Sunlight shone upon the Kana Wasteland like tens of thousands of golden rays, but the heat instead stirred up the dust on the wasteland’s surface.
Daytime in the Kana Wasteland was different from the night. Under the surging heat of the sunlight, the surface was constantly shrouded in a faint, dusky yellow twilight. Although it blocked out the sun to some extent, it also reduced visibility and blurred most landmarks. Inexperienced adventurers could easily get lost here.
Fortunately, the Mixed-blood Demon Race possessed an extremely strong sense of direction derived from the earth’s magnetic field itself, completely unaffected by the sunlight or dust.
WHOOSH!
CLANK CLANK. Samael followed alongside Talia, enthusiastically brandishing his bronze-colored Knight’s Longsword. The blade let out a piercing howl as it cut through the air.
[Remaining Energy: 97.3% (Free heat detected in the environment. Auto-absorbing heat to recharge...)]
With each swing of his sword, the stamina panel on his UI shifted from [100%] to [99%], only to rapidly shoot back up to [100%] the moment he paused—just like the green stamina bar in Dark Souls.
[Remaining Energy: 97.1% (Free heat detected in the environment. Auto-absorbing heat to recharge...)]
This suit of armor, which served as his body, could absorb free heat from the surrounding environment to restore stamina and energy at an extremely fast rate. Samael studied the UI and its text descriptions.
Perhaps because of this, the surface temperature of the armor remained very low even under the glaring sun, and a biting chill constantly lingered around him.
"Maybe I’m a Magic air conditioner," Samael thought in amusement.
"Talia, look at me! Look what else I can do!" He extended his bronze Knight’s Hand Armor and grasped the blade in his palm.
The copper blade, gleaming with a faint, dark cyan luster, instantly turned red-hot. It melted, deformed, and sprouted hook-like serrations resembling shark teeth before rapidly cooling down. In the blink of an eye, it was forged into a ferocious Shark-tooth Sword.
"And look at this!" Samael stretched out his other hand. Red-hot, semi-molten metal flowed from his palm, taking shape in the air and cooling rapidly to form a large Kite Shield. "I can play my favorite shield-poke build again!"
He raised the shield with one hand and gripped the hilt with the other, waving it around like a proper warrior.
CLANG! With a loud crash, the sword in his right hand accidentally struck the shield in his left. The impact knocked the hilt out of his grasp, sending the sword flying.
The disarmed sword spun through the air until Talia caught it firmly in the palm of her pitch-black hand armor.
"Alright, I know you’re an impressive Ghost Knight who can summon strange Nether Copper tools and weapons. Now, stop playing with that sword like a little boy who just got his first toy," Talia sighed. Gripping the blade, she flipped the sword around and handed it back hilt-first.
"I’m just studying how many functions my body actually has. It has a lot of miraculous uses, but there are simply too many messy entries and data logs. It’s like an entire library in here. Figuring out what they mean, what they do, and how to use them takes a lot of time to decipher and practice," Samael scratched his head as he took the hilt. He slung the Kite Shield onto his back, then reached out to grab the blade again, restoring the Shark-tooth Sword back into a simple, elegant Knight’s Longsword.
"At least now I know how to forge weapons out of the same material as my armor."
The armor system contained a massive database that required significant time and energy to analyze. Samael spent almost every second studying its functions and applications. Over the past few days, as they traveled, he had been deciphering the labyrinth of data in his armor’s UI. He had finally figured out an important piece of technology he could currently use.
It was the third Level 0 technology under the Basic Materials Science entry: the [Nether Copper Printer]. It allowed him to cast objects made of Nether Copper at will.
Nether Copper was the material that made up the armor serving as Samael’s body. It was a dull golden-copper covered in dark blue-green rust spots, giving off a dim, dark cyan luster.
Samael had originally thought that his armor body started out as bright brass, only turning this rusty, dark cyan-bronze hue after spending too much time in the underground ruins. However, the freshly printed Nether Copper Sword was the exact same rusty bronze. Perhaps those dark blue-green spots weren’t rust at all, but a unique texture inherent to Nether Copper.
Unfortunately, the amount of Nether Copper left in the printer was limited—at most, he could only print a few sets of swords, shields, or halberds. To forge more equipment, he would need to find more Nether Copper to restock his material library. Alternatively, he could follow the technology tree upwards from the Level 0 [Nether Copper Printer]. There was a locked entry under Level 1 Materials Science called the [Nether Copper Generator]. However, he couldn’t unlock it yet, nor did he know how to use it.
Samael felt a bit of regret. Back in the underground ruins where he had first awakened, there were dozens of identical suits of armor. Their Nether Copper storage reserves were likely the same as his.
Before leaving the ruins, he hadn’t thought to swipe the Nether Copper stored in those other suits. All that Nether Copper combined could have forged an entire armory. Then again, at that time, he hadn’t known what Nether Copper was, nor had he known how to use the printer. Thinking about it more carefully, he didn’t even know how to activate the other suits of armor or extract the Nether Copper inside them anyway.
In any case, at least he now had a set of weapons he could modify at will. If they really ran into danger, he wouldn’t be reduced to throwing fists.
"Samael, Spiritual Magic cannot create normal physical matter out of thin air. Nether Copper is a very rare Demonized metal, an ancient alloy eroded by Spiritual Energy. It is related to the advanced Necromancy branch of the Void Magic faction, [Ghost Knight Forging]. This is a Magic from the Age of Gods, and the method to create it has long been lost. Remember not to use the [Nether Copper Summoning Technique] casually in front of others." Talia looked at Samael, who was geeking out over his Nether Copper Longsword, and let out a worried sigh. "Some Demon Race members skilled in Void Magic and academy tower Mages who study related Relics of the gods might know of Nether Copper’s existence, but ordinary humans definitely don’t. Don’t attract unnecessary attention."