepared for it.

Finally, when the last strike fell and all materials cooled, the entire workshop fell into absolute silence.

An unprecedented Grotesque Armament prototype, perfectly integrating forward-thinking concepts with exquisite craftsmanship, lay quietly on the workbench.