Chương 54: Flesh Armament Art

The gray-white flesh buds slowly writhed on the inner side of Rowan's forearm. They pushed out from beneath his skin bit by bit, like insect eggs buried in flesh, forcibly arranging themselves into a shape that could be understood. [How is the mission proceeding, Ring Finger-7?] [Please respond.] Rowan did not speak.

He first turned off several unnecessary power sources on the table, pulled the blackout curtain by the window tighter, then picked up his personal terminal and scanned through his recent Akashic Talk records, local communication records, and nearby access traces. No external communication requests. No unfamiliar signal sources. No trace of any old Blackwater protocol access. The words on his arm had nothing to do with any conventional communication method in Terra.

Rowan lowered his head and looked at the gray-white flesh buds on his forearm. In a very low voice, he tried saying,"Acquired." No response. He reached out and pressed his fingers against the lines of flesh-bud text. Beneath his fingertips came a faint cold sensation, like touching a layer of cocoon skin that had not fully died. Still no change. Rowan's eyes turned colder. As expected, the entrance was not on the skin.

He leaned back against the chair, slowly closed his eyes, and sank his awareness deep into his mental sea. The gray-white chrysalis shadow was still pinned in the corner by the Möbius Ring. Its surface occasionally twitched. It did not struggle actively, nor did it continue eroding him. It only felt as if something was knocking, again and again, on the outside of its shell from a very great distance. Rowan did not approach.

He only separated out an extremely thin thread of Mental Power, like testing a rotten wound with the tip of a needle, and lightly touched the edge of the Gray Chrysalis. The first time, there was no response. The second time, the Gray Chrysalis trembled faintly. Rowan immediately withdrew most of his Mental Power, leaving only the thinnest thread, and pressed a brief thought into it. [Acquired.] The flesh buds on his forearm suddenly contracted.

The protruding words seemed to be swallowed from within, leaving only a patch of fine gray-white marks on the surface of his skin. Several seconds later, new flesh buds pushed out again. [Confirmed.] [End of the month, 18: 00.] [Starlight Tower.] [Storage location to be confirmed at that time.] [Ensure the recorded crystal disk information is complete.] After that, all the flesh buds shriveled at the same time and quickly sank back into his skin, leaving only a few faint red traces.

The Gray Chrysalis in his mental sea also quieted down again. Rowan opened his eyes. He sat at the table in silence for a moment. Starlight Tower. End of the month. Six in the evening. Recording crystal disk. Put together, those words were enough to remind him of the message Rad had sent earlier. At the end of the month, the Starlight Consortium would hold a Vanguard Art Exhibition in the upper district, at Starlight Tower. They needed young extraordinary individuals above Tier 1 to temporarily serve as attendants.

The pay was two thousand TC for one shift. At the time, Rowan had only treated it as a decent-paying part-time job that could also get him into the upper district. Now, it seemed that the crowd at the exhibition, temporary personnel, security deployment, and the upper district's complex logistics environment were all suitable for hiding a handoff. Grey Raven had originally been supposed to bring the recording crystal disk there at the end of the month. Now Grey Raven was dead. The other side did not know yet.

There was about a week left before the end of the month. Before then, the school would also issue another Mana Primordium. That was a sprint resource prepared by Westpoint Magitech High School for students who had passed the final monthly exam qualification screening. It was also one of the rewards he deserved. The Gray Chrysalis. Starlight Tower. The school's Mana Primordium. The recording crystal disk. And the original codex and scaled sphere buried in the other world's burrow.

One thing after another pressed down on him, like invisible threads winding around his hand. A faint sound came from the wooden board on top of the cabinet. Rowan looked up. The Crystal-Scaled Pangolin was staring at his right wrist. The Möbius Ring's color had recovered from dull gray to deep black. Along the edges of its patterns was a faint layer of blue light. Soon. The pangolin had clearly recognized the change as well.

It jumped down from the top of the cabinet, circled around the leg of the table, then raised its front claws onto the chair leg. Its eyes stared unblinkingly at Rowan's wrist. This little thing usually valued its life. When it encountered unfamiliar danger, it would curl up first. But whenever a spatial rift was involved, it always moved faster than anyone. Rowan began sorting his things. The remaining Violet Frostvine Pills, a small bag of dry rations, and a spare short blade were all placed into an old tool bag.

