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After saying this, Sol waited for the explosion, but expected explosion never came.

Instead, Teshar’s eyes widened even further.

He didn’t look angry.

He… looked profoundly, obsessively fascinated.

“A Layer 3 Rockhorn?” Teshar breathed, his voice trembling. He reached out with trembling fingers, not touching Sol, but hovering them just inches over the jagged lightning scar visible through the loose collar of Sol’s tunic. “The absolute peak of terrestrial piercing power. And you are standing here. Breathing.”

Teshar took a step back, his hands flying up to grip his own hair.

“It held!” Teshar practically shouted, a massive, unhinged smile breaking across his scarred face. He didn’t look like a man mourning a loss; he looked like a scientist who had just successfully proven a life-long theory.

“You don’t understand!” Teshar spun around, pacing the floor, gesturing wildly. “The Great Badger hide is Layer 3! but it’s dead layer 3, while that Layer 3 Rockhorn spike was alive, had essence and carries enough force to puncture solid bedrock! The tectonic fibers shouldn’t have just snapped; they should have instantly vaporized!”

He spun back to Sol, his eyes burning with an intense, almost religious fervor.

“But it didn’t vaporize, did it?” Teshar demanded, stepping into Sol’s personal space again. “It bled the energy! The tectonic weave grabbed the force of the spike and violently dispersed it laterally across the aromor! It sacrificed itself, snapping fiber by fiber, millimeter by millimeter, bleeding the momentum just enough so that the spike only carved your flesh instead of exploding your entire ribcage!”

“Yeah,” Sol blinked, slightly taken aback by the man’s morbid enthusiasm. “That’s exactly what it felt like. It ground down the spike’s momentum.”

“Glorious,” Teshar whispered, actually wiping a tear from his eye. “Absolute, sacrificial perfection. The armor died fulfilling its exact, maximum theoretical potential. I couldn’t have asked for a better end for my second-best creation.”

Kira let out a soft sigh, rolling her eyes. Zeyra just watched the eccentric craftsman with a look of mild disgust.

“Well, I’m glad you’re not mad,” Sol said, clearing his throat. “But the fact remains, I’m currently wearing a tunic. I need a replacement. Something heavier. Something that can actually stop a big guys strike without having to commit ’sacrificial perfection.’”

Teshar instantly snapped out of his reverie. The emotional artist vanished, replaced entirely by the cold, calculating Master Craftsman. He looked Sol up and down, his eyes narrowing sharply.

“Your aura has shifted,” Teshar noted, tilting his head. He didn’t have the raw sensing power of a Shaman, but he understood the physical pressure of essence better than anyone. “You are denser. The space around you feels heavy. You hit Layer 2.”

“I did,” Sol confirmed. “Which means I can carry a lot more weight.”

Teshar’s eyes lit up with a dangerous, creative fire. “The Rockhorn Beetle. The one that killed my masterpiece. You killed it?”

“I blew its brains out, yes.”

“Then we use its shell,” Teshar declared, turning back to his workbench and frantically digging through a pile of dried hide schematics. “The outer shell is useless. Too rigid. It fractures under extreme, concentrated pressure… which is exactly why your Dreadwing Blade was able to pierce it. But the inner carapace…”

Teshar pulled out a schematic, slapping it onto the table.

“The layer resting directly above the beast’s vital organs,” Teshar explained rapidly, his finger tracing the drawing. “It is a highly compressed, shock-absorbent biomatter. It does not shatter. It violently disperses energy outward, like dropping a stone into a thick pool of mud.”

He turned back to Sol, his eyes manic. “I can carve armor from that inner carapace. I can weave them together using the ultra-dense spider-silk from the Layer 2 Omen-Bloods you slaughtered, and bind the entire lattice using the beetle’s own residual earth-aspected essence.”

Teshar walked up to Sol, entirely ignoring personal boundaries, and started wrapping a scaled snake-leather cord around Sol’s chest to take measurements.

“It will be incredibly, absurdly heavy,” Teshar muttered, pulling the cord tight. “A normal warrior would completely collapse under the weight of the chest piece alone. It would crush their lungs. But for you? With a Layer 2 tectonic foundation? You will carry it like a second skin. It will be an impenetrable, shock-absorbing vault.”

“How long?” Sol asked, a dark, satisfied smirk crossing his face. A shock-absorbent, Layer 3 biomatter armor layered with his own Layer 2 Great Badger tectonic defense? He would be a walking, unstoppable tank.

“Three days,” Teshar promised, stepping back and making a rapid note on a piece of slate. “I have already soaked the inner carapace in a specialized acid bath to make it pliable enough, later I’ll just mold to your frame, then flash-freeze the essence pathways using ice-toad venom. So, It cannot be rushed.”

“Three days,” Sol muttered, crossing his arms. “I guess I’m walking around in a tunic until then.”

“You should stay inside the inner rings,” Zeyra advised smoothly, turning to head toward the exit. “Without armor, your physical body is entirely exposed. Even a glancing blow from a stray beast or a hidden assassin could rupture an artery.”

Sol let out a low, rough laugh. He thanked Teshar, who was already ignoring them to pull out a new set of bone chisels, and followed the girls out of the workshop.

“Zeyra,” Sol said, turning his head to look at her as they merged back onto the dirt thoroughfare, his silver-crimson eyes flashing with dark amusement.

“I just pushed my foundation to Layer 2. My bones feel like solid petrified wood. I’m pretty sure a stray beast would break its teeth before it broke my skin.”

Kira let out a sharp, scoffing sound. “Arrogance. Typical Spirit Warrior arrogance. You hit a new threshold and suddenly you think you’re invincible. A sharp bone-blade doesn’t care how dense your skeleton is, Sol. If you get sloppy, you’ll bleed just like the rest of us.”

Sol stopped walking.

They were currently passing by the warriors training grounds… a series of large, sunken dirt pits surrounded by heavy wooden fencing. Dozens of recruits and reserve warriors were sweating in the afternoon sun, sparring with blunted wooden weapons and practicing their essence circulation.

Sol turned fully to face Kira. A wide, highly proactive, utterly cocky grin spread across his face.

“Is that a challenge, Huntress?” Sol teased, his voice dropping into a low, dangerous octave. “Are you saying you think you can make me bleed?”

A.N:

So, guys we have finally reached 400 Chapters!!!!

Honestly, I still can’t quite believe it, because 400 Chapters is a big number especially on NovelFire where most novels are abandoned in 10-20 Chapters.

It has been more than 6 months without a break. On my side, I’m trying my best, there had been many ups and downs but thankfully I had been able to continue writing no matter the situation.

For example, yesterday’s Chapters were written from ER after I collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital, with oxygen mask on my face and countless medical instruments attached to my body. But well, thankfully after a few hours of struggle, I was conscious enough, So I was able to write and upload yesterday’s Chapters.

Th point is that it hasn’t been easy on this journey, it may get even more rougher, but I can assure that as long as I can I will give my all and continue this story.

So, if you can please, give some extra support, as hospital visits are really money burning pit, especially for poor writer like me.

And we have a long way ahead, so let’s be together for a long a time.

I have many exciting and thrilling stuff planned for next Chapters.