Chapter Twenty-Six: The Tempering Limit

With the enemy blocking its path now dead, the Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle let out an excited shriek.

Then its gaze swung to a new target — Lu Yuan.

*Clang!*

Sword met claw. Lu Yuan felt the crushing weight behind the impact and raised an eyebrow slightly.

He swept his longsword in a horizontal arc across the Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle's Petrified Skin.

*Crack.* The Petrified Skin split, and the Beetle Claw longsword carved a wound across its body.

The Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle screamed in fury and slashed at Lu Yuan with one claw.

"Damn human! How dare you attack me! This debt will not go unpaid!"

It was the first genuine damage the beetle had ever taken. Its body shuddered; it let out a sharp, piercing cry, and its movements grew more frantic.

Lu Yuan wove through the flailing attacks, dodging and retaliating in turns.

He stepped forward, pivoted, and used the momentum to place himself at the creature's flank. His longsword swept across its Petrified Skin again — another crack, another wound. Dark green blood welled from the cuts and spread across the beetle's body, staining it a deep, murky green. The wounds weren't deep, but they were accumulating.

Under the weight of repeated injury, the Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle's movements grew stiff and trembling. Its strikes no longer carried the savage force of before.

The Beetle Claw longsword was elite-rank, and with Lu Yuan's raw strength behind it, even the Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle couldn't simply shrug off every hit.

A moment later, Lu Yuan slipped past one final claw strike. His longsword drove straight into the beetle's eye and punched through into its skull.

The Black-stripe Gray Rock Beetle let out one last piercing shriek and crashed to the ground. Its stubby legs twitched weakly as the last of its life drained away.

White light flickered over the dead beetle's body. An instant later, the light coalesced — Spirit Crystals materialized.

Twenty of them. Twenty times the yield of an ordinary Gray Rock Beetle.

And then something else appeared: a white orb of light, drifting up from the corpse and hovering in the air above it.

Lu Yuan's eyes lit up. A Gene Armament!

He picked up the orb, and the armament's information flowed directly into his mind.

It was called the Gray Beetle Armor — condensed from the carapaces of Gray Rock Beetles. Inside the orb was a set of gray plate armor that, frankly, looked a bit rough around the edges.

*Hmm... kind of ugly.*

The design was bare-bones: shoulder guards, a chest plate, and knee protectors, with most of the body left uncovered. Lu Yuan briefly wondered if someone had cut corners on the craftsmanship.

Being common-rank, the Gray Beetle Armor only provided defensive coverage — unlike elite-rank armaments, it offered no strength amplification whatsoever. That actually worked in his favor: since it wouldn't stack awkwardly against his own boosts, he could layer his power on top of it freely.

With a thought, he absorbed the armor into his body. Like the sword, it dissolved into a phantom form and took up orbit around his Gene Chain.

He activated it. The armor materialized across his body, covering his vital areas. His defensive capability ticked upward noticeably.

*Not a huge jump* — his defenses were already strong — *but it's within acceptable range.*

He looked down at the dead beetle on the ground.

*Good enough to use. I'll swap it out the moment something better drops.*

After all, it was his first Gene Armament drop from an elite-rank creature. He hadn't been expecting much. The odds of an elite-rank kill dropping a common-rank armament weren't terrible, but pulling one on the very first kill still put him in a good mood.

Lu Yuan let out a long, slow breath and released Black Iron Body.

He collected the black-striped carapace from the beetle's back, then moved to gather Spirit Crystals and gray stone carapaces from the four ordinary Gray Rock Beetles nearby.

Finally, he scooped up whatever the four gnolls had dropped.

The gnolls apparently hadn't been in the Land of Origin for very long — their loot was modest. Combined with everything else, the final tally came to just 112 Spirit Crystals and an equal number of gray stone carapaces. Not as much as he'd hoped.

But taken as a whole, this run had easily outperformed several hours of solo Gray Rock Beetle hunting. Four gnolls killed, one elite-rank creature killed.

He packed everything away and left the battle area. The fight had burned through most of his Spiritual Energy, but the results were well worth it.

He absorbed roughly ten more Spirit Crystals as he walked — and then stopped.

Something had caught his attention. He thought it over and frowned.

He'd probably hit his short-term tempering limit. If he pushed the Gene Chain any harder right now, his body might give out entirely.