Then he changed into the classical mage robe he used in the other world and checked the cuffs and inner pockets again. The pangolin stared at the tool bag, then at the Möbius Ring. Its tail swept lightly across the floor. It already understood what was about to happen. Rowan fastened the tool bag. When he lowered his head, he happened to see it curl into a ball like a small scaled chestnut, leaving only two bright black eyes exposed. He suddenly felt that he could not keep calling it "pangolin" forever.

"From now on, you're Chestnut." The pangolin raised its head and looked at him. Rowan added, "If you're not satisfied, we'll use it for now anyway." Chestnut gave no opinion and only continued staring at his wrist. Rowan raised his right hand. The Möbius Ring emitted a faint blue glow. A familiar spatial fluctuation spread from deep within his wrist bone. The stale air inside the rental room twisted under an invisible force, and a dark rift opened soundlessly.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. From the other side, the smell of damp earth and swamp vapor poured out. Chestnut's eyes instantly brightened until they almost seemed to glow. Almost the moment the rift opened, it shot into Rowan's coat, hooked its front claws into his lapel, and left only half its head exposed. Rowan lowered his head and glanced at it.

"Don't actually chew the passage apart one day." Chestnut gave no response. Or rather, it pretended not to hear. Rowan stepped into the rift. The familiar sense of falling flashed past. In the final instant before the spatial rift closed, Chestnut suddenly poked its head out. Crunch. It bit a small piece of blue void residue from the edge of the rift. The thing looked like a thin crisp flake of ice, or a piece of night torn away. Chestnut swallowed it in two or three bites.

Rowan no longer bothered trying to stop it.

"How does it taste?" The next moment, the rift closed. Rowan landed on soft wet mud. The burrow in the other world was still dark. The entrance remained as Chestnut had sealed it earlier, leaving only a few extremely thin breathing gaps. Chestnut crawled out of Rowan's coat. After landing on the ground, it first shook itself. The crystal scales on its back unfolded one by one. Fine specks of light appeared between the scale gaps. The color that had seemed slightly dim in Terra's room quickly became clear again.

It ran two circles around the burrow before returning to Rowan's side and lying on a raised stone, its tail slowly swaying. The high-mana environment clearly made it much more energetic. Rowan crouched at the deepest part of the burrow, moved aside the flat stone slab, and scraped away the half-dried mud bit by bit. The original codex preservation box. The recording crystal disk. The scaled sphere preservation box. The Blackwater terminal. The old authorization card.

He took them out one by one and placed them on the stone. Chestnut approached and first sniffed the original codex preservation box. It immediately retreated half a step. Rowan pushed the original codex preservation box aside.

"Don't touch this one." That thing required a fresh Source Crystal Core to open, and it carried ritual locks and abnormalities. He had already seen the flesh illusions that appeared when the original codex opened. He had no intention of sending his mind in to test it again. The Blackwater terminal and authorization card were temporarily meaningless as well. In the end, Rowan's hand stopped on the recording crystal disk. This was the first priority. Rowan pressed the recording crystal disk against his forehead.

A cold sensation seeped into the space between his brows. He separated out a thread of Mental Power and followed the recorded patterns on the surface of the disk inward. The next instant, dense information rose from deep within the crystal disk. It was not sound. Nor was it a complete image. It was more like someone had shoved a stack of damaged blueprints, spell annotations, and refining notes into his mind at the same time. Rowan's brow twitched slightly, and he immediately slowed the flow of Mental Power.

The stream of information stabilized. The title at the top surfaced. [Flesh Armament Art] Below it was a smaller line of annotation. [Fragmented Scroll of the Blood-Molt Count] Blood-Molt Count. The title did not sound like a Blackwater Heavy Industries engineering code, nor like the standard project names used by Terra's Consortiums. It was older. More like a legacy, a cult, or a fragment left behind by some powerful being from the other world. Rowan continued reading.

The first thing to appear was a damaged general outline. Parts of the text seemed to have been burned through by contamination, their edges blurred. He could only identify the readable content piece by piece. At first, he had thought this thing was only a cult modification technique. But as he truly read on, he quickly realized that judgment had been too shallow. The foundational logic of [Flesh Armament Art] was first and foremost weapons.

