Chapter 558 - 221: I’ll Eat You

And that was indeed the case. Before starting the experiment, Wei’en attached the mechanical arm and activated the rune that connected directly to its Origin Core.

WHIRRR...

As the gray mist steadily eroded the mechanical arm, he could see the red glow and the gray mist in a tug-of-war. The mist spread over the arm bit by bit, shrinking the area covered by the red light.

A pleased expression appeared on Wei’en’s face.

’It can get in!’

He quickly jotted down a few lines on a piece of parchment, the contents of which were visible.

"Fusion Experiment #130. Target: Zombie. Level: Captain-grade. Modification Site: Arm. Materials: An alloy of Ghost Stone, Sarth metal, iron, and a contaminant with freezing properties."

"Runes: Soul Fusion Rune, Earth Spirit Rune Array..."

"Log: After activating the Rune Array and Soul Fusion Rune, the connection between the Origin Core and the mechanical arm is stable, but the process of converting it into a part of the body is slow... Huh?"

Before Wei’en could wait for the gray mist to completely erode the mechanical arm, he saw the Rune Array on it begin to collapse. Subsequently, the metal alloy of the arm started to deform, which in turn affected the Soul Fusion Rune...

SSSSSS...

Accompanied by a piercing sound, the mechanical arm was twisted like a pretzel under the combined pressure of the gray mist and the force erupting from the Rune Array. Immediately after, the layer of red light began to flash violently.

’Shit, it’s gonna blow again!’

BOOM!

A thunderous explosion erupted. The mechanical arm blew apart, sending tiny metal fragments scattering in all directions and simultaneously waking the slumbering zombie.

But its previously intact body had been mangled by the sudden explosion. Not only had half of its body vanished, but half of its head was gone too.

"ROAR—Let me go! I’ll eat you—"

Wei’en waved his hand, dissipating the surrounding fragments and flesh, then flicked the quill pen in his hand.

PFFT!

The zombie’s struggles ceased. Its head burst open, splattering the Binding Platform with a large amount of red and white filth.

"Tsk. Ghost."

Wei’en frowned and had the ghost use Soul-Devouring Magic to clean up the area.

[You have used Soul-Devouring Magic to devour the Undead Creature - Zombie. Your Origin has been enhanced. Evaluation: Bullying a weak zombie, really? That’s just like you. Special Reward: Origin +0.001.]

’Bullying?’

Wei’en pursed his lips, casually placed the parchment on the workbench, and sighed softly. "Another failure."

It had been ten days—no, if he counted from when the fusion experiments began, it had been eight days. It wasn’t that there was no progress, but it was incredibly slow.

The first two days had gone relatively smoothly. He had selected the materials, created an alloy that met the basic requirements, and dissected dozens of zombies to understand their physical structure.

But after that, the fusion experiments had begun...

As it turned out, a simple alloy could indeed be fused with the Undying Body of an Undead Creature, but it only allowed for simple control, allowing it to move and fight, much like Shawa.

However, it was difficult to strengthen the mechanical arm during advancement, the way other zombies could.

After the first twenty failed experiments, Wei’en had incorporated runes, which seemed to be the only way to solve this problem.

This was what led to the Soul Fusion Rune and the Earth Spirit Array.

The Soul Fusion Rune was a very obscure rune. Its sole function was to implant an object into a soul. According to records of ancient rune knowledge, during the Third Era, the Soul Fusion Rune was widely used in the modification of chimeras and was a powerful tool in the wars of the Blood Spirit School.

As for the Earth Spirit Array, its purpose was to enhance the activity of both the mechanical arm and the zombie’s Undying Body, forcibly fusing the two disparate objects together.

But the result...

Wei’en scratched his head and muttered, "One failure costs 80 gold pounds... and this is just for a Captain-grade zombie. If I were to use Minister or Director Level ones, the cost would multiply several times over."

In fact, the cost of the experiment wasn’t just the zombies, but also the mechanical arms—with all the various materials combined, the production cost for a single arm was over 60 gold pounds.

Over the past few days, his expenses alone had exceeded ten thousand gold pounds, and that wasn’t even counting the costs of the other experiments at the research institute...

Wei’en sat down in his chair and picked up the parchment again to summarize the problems from the latest experiment. He planned to review the entire experiment’s issues and potential improvements with the research institute later.

This had become the most time-consuming task for him over the past ten days.

His other daily activity was having Mr. Clown summon a Consul-grade Abyssal Creature for him to fight in the arena.

This way, not only could he accumulate survival points and basic stats, but after winning a fight, he could also let the ghost’s subclones enjoy a feast of Abyssal Creature, which would increase his Origin Power by a few points.

However, this method of combat wasn’t very fast for improving his strength. He could only gain about two thousand five hundred survival points, twenty basic stat points, and five points of Origin a day.

He had suggested to Mr. Clown that they switch to some Hand of the Kingdom-level Abyssal Creatures, but he was rejected every time...

In the words of Mr. Clown Leonard—one Consul-grade Abyssal Creature a day was the absolute limit of what he could summon. The damned Lord of the Abyss had placed a restriction on him, forbidding any Abyssal Creatures above that level from answering his call.

And aside from his research project and fighting Abyssal Creatures, Wei’en spent the rest of his time absorbing the massive amount of knowledge on runology and potion-making in his mind. On average, he could max out five runes and learn to craft two Magic Potions each day.