Shion’s pair of hands are producing multiple micro-soundfield forges to process various sets of materials that she procured recently from the rampart’s market through trading some of his harvest during travel. 

Some resources contain two or more elemental particles than others or contain special properties that aren't homogenous with materials of the same path, thus they could be considered as materials of two different paths. For example, seisms iron ore is a metal-path material that showcased the property of sound-path. 

It can be categorized as metal-path or sound-path materials, depending on one’s perspective.

The micro soundfield forge isn’t capable of refining seism iron as it has a strong resonance ability but Kasumi is here to help. Since lightning was the Great Archmage Mordred’s primary elemental path, Kasumi’s attainment as Shion’s split soul was actually [Quasi-Transcendent]. 

As long as one has [Apex]-level attainment, any mage possesses the trait of Magic Material Exemption: they are capable of using the natural laws of the world instead of materials to activate methods up to rank 4.  

That being the case, Shion and Kasumi are capable of using pure mana to activate lightning-path magic spells because of their shared attainment levels, but Shion never did that. During the time when Shion was ‘Nyx’, she never used lightning-path methods without lightning-path resources because it would be too obvious of a clue. The natural laws of the world will eventually leave traces, but it isn’t the case with Kasumi. 

With her identity as a lightning-path Soul Armament, she has ‘justification’ and ‘capability’ to use lightning-path magic spells. Even if someone somehow found the traces in the natural laws of the world, it would be from Kasumi, not Shion whose identity is a sound-path antimage. 

And thus, Kasumi turned herself into Shion’s mature form that bombarded the metals in the micro-soundfield forges with lightning strikes. Large amount of mana is constantly being expended, but Shion’s dual reactor system is supporting Kasumi with the energy expenditure.

After depleting several sets of fuel cells, the metals in the micro-soundfield forges have reached critical temperature to melt. The next step of refinement is ready to begin. She threw over half of her shares of souls that she got from Sumire into the molten hot metal. 

“Rank 0 soul-path killer move, [Electric Soulfire Refinement]!”

The souls ignited the bright orange-red molten metal in dark purple electric fire. The eerie electric fire wasn't an actual fire or electric current as it does not produce heat, they are actual souls being melted as material. 

There were phantoms of beasts crying desperately in despair as their souls literally melted and refined into the metal, but Shion didn’t think too much about it. Shortly after, the molten metal shrunk as if it was being pressured. It also gains a certain amount of purple hue instead of the original orange-red.

“Kasumi, give me 63 kilograms of your slime mass.” Shion ordered as she maintained the soundfield forge.

Kasumi did not reply, but she took off a chunk of her physical body and gave it to her main soul. Since her slime body is made out of liquid metal, it was very heavy. 63 kilogram of slime mass is merely the size of an adult human head. 

“Good, the weapon’s primary materials are ready. Go assemble the base weapon with the pre-processed materials” Shion telepathically put the slime mass aside as she prompted Kasumi to progress towards the next step. While Kasumi handled the weapon’s base form, Shion processed the most important part of her preparation.

Shion gagged as her mouth exhaled a lump of silver dust. The silver dust is magnetically held on top of her finger, gathered into a silver ball with a 2-millimeter radius. This is her liquid metal blood, or in other words, nanomachines.

[Liquid Metal Blood] is logistic-strain nanomachines. It’s primary function is repairing micro-fractures and serves like blood in biologicals so that Shion’s body has an internal circulation cycle. It does not fit her current needs, so she has to modify it. 

Due to the small size, nanomachines cannot be used in refinement unless one uses telepathic refinement method and that process requires Telepathic Refinement Will. Thankfully, Shion has stocked it up a lot during her travels. The nanobots are slowly disassembled and reassembled into nano-strains that fit her need: the Infestor-strain. 