Only the materials it used were too direct, too fresh, and far too unlike what a normal weapon should look like. Traditional magical weapons also used mana-beast horns, beast blood, mana crystals, scales, bone powder, and various minerals. Those materials would be ground, smelted, purified, and finally sealed into metal, crystal, and array patterns. When the final product was placed in front of someone, it was still a knife, a staff, or a shield.

[Flesh Armament Art] preserved the original activity of flesh-and-blood materials. The load-bearing structure of bones. The elasticity of fascia. The naturally formed mana patterns on carapaces and scales. The residual reflex pathways inside nerve bundles. Parts that should have rotted, been stripped away, or been purified out were instead rewoven by mana armament patterns and pressed into forms capable of guiding mana. Rowan stared at that general outline, and his breathing slowly became lighter.

This was still a magical weapon. Only traditional refining washed away the traces of flesh, while this art kept the flesh itself. Its use of material activity was more direct than many standardized magitech devices in Terra. Rowan continued down. A Tier 1 blueprint directory gradually appeared. [Bone-Flesh Blade] [Tendon-Cord Crossbow] [Carapace Bracer] [Bone-Spike Trap] [Spinal Sword Prototype] He did not rush to read all of them. His attention first fell on the Bone-Flesh Blade.

[Bone-Flesh Blade: Uses a mana-beast long bone as the core blank and fascia as the buffer layer to maintain toughness. Can temporarily carry low-tier mana. After drinking enough blood, it can release a Blood Blade Swing, a corrosive blood slash.] A simple line of description. Yet Rowan stopped. Mana-beast long bone. Fascia. If these requirements were placed in Terra, the very first condition would be enough to stop most lower-level mages. Terra was too barren.

What could be bought in the lower black market was mostly contaminated aberrant tissue. Either its mana structure was chaotic, or it carried Tainted Energy residue. Why had Blackwater gone to the Fifth Biological Warehouse? Those chimeric samples did not look like weapons either. Were they really studying flesh weapons? One thing was certain, however. The materials were still difficult to obtain. Rowan slowly raised his head and looked at the thin breathing gaps in the burrow.

Beyond those gaps were the forests, swamps, mana-beasts, and dense natural mana of the other world. And countless materials. Rowan's heartbeat inevitably quickened. If Blackwater obtained this art, they would have to rely on laboratories, sample vaults, and sealed warehouses to slowly restore it. But Rowan had both sides. Terra gave him tools. The other world gave him materials, a mana-rich environment, and an endless supply of mana-beast corpses. This was not merely a piece of loot.

This was a path that could turn the resources of the other world into weapons. For an instant, a trace of light that he could not fully suppress appeared in Rowan's eyes. But he quickly forced himself to calm down. Excitement made people make mistakes. The Gray Chrysalis was still in his mental sea. And the aberrant samples inside the Fifth Biological Warehouse might once have been considered a "successful route" in the eyes of some researcher. This thing could save his life. It could also kill him.

Rowan continued reading. The Tendon-Cord Crossbow used highly elastic fascia, bone needles, and low-grade nerve bundles to form a launching structure. It could be used for traps and short-range shooting. The Carapace Bracer used mana-beast carapace, cartilage layers, and plant fibers woven into protective gear. It could withstand low-tier impacts and slowly repair itself through trace amounts of mana in blood. The Bone-Spike Trap had a simple structure and was suitable for temporary deployment.

The Spinal Sword Prototype required a complete spinal structure and carried higher risks. The Tier 1 version could only be used as a flexible weapon. Attempts to add reflex consciousness were forbidden. Materials. Blueprints. Field processing. Non-implantable. Not networked. Several words briefly collided in Rowan's mind, like gears that had not yet fully meshed. A damaged idea surfaced. He did not continue pursuing it. It was still too early. He had not even made his first real flesh armament.

