Chapter 199: It worked!

The pacts of [Coded Arsenal] were several, though quite simple. First of all, to enter the 'mental space,' Kai had to be completely calm, with no emotional fluctuations. Additionally, he first had to forge a sword with his own hands. Although it didn’t need to be very detailed, as long as it resembled a sword and had a certain level of durability and technique, it was considered valid.

Secondly, any sword Kai wished to place on the altar had to be forged from scratch in the 'mental workshop' down to the last detail. This included the Aura Script pattern, which also had to be manually engraved beforehand on the altars and had to match the sword perfectly—otherwise, the altar would reject the sword.

Likewise, the sword designs on the altars had to be different from each other, or they too would be rejected. As for the independent pacts of the secondary altars, in order to create something so useful, Kai had to make several ‘sacrifices’. To begin with, the design of the ‘sword’ had to be somehow related to the ability it would manifest.

More importantly, each sword on the secondary altars could hold only one sword design at a time, and each sword had to have a unique name that represented its ability—or at least gave a clue about it. This name could be spoken aloud to enhance the effects of its ability.

Meanwhile, the ‘main altar’, or the ‘original’—the first one Kai conceptualized when he created the ability—functioned in a slightly different way. Not only was it larger, but it could also simultaneously hold a large number of different sword designs, all influenced by the Aura Script pattern engraved on the altar.

Additionally, on the main altar, the swords didn’t need to have names, and Kai was virtually unrestricted in conjuring them—aside from the aura cost, which was quite low. In return, however, the main altar could hardly support any pacts. It was the only one so far where, by speaking its name aloud, Kai could conjure a large number of copies of the selected sword, resulting in the ability known as [Sword Field].

On the other hand, once a sword was placed on one of the altars, there was no way to change or modify it. The only solution was to ‘reset’ the altar, returning it to its empty state and starting the process again from scratch with a new sword. This affected all altars, which is why it had been a long time since Kai had touched any of them—it would be a huge amount of work to make any changes.

But in exchange for all those limitations, what Kai gained was an ability that, on one hand, allowed him to conjure perfect swords with extreme ease. On the other hand, it gave him a platform on which he could easily create derivative abilities that functioned almost automatically. This ultimately served as the foundation for the creation of the skill cards.

…

“With this, the grooves are ready.”

After a couple of hours, Kai looked at the empty altar, now completely covered with an Aura Script pattern, carefully engraved with extreme precision. He commented with a satisfied smile.

“Shall we start with the sterling silver (silver-copper), master?” The beautiful red-haired fairy asked quickly in a serious tone, to which Kai nodded.

“Yes, let’s go with that.”

At her master’s response, Sage quickly floated over what looked like a deposition syringe filled with a pale metallic gray paste with faint reddish reflections. The blue-eyed boy took it and began carefully filling the channels, making sure to fill each groove completely without spilling over. Once he was done, he used a small spatula to correct any imperfections and remove the excess.

“Hand me the Tantalum and the Nichrome (nickel-chrome), Sage.”

After finishing the filling of the tracks with the silver-copper alloy paste, Kai gave the order in a calm tone as he set the syringe aside. His reliable assistant responded swiftly by floating two new syringes in front of him.

“Immediately, Master.”

Taking the syringes—one containing what appeared to be a dark gray paste with a deep, barely noticeable violet hue and the other a dull silver color, resembling metallic graphite—Kai quickly began filling various nodes of the pattern, which were shaped like tribal runes. He first filled the outer part of each node with the silver paste, then the center with the dark gray one.

“Now the gold.”

After finishing with the tantalum and the Nichrome, Kai gave the order in a serious tone. A new syringe appeared in front of him, and the process repeated several times until all the grooves on the altar were completely filled.

“That should do it.”

After giving the Aura Script pattern its final touches with the help of a spatula, Kai commented with a satisfied smile, then walked to a corner of the workshop where a high-precision thermal lamp was located. He soon placed it in front of the altar and calmly gave his next command.

“Bake it, Sage. I’ll start forging the weapon.”

“Understood, Master.”

Sage responded quickly in a serious tone, then took control of the thermal lamp and began to ‘bake’ the multi-metal alloy paste with focused precision. Meanwhile, Kai went to the metal ingot shelf, selected a couple, and began methodically and calmly forging a new blade.

…

After several hours of uninterrupted work, Kai finished what looked like a knife with three blades—almost as if it had a sharpened handguard. At that moment, the blue-eyed boy couldn’t help but smile with some amusement and cheerfully remarked.

“Of course, if it’s ‘teleportation,’ it had to be this one, hehe. Should I start calling myself the Black Lightning?”

“Shall I start designing your ‘Hokage cloak,’ Master?” Sage, who understood the reference perfectly, replied in a playful tone, to which Kai chuckled and responded.

“Wouldn’t be bad, but let’s leave that job to Yumiko—if we tried, it’d just turn out embarrassing, haha.”

Now in much better spirits, Kai quickly placed the ‘Kunai’ into a long electric furnace, then stood in front of the altar—now cured perfectly and ready. He gathered a considerable amount of aura in his index finger and immediately began touching the nodes of the Aura Script pattern in a specific sequence. Then he stepped back to watch the spectacle.

