Chapter 563: Portable Oven [800 GT Bonus]

The words themselves had been shocking enough, but nobody seemed prepared for just how deadass Grey was.

He walked back toward the Dormaji corpse, crouched beside it, and started ripping pieces from its crystalline body as casually as though he were pulling meat from a roast chicken.

Crystal cracked between his teeth, flesh disappeared down his throat, and with every bite the energy circulating through Grey’s body thickened until he finally raised one hand and began forming materials from his palm like some demented magician.

Chunks of metal, translucent crystal, black mesh, and strange resinous blocks dropped onto the stone one after another.

Veyrath stared.

Grey grinned. "What? You thought I was joking about the oven?"

The Elemental’s flames surged.

Grey ignored him.

He already knew what he wanted to make, and more importantly, he knew exactly how he wanted it to work. A normal oven was fucking stupid when you really thought about it, because whether you were cooking meat or heat-treating metal, all you were really doing was throwing energy at the outside and waiting for conduction to drag that heat toward the center.

Veyrath had just shown Grey there was no reason to play by those rules.

Elementals could thread their Neural Frames directly through their elements, controlling every portion of the energy as though it was an extension of themselves. If Grey could trap that ability inside a mech, then instead of heating something from the outside inward, he could have the mech identify the target’s perfect temperature and deposit heat throughout every cell, grain, or molecule simultaneously.

Instant cooking and tempering, whether that was for meat or if it was for a metal. Not that he used regular blacksmithing methods anyway.

He would never have to deal with a burnt exterior, raw center, uneven grain structure, or waiting around like some fucking ooga booga caveman over a fire.

Grey’s eyes brightened.

’Okay, this is actually sick.’

A blueprint began assembling in his Cyber Space.

—

Vessel: Infernal Tempering Band

Weight: 0.46kg

Curved Faces: 1,404

Raw Materials:

Crimson-Gold Weather Alloy: 280 Faces

Fractal Resin: 420 Faces

Halo Mesh: 330 Faces

Mirrorglass Quartz: 160 Faces

Nullice: 190 Faces

Aurum Nullite: 24 Faces

—

Grey started with the Crimson-Gold Weather Alloy, because no matter how fancy a mech became, it still needed a backbone. The alloy tolerated massive swings in energy and temperature without warping, which made it perfect for a bracelet expected to jump from ambient conditions to temperatures capable of tempering metal in fractions of a second.

The Fractal Resin handled the far more complicated part. Resin could serve in both structure and circuitry, and this particular kind naturally divided incoming energy across branching pathways, allowing Grey to distribute Veyrath’s heat through thousands of microscopic routes rather than forcing it through one central heating element.

Then came Halo Mesh, the connective tissue of the mech. Meshes were good at joining rigid sections without sacrificing flexibility, but Halo Mesh was particularly useful because it also carried spiritual and Neural signals exceptionally well, which Grey would need if he wanted Veyrath’s awareness spread through the entire bracelet.

Mirrorglass Quartz formed the containment layer. It reflected most radiant heat inward rather than allowing it to spill uselessly into the surroundings, meaning whatever energy Veyrath produced would stay focused on the target instead of cooking Grey’s wrist along with dinner.

Beneath that Grey layered Nullice--the Proving Class version--which almost looked counterproductive considering the mech was supposed to heat things, but that was exactly why he wanted it.

Nullice became colder while absorbing heat by forcing its metastable lattice into a more ordered state, making it a natural emergency sink for excess energy and giving the bracelet a way to instantly stop cooking the moment a target reached perfect temperature.

The final twenty-four Faces were Aurum Nullite.

Nullites were exceptional circuitry materials because of how precisely they could control where energy was allowed to move, and Aurum Nullite was particularly suited to spiritual pathways.

"Form."

Grey’s hands moved.

The materials separated into Curved Faces across his black-gold Cyber Mat, but unlike the old blocky Polygonal Faces Grey had once relied on, these pieces curled, hooked, and spiraled into one another.

Some appeared to form part of the bracelet’s outer surface while simultaneously plunging deep toward its core, the strange geometry letting Grey pack far more circuitry into a space barely wider than two fingers.

"Load."

The bracelet’s function poured into it, Grey’s gaze flickering with thoughtful focus.

From identifying a target, to analyzing its material composition, to determining the ideal internal temperature, and then distributing thermal energy equally through every point of the target... and finally stopping.

That last part mattered just as much as everything before it. Cooking wasn’t merely about reaching a temperature, and metal tempering definitely wasn’t. The mech needed to understand what Grey wanted the material to become, then determine the precise thermal path required to get there.

Whether he wanted a meat medium-rare, or an alloy to be annealed, normalized, tempered, or stress-relieved... the bracelet would be able to do it all.

It only needed a target and an intent. Thus came the final stage.

Grey smiled at Veyrath.

"Intent."

Veyrath’s expression changed.

Grey reached out.

White-gold tendrils exploded from the Bringer of Light Gloves and wrapped around the Elemental before he could disperse. Veyrath roared, flames surging wildly as Grey dragged him toward the half-formed bracelet.

"I WILL NEVER FORGET THIS HUMILIATION EVEN IN DEATH!" Veyrath roared.

"Death?" Grey blinked. "Who said anything about killing you?"

For the first time, Veyrath looked afraid.

Grey’s grin widened.

The Aurum Nullite circuits opened and Veyrath’s body collapsed inward.

Grey forced the Elemental’s Neural Frame through the Halo Mesh, splitting its pathways across the Fractal Resin until every microscopic thermal route carried a piece of Veyrath’s awareness. His flames became circuitry, his instincts became software, and his ability to sense and control heat, light, and energy itself became that of the bracelet’s.

Veyrath screamed until the sound compressed into a tiny pulse of fire. Then the band snapped shut around Grey’s wrist.

Silence fell.

A notification appeared.

—

Name: Infernal Temper Band

Rarity: Ascended

Class: Proving

Accepted Type: Resonant

Rejected Type: Recursive; Branching; Linear

Description: A living thermal mech forged through Curved Face construction and the forced integration of an Infernal Prince. Capable of sensing the ideal thermal state of a target and applying that state simultaneously throughout its internal structure.

Abilities:

Perfect Temper — Determine the optimal thermal condition of a selected target according to the user’s intent.

Instant Finish — Apply or remove thermal energy throughout every cell, grain, or molecule of the target simultaneously until Perfect Temper is achieved.

Living Furnace — Houses the active Neural Frame of Veyrath of the Infernal Arc Clan. Thermal control scales with Spirit compatibility and user synchronization.

—

Grey stared.

Ascended.

Common, Uncommon, Rare, Epic, Legendary, Mythic, Relic... then Ascended. Only the God Grade stood above it.

Grey slowly looked down at the bracelet. It was just Proving Class mech, but it was his first Ascended item. He hadn’t even known that mechs could be ranked like this... wasn’t this just for treasures? Or was it precisely because he had made it so autonomous that it was like this?

This was a mech, though. It truly was an extension of his Neural Frame, something that could harmonize with Grey himself.

His grin became almost stupidly wide.

"How’re you feeling, my portable personal chef?"

A furious pulse of flame flickered inside the bracelet as a certain fire elemental raged about.

Grey laughed.

"Oh, you’re gonna be fun."