A faint ache had already settled through his limbs. He suspected the cause was simple: too many Spirit Crystals absorbed too quickly, the tempering speed outrunning what his body could sustain.

Before inscribing the Transcendent Gene, just channeling his power through the Beetle Claw longsword alone had been enough to push his body to the edge. Now, with the Transcendent Gene locked in, his physical foundation was considerably more robust — but it still had its limits.

*Need to ease up for a while.* No matter how fast his absorption rate was, his body couldn't keep up with this pace of tempering indefinitely.

The Gene Chain's tempering degree currently sat at roughly 8%.

Fortunately, he could still absorb Spirit Crystals even without actively tempering — the Evolution Cube needed to be charged in preparation for Black Iron Body's next evolution.

He picked up his pace and set off toward the forest's edge, absorbing crystals as he moved. Of the roughly 130-odd Spirit Crystals on hand, he worked through just over a hundred before deciding to stop.

*If anyone found out how fast I was doing this, they'd drop dead from shock.*

After all — what other Trainee Rank Gene Warrior could absorb over a hundred Spirit Crystals in ten-odd minutes for Gene Chain tempering?

*Only me. All I can say is: I'm pretty impressive.*

He eyed the remaining twenty or so crystals and left them alone.

He also needed to hold something in reserve. He'd made an enemy of a consortium today — there was a real chance they were already mobilizing to track him down. Better to keep a few cards close.

Being able to evolve a Transcendent Gene using Spirit Crystals was a one-of-a-kind opportunity. Lu Yuan was, on balance, pretty easy to satisfy.

*No effort, no results. Fair trade.*

Some distance from the battle site, deeper in the Gray Rock Forest, Bertha Wimi cast one glance back over her shoulder.

No one was giving chase.

She let out a long, shaking breath.

Then the relief curdled into fury.

*Elder brother and second sister — their training runs go perfectly, every single time. And mine ends up like* this?

"Damn human!" she snarled, teeth grinding. "Just you wait — you will regret the day you crossed Bertha Wimi!"

Her hand moved, and a transparent crystal appeared in her palm.

A communication crystal — purchasable in Land of Origin city shops for a substantial number of Spirit Crystals, capable of connecting her to anyone within a certain range of the current city.

She channeled Spiritual Energy into it. The crystal bloomed with white light, and an image formed within.

A black-furred gnoll. He met her gaze with careful deference.

"Third Young Miss. You contacted me — what do you need?"

"My training squad was attacked." Her voice was flat and cold. "Everyone except me is dead."

The gnoll froze. His eyes went wide.

"Dead? What about Lajin? Also dead?"

"I already told you — *everyone is dead.*"

"A... a human?" He seemed unable to process it. "Third Young Miss, isn't your training ground the Gray Rock Forest? How could a single human have the strength to wipe out your entire training squad?"

"It wasn't a faction team," Bertha Wimi said. "Just one human."

The gnoll stared blankly.

Her expression twisted into something ugly. "I want to know too! What exactly are your people doing?! There is no record of this human anywhere in Sandy Rock City's powerhouse registry — none at all! You take my father's money and you can't do a single thing right! I'm telling my father about this!"

"Third Young Miss, please calm down..." The gnoll bowed his head quickly. "This is our failure. Please give us the opportunity to make amends."

Some of the ice in Bertha Wimi's expression fractured slightly.

"Hmph. I'm staying right here. Move fast."

"Third Young Miss, rest assured — I'll assemble men immediately!"

She stared at the crystal for a long moment, the memory of her humiliation playing behind her eyes. Her knuckles whitened around her longbow.

"I want revenge," she said quietly. Then, louder: "I want that human torn to pieces. Send as many people as you can find. He is *strong* — don't let him get away."

"Understood, Third Young Miss! Was it a team from some major power?"

A pause.

"No." Her voice dropped. "Not a faction. Just one human."

She spoke one last quiet sentence, then cut the communication.

Back in the forest, Lu Yuan had already broken into a run.

He picked up speed, heading straight for the edge of the Gray Rock Forest.

Once he was clear of the trees, the consortium could send whoever they liked. He had cards to play if it came to that — let them come looking.

He ran, and he absorbed, and ahead of him the forest thinned toward open ground.