Infestor-strain nanobots are typically used to ‘infect’ mechanical entities, they are like viruses to computers. Of course, infestor-strain nanobots can also be used to repair micro-fractures as it is typically used in Holy Terra by Intelligent Metal to forcefully take control of hostile mechanical units and augment its performance.  

After having the first generation infestor-strain nanobots, Shion took off the remaining beast souls that she had worth around 9-man souls. “This won’t be enough.” She muttered before her physical body produced a semi-translucent prismatic lump of soul: This is a part of her soul foundation.

“Rank 0 soul-path killer move, [Violet Desecrator Genesis]!”

The 9-man worth of souls are being deconstructed into base soul matter. Shion’s soul foundation is used as a catalyst to construct a new soul from scratch. It is similar to dismantling electronic circuits to harvest its chemical elements like gold, copper, etc. to create new, better electronics.

This refinement process is known as Soul Engineering. 

Anyone who manages to accomplish this feat has to be at least Legendary in both refinement-path and necro-path (or soul path). Others would need to use complicated methods and supporting equipment to process souls, but Shion could utilize the natural laws of the world to fulfil that role as she has [Quasi-Transcendent] attainment level in both refinement-path and soul-path. 

Of course, it does not decrease the difficulty and complexity of the process. Soul Engineering is still a daunting task even for Shion.

As base soul matter is being refined into higher-complexity soul matter, it eventually finishes into a lump of very dark and evil soul, also known as Violent Desecrator. The process of soul engineering took around 8 hours to finish, her crystal processor was constantly being overclocked during the process.

Violent Desecrator has an inherent ability to ‘possess’ beings with souls. They are referred to as such because everything it possesses becomes warped in insanity and usually undergoes a violent mutation by overdrafting its soul and lifeforce.

Refining beast souls into a Violent Desecrator requires a large amount of raw soul material. That being the case, the 9-man worth of beast souls in addition to a fragment of Shion’s soul foundation can only produce 0.2-man soul strong Violent Desecrator.  

Then, she activates another method, “Rank 0 soul-path killer move, [Armament Soul Bestowal]!”

She combined the infestor-strain nanomachines with the lump of Violent Desecrator, giving the insane soul quasi-intelligence. The lump of black nanomachines slowly transformed into dark mist. At this point, every individual nanomachine is a part of Violent Desecrator, but they are not self-aware. 

Each singular unit of the nanobots have a limited amount of telepathic thought processing ability, so they will have to share computation power by grouping up together. As long as these Violent Desecrators have a sufficient amount of nano-mass and soul strength, its quasi-consciousness can replicate the computational power of a human, or perhaps even a supercomputer. 

Violent Desecrators are insane and violent, but after being confined within infestor-strain nanomachines, they can only function under the control of Shion. Otherwise, they will group up into a small black marble to enter hibernation mode.  

Still, she has yet to finish the refinement process. She clasped her hand together, feeding the black Violent Desecrators with 63 kilograms of Kasumi’s slime mass. 

Kasumi’s slime mass is used as refinement materials as Shion controlled the semi-intelligent nanomachines to devour it to replicate themselves. The next generation of nanomachines actually have a higher affinity with lightning-path methods because of the materials that made it was Kasumi’s slime mass, who had great affinity with it in the first place. 

However, the ‘soul strength’ of the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators did not increase as it did not devour souls. It merely increases the amount of nanobot units (nano-mass) and computational power. The ‘original’ Violent Desecrators became intellectual nodes that connected the 2nd and next generations’ computational power. 

By combining two possession-type machines and soul, it now possesses the ability to infect and augment mechanical, biological or other non-living entities such as rock or dirt.        

“Great, onto the next step.”

During the process of Soul Engineering, Kasumi was working with the base weapon’s material and she had finished assembling it into its basic form. The orange-purple molten lump of metal has been refined into a gunlance through telepathic refinement. 