Using [Gyo] in his eyes, Kai could see his aura rapidly flowing through the Aura Script pattern, then starting to ‘vibrate,’ as if resonating with something. After a few seconds, the aura gradually began to settle and eventually disappeared—at which point Kai smiled brightly.

“It worked without a hitch, so now it’s time to engrave it onto my ‘Kunai,’ hehe.”

In a great mood, Kai said with amusement as he began running more tests with the Aura Script pattern engraved on the altar. Meanwhile, Sage couldn’t help but smile warmly—she loved seeing her master so cheerful, especially after everything he had gone through on that island and how down he’d been since waking up. Truly, building things—especially forging—had a magical effect on her master.

Shortly after, Kai tempered the blade of his Kunai, then began carefully engraving the Aura Script pattern across its surface. He made sure that the grooves were no more than half a millimeter deep so as not to compromise the weapon’s structural integrity. Then, using the same metal paste syringes, he filled in all the grooves.

After some time, Kai pulled his freshly forged Kunai out of the curing furnace and activated the carved pattern with his aura. Just like with the one on the altar, it responded perfectly, putting a huge smile on his face. Visibly excited, he commented.

“Well, Sage, this is it—the moment of truth. Since we’re not using any pacts for this, if the Altar accepts the Kunai, we’ll be more than halfway to achieving teleportation.”

“Let’s go, Master!” Sage said, equally excited, clenching her tiny fists in front of her. At that moment, Kai gripped the handleless Kunai tightly and overloaded it with Aura.

At the same time, he walked over to the empty altar, then drove the Kunai into it and let his aura flow into the altar, which began to glow softly. This made Sage clench her tiny fists even tighter—if the altar simply dimmed and shut off, they had succeeded. But if they failed, the altar would automatically reset, destroying the ‘sword’ in the process and forcing them to start from scratch.

After several seconds that felt like hours, the altar began to flicker. Kai gripped the Kunai harder, and Sage bit her lower lip in anticipation. But soon, the altar began to dim, slowly returning to its original state—prompting both the young man and the fairy to exhale sighs of relief, which quickly turned into beaming smiles. At that moment, Kai joyfully declared.

“I name you, [Static Mark].”

“We did it!”

As Kai released the Kunai and took a step back, Sage cried out in pure joy, launching herself to wrap her tiny body around her master’s head in a hug. He responded with a big smile as he watched his aura flow seamlessly through the entire Aura Script pattern, moving from the Kunai to the altar and back again without issue—a process that lasted a couple of minutes until both the altar and the Kunai took on the same appearance as the other five.

“Well, now for the most important part—let’s test it!” Kai said with visible excitement, prompting Sage to nod eagerly and reply with a huge grin.

“Let’s do it!”

Kai quickly reached for the necklace around his neck, grasping the pendant shaped like an open hand. He then closed his eyes and calmed his emotions. After a few seconds, he reopened them—now back in his real forging workshop. Without wasting a moment, he made his way to the exit, just as the first rays of sunlight were beginning to peek through. Since the 'mental workshop' existed in his mind, his accelerated thinking made time pass several times faster inside than in the real world.

Once outside his workshop, Kai extended his Observation Haki to scan the surroundings, quickly realizing that the entire family was still asleep—only Mrs. Yoshiko was awake. Without delay, he sprinted toward the forest, soon arriving at a wide clearing where he came to a stop.

In the center of the clearing, Kai extended his hand and conjured the new Kunai, [Static Mark], with a single thought—so naturally and fluidly it was as if he’d been doing it his whole life. He inspected it from various angles, making sure everything was perfect, then spoke in a serious tone.

“Here we go.”

As Sage nodded with an almost solemn expression, Kai threw the Kunai several meters away, embedding it in the ground. He then spoke in a grave tone.

“Help me monitor it, Sage. If things go south, let me know—I’ll enter ‘Zetsu’ mode immediately.”

“Don’t worry, Master. I’ve just paused all other processing threads and allocated all available computational power to this task—I won’t miss a single detail. You can proceed with Protocol 26. According to my calculations, it has the highest probability of success.”

As her wings shimmered like a kaleidoscope, Sage spoke with an incredibly serious tone, fully determined not to overlook even the slightest detail. At that moment, Kai nodded and replied.

“I trust you.”

Immediately after speaking, Kai closed his eyes and focused entirely on his aura—specifically, on that small portion of it separated from his body in the form of the Kunai. He didn’t bother saying the Kunai’s name, since he wasn’t using a pact—just the basic function of the Aura Script pattern—so it wasn’t necessary. Then he began to follow Protocol 26, one of the many procedures they had developed over the years in their attempts to achieve aura-based teleportation.

Using [Ten], Kai began synchronizing his aura perfectly with the aura forming his Kunai. Then, with extreme care, he started compressing both his aura and the aura surrounding the Kunai, as if attempting to perform an inverse Emission. This process lasted several minutes until, after some time, he reached a kind of “singularity”—a moment in which, in a way he didn’t fully understand, Kai felt his aura “reconnect.”

Although he had experienced that feeling before, the sensation of reconnection was usually so fleeting it vanished within fractions of a millisecond—so fast that he could only perceive it by accelerating his thoughts to the point it gave him headaches. But this time, the sensation lasted for nearly half a second before fading, which led him to open his eyes and exclaim with excitement.

“It worked!!”

***

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