Continuing to speculate would only let himself be led by an unverified possibility. Rowan turned to the Tier 2 directory. [Living Spinal Sword] [Chimeric Beast Puppet] [Living Bracer] [Flesh Scout Beast] Compared with the Tier 1 blueprints, the Tier 2 content was surrounded by many warnings. [Do not forcibly weave consciousness below Tier 2.] [Without the assistance of a Flesh Loom, do not refine spiritual armaments.] [Those who forcibly refine them mostly produce aberrations.] [If residual instincts in the materials cannot be suppressed, destroy the semi-finished product immediately.] Flesh Loom. Rowan's eyes shifted slightly when he saw the term. The Tier 2 content repeatedly mentioned it.

According to the description in the crystal disk, the Flesh Loom was responsible for maintaining material activity, stabilizing armament-pattern composite circuits, cutting and reweaving nerve bundles, suppressing conflicts between residual material instincts, and generating the most basic reflex consciousness in Tier 2 armaments. Tier 1 armaments were merely shaped. Starting from Tier 2, it already involved "weaving intent."

It wove the residual instincts, nerve reflexes, mana crystal activity, and spell circuits in mana-beast materials into something capable of making low-level responses to external stimuli. Reading to this point, Rowan's brows slowly furrowed. If this was only for making weapons, why did so many concepts related to consciousness, instinct, and puppets appear after Tier 2? Living Spinal Sword could still be explained as a weapon. Living Bracer could barely make sense as well.

But Chimeric Beast Puppet and Flesh Scout Beast had already crossed the boundary of simple weapons. The latter half of this art seemed to be sliding in another direction. A direction Blackwater Heavy Industries would truly be interested in. There were too few clues. Rowan could not figure it out for now. His gaze fell on the scaled sphere preservation box beside him. In the Blackwater terminal, that thing had been called a "Chimeric Armament auxiliary component."

Yet Grey Raven had specifically entered the lower manufacturing room to retrieve it. The Tier 2 section of the crystal disk repeatedly mentioned the Flesh Loom. Rowan had not obtained a direct answer, but he could already connect several lines. That scaled sphere was very likely the Flesh Loom. He refocused his attention on the Tier 1 blueprints and reread the content of the Bone-Flesh Blade. The first trial piece should not pursue power. It needed to be stable. Controllable.

And if it failed, it had to be something he could destroy immediately. Rowan broke down the Bone-Flesh Blade's structure in his mind. The long bone served as the primary load-bearing structure. The fascia served as the buffer layer and mana-conductive interlayer. The armament patterns could not be carved crudely onto the surface. If the bone cracked, the mana circuit would break directly.

It would be best to run one layer along the inner wall of the marrow cavity, then use externally wrapped fascia to form a second closed loop. If he used pure mana-beast bone from the other world, the mana channels themselves would be more stable. Perhaps he could reduce part of the armament pattern complexity. If he added a small amount of mana crystal powder, the blade's carrying limit would increase, but the risk of losing control would rise with it. The first piece could not be greedy.

It did not need to be sharp enough to cut through Tier 1 armor. As long as it could guide mana steadily and withstand one full-power slash without collapsing, it would count as success. The more Rowan thought, the brighter his eyes became. This was something he could break down, optimize, and rebuild. Terra's magitech had taught him how to read structures. The mana-beast materials of the other world gave him room for trial and error. The two together were his advantage.

He took a deep breath and forced down the excitement rising in his chest. He still could not act yet. Rowan removed the recording crystal disk from his forehead and placed it alone into an inner pocket close to his body. The original codex was resealed and pushed back into the shadows. The Blackwater terminal and authorization card were also wrapped up again. The scaled sphere preservation box was placed at the innermost part and covered with another layer of wet mud and stone slab.

In the end, he only kept the core structure of the Bone-Flesh Blade in his mind and ran through it repeatedly. Rowan walked to the edge of the burrow and looked out through the thin breathing gaps. Outside, it was still deep night. From the distant swamp came low sounds of water. Some small mana-beast dragged itself through the mud, making faint rustling noises. Chestnut crouched beside his foot, its crystal scales glowing faintly in the dark. Rowan looked into the darkness outside.

In his mind, he had already begun breaking those sounds down into body size, distance, and possible material value. A moment later, he said quietly,"I need to find a suitable material first." Chestnut raised its head and glanced at him. Then it also looked toward the burrow entrance, its tail tapping lightly against the wet mud.