Unlike Kasumi’s three-bladed gunlance-type assault railgun form, this solid metal gunlance only has a smooth singular lance head with a giant revolver-like ammunition chamber. Although the lance head has an extremely simple design, the weapon’s guard, revolver ammunition chamber and grip is on a completely new level. It was wonderfully enveloped with myriad electronic circuits as if it was a piece of magic machinery art instead of an instrument of war.   

Shion gave a telepathic order towards the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators to enter the gunlance. The dark mist immediately enveloped the weapon and quickly infiltrated every nook and cranny.

“For the finishing touches, rank 0 soul-path killer move, [Electric Soulfire Molding]!” 

Supported by Kasumi, the killer move baptised the gunlance with purple electric soulfire, ‘terraforming’ the gunlance into an environment where the nanomachines could ‘thrive’.

The last killer move has a refinement-path profundity which simply makes sure that there’s little to no conflict of paths in the future since Violent Desecrators have the ability to strengthen its host as long as it is fed with souls. It was the ‘treatment’ that allowed the nanomachines to perfectly fulfil its function because the weapon is a sound-path artifact and the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrator is a soul-path nanomachine.   

“Refinement complete. Congratulations, main soul. You have successfully refined a quasi-Soul Armament. If you have given it a better Soul Quality, it might become a true Soul Armament.” Kasumi shared her sense of accomplishment to her main soul.

“This is fine. Our primary goal is to kill greenskin and enter the Ruined Wood Palace; not everything has to be self-aware or a split soul. Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators is the type that does not have to be intelligent so that it can be used properly.” Shion replied.

It was common sense that only Rank 3 Legendary refinement-path experts can refine a Soul Armament. However, most weren’t aware that refinement-path experts require Legendary attainment to reproduce the profundity of soul-path. 

Of course, since wisdom-path now exist, refinement-path Legendaries have more options to choose from. They can instead produce the specialty of wisdom-path, but in the end, legendary attainment in refinement-path is still the barest necessity, unless one cultivates both paths in tandem. 

Shion held the heavy gunlance with one hand. The grip alone took around half a meter, and the thick lance head added 1.5 meter length to the weapon (for a total 2 meter). When Shion equipped the weapon, her small body frame seemed to amplify the gunlance’s size.

“There’s still some aspects that can be upgraded, such as adding a set of Mana Apertures, Crystal Processors, and a few other auxiliary components… but that can be done later.” Shion muttered in a low voice.

Unfortunately, she’s limited by her resources. 

But with this gunlance, Shion isn’t too dependent on Kasumi. 

A liquid metal slime might look powerful, but each of her transformations can only produce roughly 40 to 75% of the true form’s power. Kasumi’s racial transformation ability has been steadily reduced as more lightning-path metals are being incorporated into her body. Therefore, although Kasumi’s ‘spec’ has increased, her transformation ability has actually regressed.

Simply, Kasumi is slowly transitioning from a transformation-path lifeform into a lightning-path/metal-path lifeform. Unless transformation-path materials are being used to upgrade her slime mass, it would be hard to return that ability to her. Again, this is caused by the conflict of paths.

Thus, having an actual weapon with solid form is actually beneficial for Shion. Although complicated magic machinery weapons have a severe weakness of being maintenance-intensive, the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrator who will serve as its quasi-ego will alleviate this problem to a great degree. They are extremely effective in dealing with micro-fractures due to heavy usage and they also grant ‘growing’ property to the gunlance.

“Coupled with the Heavy Assault Ceramite Shield, I won't have a problem of being fragile in large scale battle.” Shion muttered as she gazed at the giant shield that she made before the gunlance. 

The Heavy Assault Ceramite Shield is actually a magic machinery shield on the same level of the Gunlance, it was made as a set. It’s primary materials are Ceramite refined into small hexagonal plates that were stacked with each other. The shield’s large size allows Shion to completely hide her body behind the shield, but it can reduce its surface area due to its complex mechanism that allows a certain level of folding or shifting of mechanical parts. Although it isn’t as flexible as liquid metal, as a weapon/shield, it is good enough.

