Back in Imperial College, Han Wu rented a quiet training room to work on improving himself. He started with the Divine Weapon Atlas, the ability Xu Hai had ranked first in potential. When he summoned it, he discovered that every Divine Weapon inside had gained an Armant Spirit. Though stunned, the discovery brought an undeniable thrill of elation.
When he had returned from Divine Weapon Civilization, only five of his ten Divine Weapons had carried powerful Armant Spirits. Those five were the Locust-V Gatling Gun with the soul of the ancient king, the Explosive Locust Blade with its Vermilion Bird, the Locust Soul Orb with its White Tiger, the Abyss Armor with its Black Tortoise, and the Locust Dragon Seal with its Azure Dragon.
The Small Locust Blade, the Gluttonswarm Ring, the Dark Curse Nail, the Heavenly Demon Spike, and the Giant Locust Blade originally had no Armant Spirits, yet had sohow gained them since Han Wu had last checked.
Han Wu could already guess whose work this was—the king.
Every one of the new Armant Spirits was well-suited for their respective Divine Weapon. The Small Locust Blade’s forte was in its overwhelming numbers, though building its numbers up required ti. The king had given the blade the Taisui Armant Spirit to address that weakness. Though it provided no offensive boost, the Small Locust Blade’s durability recovered a hundred tis faster than the normal rate.
The Gluttonswarm Ring could summon Glutton Locusts. The more the locusts consud, the stronger the ring beca. The king had thus given it the Taotie Armant Spirit, which primarily boosted the appetite and eating speed of the summoned Glutton Locusts.
The Dark Curse Nail pinned targets in place by their shadows, so the king paired it with the Umbral Mouse Armant Spirit, the sa race that was in Han Wu’s divine realm. The Dark Curse Nail could now not only pin shadows, but also transform into a mouse if it missed and chase the target’s shadow. This greatly increased its hit rate.
As the Heavenly Demon Spike specialized in piercing, the king had given it the Golden Unicorn Armant Spirit to push that piercing power to its absolute limit.
Finally, the Giant Locust Blade saw its power rise as its size increased, making it the most destructive of the five. It was granted the Xingtian Armant Spirit, which allowed the Giant Locust Blade to extend to 20,000 ters in length, multiplying its destructive power by at least 10,000 tis.
The five weapons had only recently acquired their Armant Spirits, so their grades were still low and incomparable to the original five. Once their grade increased, though, their strength would likely ascend to a new level.
Calling Locust-V out, Han Wu praised, “Locust-V, you’ve given quite a few surprises.”
As the Armant Spirit of Locust-V, the soul of the king appeared. He wore fine robes as before, but the authority that he once exuded was gone entirely. However, with his full mories restored, he still carried himself with an unprecedented maturity.
“It is I who should thank you,” the king said gratefully. “Thank you for saving the Divine Weapon Civilization, and thank you for saving my people.”
If one were to trace it back far enough, the residents of the Divine Weapon Civilization were indeed his descendants, so his words were true.
“I now know everything. The legendary Armant Spirit is ford from the negative energy that I’ve purified. It can also catalyze the birth of new Armant Spirits within Divine Weapons. I lack that exact ability myself, but I can absorb emotional energy to create Armant Spirits and manually give them to Divine Weapons. You’re more than welco to bring more Divine Weapons into the Atlas. I’ll help give each of them a compatible spirit.”
Han Wu was ecstatic. Armant Spirits played a critical role in determining the power and potential of a Divine Weapon. Having a large supply of Divine Weapons with Armant Spirit was a huge boon for both himself and the followers in his divine realm.
His divine realm housed highly intelligent races such as the Scorching Dwarves and the Epistians. With enough resources and materials, new Divine Weapons were set to be crafted every day. Combined with the king’s efforts, it was only a matter of ti before he had a massive collection of Divine Weapons with Armant Spirits. The thought alone made his heart race.
Nevertheless, that was a long-term strategy. He still needed a more imdiate way of becoming stronger in the short term.
Han Wu glanced at Locust-V. It had ford from the chanical Locusts, and the chanical Locusts were connected to the Machine God. What would happen if he rged the two?
Summoning the Machine God, Han Wu decided to directly ask both the king and the Machine God about their thoughts on this. One was a machine, the other was technically a Divine Weapon. By right, the two had nothing to do with each other, and Han Wu expected the two of them to refuse.
Unexpectedly, they agreed without hesitation. The king explained that he had never tried giving an Armant Spirit to a machine-type Divine Weapon, so he wanted to see what would happen.
The Machine God, on the other hand, wanted a soul. It was nothing more than strings of code that had gained consciousness, and it wanted a soul to help it gather more data, such as emotional data and the resonance of a soul. Studying that would help it evolve.
With their consent, Han Wu had no reason to waver. He used rge on the two of them.
The Machine God and Locust-V started to fuse together. The process was incredibly slow. Han Wu realized that rge alone was likely insufficient at this level, so to speed things up, he activated Omniversal to boost rge, pushing the progress forward rapidly.
Han Wu watched as the Locust-V and Machine God beca one. They were neither Locust-V nor the Machine God. He had a shorter na now, V.
“This is a strange sensation,” V said in wonder. “I can feel the temperature. I can feel pain. There is also a mysterious energy circulating through ... No, that’s not energy. Perhaps it should be called the breath of life.”
Han Wu gasped. “What?”
Among known civilizations, there were many power systems and races, but at a fundantal level, they all fell into distinct categories. Machines were machines, undead were undead, and living beings were living beings.
Even Jing Jing, the suprely powerful Soul Queen, still belonged to the skeleton race despite being nearly indistinguishable from a human. Han Wu had never heard of an existence that was simultaneously a machine yet alive.
He quickly tried to check V’s information panel. A mass of garbled characters appeared before him. Rubbing his eyes, he tried again, thinking his eyes were playing tricks on him, but V’s panel remained scrambled.
His eyes weren’t the problem. His permissions, granted by the Divine Civilization, simply could not read V’s information. In other words, the Divine Civilization itself couldn’t identify what V was. V was an existence beyond even the Divine Civilization’s comprehension. He was an unknown entity.
“What kind of existence have I created?!” Han Wu gaped at V, disbelief written across his face.
anwhile, V was taking in everything around him with curious eyes.
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