Don't worry about the controls," George replied. His voice was flat, yet it carried the arrogant weight of a king.
"In the old world, my ID occupied the top five spots of every single e-sports leaderboard. And my main class... has only ever been Mage."
"Wait... Top five? Mage?" Dodge's head whipped around, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull.
"Are you... are you that legendary masked genius who vanished— Silver Wing? I've watched that god-like silhouette in a hundred pro-match replays!"
Katie gasped as well, covering her mouth. "I've heard the rumors too! The 'White Storm' that swept through the e-sports world... the textbook definition of a gaming superstar... Is it really you?"
Seeing that his cover was blown, George relaxed his posture. A faint, elegant smirk played on his lips.
"Since you've recognized me... that's right. I am Silver Wing."
"It really IS you!!!"
Katie and Dodge screamed almost in unison, their heads whipping toward Lawson, who stood frozen like a statue.
Lawson's mind was a complete blank. To any gamer, the name "Silver Wing" wasn't just an ID—it was a creed of invincibility branded into their very souls.
"Forge the armor for me, Lawson."
George's voice shattered the deathly silence.
His expression was solemn as he gave a low, stern warning:
"And... never mention my identity to anyone. Remember, no one."
"Absolute secrecy! This workshop treats client privacy as its lifeblood!" Katie promised instantly, slapping her chest.
Lawson finally snapped out of his trance, letting out a long, heavy breath before solemnly extending his hand.
"Give me the blueprint. I will personally oversee the birth and enhancement of {Mage Heart}. I'll pour SSS-grade craftsmanship into it. With those five Enhancement Core B, I can push it straight to Level 5."
Lawson retreated into the factory with the heavy bundle of materials.
At the front desk, the cold George maintained his unapproachable "Ice King" aura while paying the bill, leaving Katie scratching her head in an awkward attempt to make small talk.
"Forging plus Level 5 enhancement... that's a total of 8,350 LP."
George efficiently completed the transfer at the self-service terminal.
Beside him, Dodge casually left a pile of rewards at the workshop.
"Katie, keep these heavy goods here for now. Oh, and this 'mysterious glowing object'—remember to have Lawson check with it later."
After giving his instructions, Dodge headed to the Vault with George to claim the "goodies" Ester had mentioned.
Katie carried the glowing object into the factory.
"Lawson, look at what Dodge picked up..."
Before she could finish, Lawson snatched the orb of light. The [Eye of Identification] flickered frantically in his pupils.
"This... could it be..." Lawson's breathing grew ragged, followed by a near-manic cheer.
"The Weapon Master's Certificate That old geezer Buck actually left something like this in the hands of Mutant Brutes!"
"This is perfect! Even if we haven't found Buck himself yet, I can still..."
Lawson lunged toward his drafting table like a man possessed, his pen shrieking against the pressure-sensitive paper.
In less than ten minutes, a complex blueprint radiating an eerie, bionic aesthetic appeared.
Lawson wiped the sweat from his forehead, a confident smirk playing on his lips.
"{Weapon Master · Bionic Mechanical Armor}—Design complete! Who says we can't start work without the NPC? I'll just build one myself!"
"That's amazing! But... Lawson," Katie teased half-seriously, "the more I look at that [Eye of Omnipotence] of yours, the more it looks like a cheat plugin rather than an Armor Smith skill."
"I'll make good use of it." Lawson gripped the Certificate tightly, his eyes deep and focused. "After all, I've played this for ten years..."
"—The veteran player of Armor Link, right? My ears are growing calluses from hearing that!" Katie interrupted him, hands on her hips. Her tone softened.
"Listen, your identity now is an Armor Smith! AN ARMOR SMITH!! Just focus on managing this home and the workshop. Don't go thinking about dangerous things."
"I understand your concern, Katie. It's just..." Lawson looked down at his hands, roughened from tinkering with endless parts. "The kind of Armor Smith I want to be is one who provides instant repairs on the front lines, a guide who stands shoulder-to-shoulder with warriors—not a coward who hides in a workshop all day, never seeing the sun."
He paused, his voice dropping an octave. "I want to explore this new world with everyone, to share the joy of the 'First Clear.' I don't want to just listen to your battle stories because..."
He let out a bitter smile. "I don't want to be that same mediocre nobody anymore, whether in the old world or this new one. I'm twenty-six, and I've achieved nothing. That feeling... is more painful than being killed by a monster!"
"Lawson..." Katie opened her mouth, but found she couldn't argue with the pride burning in the man's soul.
"Don't look at me like that! I'm getting used to this identity now." Lawson quickly masked his emotions with a playful urge. "Weren't you going to the Vault for Ester's 'goodies'? Go on, before Dodge hauls everything away!"
"Oh! I almost forgot!" Katie slapped her forehead and sprinted out. "I'll be right back! Don't you dare slack off!"
As her back disappeared, the smile faded from Lawson's face, replaced by absolute, cold focus.
"Alright, warm-up's over. It's time to bring this B-Rank {Mage Heart} ... and my 'Old Friend' back into this world."
Lawson took a deep breath, his fingers trembling slightly as he gripped the blueprint shimmering with an ominous dark-purple light.
He inserted it solemnly into the terminal's scanning port.
VROOM—!!!
Without warning, the soft lights of the Armor Factory turned a violent, piercing crimson. Alarms shrieked like vengeful spirits, and the entire facility's power grid groaned under a massive surge.