“There’s four configurations, the Standby Configuration, Gunlance Configuration, Flammenwerfer Configuration and Devastator Configuration. Kasumi, I need you to deduce other combat forms, especially one suitable for drilling a granite wall.” Shion ordered as she sends a telepathic will containing the weapon’s blueprint.

The Standby Configuration was the current form. It made the gunlance look inconspicuous as if it was a normal lance carried by a cavalryman, if one ignored the large cylindrical revolver chamber of course. 

“Alright.” Kasumi replied.

Shion grasped the gunlance as she wanted to test its other forms.

The Standby Configuration’s lance head looks smooth and thick. It has the shape of a cone with a thick solid metal base that extends for 1.5 meter long. 

When Shion switched it to Gunlance Configuration, the cone-shaped lance head opened up to reveal a single dark grey spear head supported with a singular large caliber barrel covered with a barrel jacket. The new form has a total length of 2.75 meter.

Since the cone-shaped lance head no longer conceals the gunlance inner parts, it’s complicated magic machinery mechanism is revealed to the world. If Shion activates the innate vibration function, the spear blade would be able to slice or penetrate most rank 0 metals. 

Seeing this, Shion smiled. “This is the absolute limit of our preparation. We can no longer grow unless we hunt more souls and resources. The Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators also need to consume souls to evolve, so we have to enter combat as soon as possible.”

Shion pondered for a brief second. Then she retracts a lump of dark mist from the gunlance and sends it to the Heavy Assault Ceramite Shield. She wanted the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators to grant ‘growing’ property on the shield too.

“It’s a hassle to refer to the Infestor-strain Violent Desecrators as such. How about… Dark Mist?”

“Better than nothing.” Kasumi voiced her opinion.

“Good. Kasumi, we need to review that transformation-path killer move once more for our plan. Since you lose your racial advantage, any structural inconsistencies will be a great flaw…” Just as Shion finished muttering those words, she could sense the barrier erected on the room shook. 

There was a knock on the door, “Tsk. Revert your transformation for now. We’ll put this task into the highest level of passive deduction priority.” 

Kasumi soundlessly melted into liquid metal while Shion opened the door. The air of the room was not circulated, so it was extremely hot. 

“Boss-” A wave of hot air washed Kenji as he got a glimpse of the interior and was surprised, “You didn’t sleep this whole time? You’ve wrecked the barn and you looked like you’ve been through some shit.”

Shion did not say anything as she began inspecting herself. Her body was covered by soot and ash from the refinement process, and the room was also trashed due to the after-effect of the refinement.

“Speak. Why have you come to bother me, knowing full well that I specifically instructed you not to come?” There was a chill in her voice. Shion was showing the emotion of irritation for the first time in front of Kenji.

“Un, yes.” Kenji scratched his neck as he could feel the killing intent that Shion emitted. However, he knew that he must’ve disturbed her secret experiments so it was understandable. “That cute wolf beastman Alanis gave me this letter, she said it was for you.”

Shion took the letter and read it. “I see. Sumire is summoned by Kobayashi Hana of Thousand Flowers. It seems like that person wanted to form a group with us.” The killing intent subsided as it is replaced by annoyance within her tone. 

Shion wasn’t aware of it herself, but her soul was actually very ‘excited’ because she pushed herself constantly during the refinement. She is prone to mood swings and needs to pacify her soul by sleeping or other methods.

“Right, she wanted us to gather in the Hunter Association half an hour ago, but you were busy. I wanted to wait until you’re done but we’re already late.”

“Fine. Just give me a moment. Contact Ayame so that we can go as soon as possible.” Shion shooed him away and closed the door.

Behind the door, Kenji recalled the scene that he saw. Amongst the mess, there was one object that took his attention the most: the new gunlance. “So the boss has been making a handheld magic machinery artillery. Cool. No wonder she’s salty about my visit.”