"What's going on? Scanning progress frozen at 40%?" Lawson stared at the screen, the veins in his temples throbbing.
He nearly reached for a nearby forging hammer to smash the striking computer.
"Is the system screwing with me? Just because I planned to 'mass-produce' NPCs instead of playing their little 'missing persons' game?"
At that moment, the phone in his pocket vibrated with such violence it felt like it might self-destruct.
As he pulled it out, a blinding, holy golden light erupted from the screen, forcing tears from his eyes.
[WARNING: Uncontrollable interference detected. This anomaly is unrelated to the System Core.]
[Please consult the Armor Smith Exclusive Skill Tree immediately.]
"Damn! Does this system have me under 24/7 surveillance?" Lawson rubbed his stinging eyes and swiped open the [Skills] interface as prompted.
A new row of terms, pulsing with golden radiance, occupied the center of the screen:
[Smith's Logic Re-coding]
[Effect: Forcibly summons a virtual Root Terminal during the forging process. Allows the smith to reconstruct and violently modify a Blueprint's fundamental logic, scaling with their skill level.]
[Note: Can be activated through the forging process only.]
"It... it gave me the authorization to modify the source code?" Lawson held his breath in disbelief.
"If that's the case, let's see just how far I can break the laws of this world!"
Skill—ACTIVATE!
Several golden data chains erupted from Lawson's palm, quickly weaving into a floating virtual keyboard.
Simultaneously, countless glowing windows cascaded before his eyes.
[WARNING: This operation severely violates the fundamental laws of Armor Construction!]
An ordinary player would have been incinerated by the backlash of the rules.
But Lawson only let out a cold, sharp smirk. His fingers became a blur of motion, dancing across the virtual keys.
"Laws? Those are for sheep who follow orders. For me... laws are just piles of garbage code waiting to be optimized."
"First: High-altitude magic calculations. Humans aren't AI; they can't memorize those long-winded magic sequences in the heat of battle. Even a 'Mage God' like Superstar George would drain his soul trying to manage it."
Lawson's eyes burned with focus as he slammed a key. "Pre-loading magic sequences! Simplifying the interface to match human intuition! Phase one—reconstruction complete!"
"Next... Soul Binding?" Lawson wiped a bead of cold sweat as he watched the complex waveforms on the screen.
"So, all armor strength depends on the soul's resonance frequency. With a soul as intense as a pro-gaming superstar's, George's output should be 200%... Fine, let's force it to 500%!"
Watching the underlying logic reshape itself under his fingertips, Lawson couldn't help but feel a surge of emotion.
"Ten years... and only now do I see the true 'skeleton' of these armors. The old me was truly an amateur."
"And finally, the most lethal flaw—Incantation Delay." Lawson recalled the nightmare of using {Mage Heart} in the old world—that agonizingly long wait time.
"In the game, you can reload a save. Here, being slow for a second means your ashes."
His expression turned ruthless, hands moving with the sound of rolling thunder. "Casting speed increased by 400%! Shrink it to the absolute limit!"
He tried to set the value to zero (Instant Cast), but the interface immediately flashed a deep-red lock-box, screaming 'Access Denied.'
"Damn it... gave me the scepter but won't give me the key? This piece of junk system is..."
BZZZ—BZZZ—BZZZ!!!
Before he could finish, the phone vibrated again, nearly shattering.
Pop-up windows flooded the screen, filled with stern denunciations and warnings of 'Illegal Tampering.'
"Alright, alright! I get it, you're upset!" Lawson snapped, tempted to hurl the phone across the room.
But within that crimson glow, his lips curled into a smile of absolute madness.
"But the {Mage Heart} now... it's already a monster that transcends B-Rank!"
As he prepared to finish the re-coding, he detected a "FATAL ERROR" within the armor's blueprint.
"Oh, I see. So that's why the scanning process was stuck at 40%," he muttered. "The blueprint has been corrupted by an unknown energy, interesting.In that case, I shall begin the cleansing process—REFORMAT!"
"Once he had set everything up, Lawson slammed the [Confirm Forge] command on the terminal.
The factory roared to life, a mechanical beast awakened.
Through the reinforced glass, oscillating magnetic fields guided the raw alloys into the high-tech furnace.
Molten metal was siphoned into the assembly line, where precision laser arms danced in a blur of motion, slicing and weaving the armor's framework.
Piece by piece—the chest plate, the helmet, the gauntlets—each was forged in a perfectly choreographed rhythm before vanishing into the floor for sub-system integration.
When the progress bar finally hit 100%, a sudden, heavy silence reclaimed the room.
A circular glass pod rose from the floor right beside Lawson.
Inside, the {Mage Heart} components hovered within a shimmering blue stasis field.
Unlike the dull, clunky designs of the past, these plates possessed a predatory, obsidian sheen, etched with micro-circuits that pulsed like dying stars.
Lawson donned his tactical goggles and engaged his mechanical exoskeleton arms for the final Quality Inspection.
He stepped into the stasis field, his hands moving with surgical rhythm as he fine-tuned the internal dampeners and mana-flow regulators.
Every click of a locking bolt felt like a heartbeat.
Finally, he drew a silken cloth and performed a meticulous wipe, clearing the last speck of microscopic dust.
"It's finished!" Lawson's voice buzzed with a mix of exhaustion and fanatical pride. "Behold... the {Mage Heart: Optimized Version L}!"