Chapter 149: Five Monster Parts Gave Me a 49% Chance of Explosion

The workshop was almost perfect.

Thick stone walls.

A central worktable reinforced with iron.

Vises.

Hammers.

Files.

Tools for cutting and drilling metal.

A small independent forge.

Ventilation channels.

And, most importantly, enough space for Raven to spread out all five sources without any of them ending up next to food.

FORGE reacted the moment he stepped inside.

[Suitable Assembly Environment Detected.]

[Basic Mechanical Tools Available.]

[Precision Limitations Present.]

[Manual Component Adaptation Possible.]

“Precision limitations,” Raven muttered.

Valeria set a box on the table.

“Is that bad?”

“It means we’re using blacksmithing tools for something that, in my world, would have required much more precise machinery.”

“How much more precise?”

Raven remembered military workshops, lathes, gauges, and industrial components manufactured within tolerances this world could probably reproduce through magic, though certainly not with the tools currently in front of him.

“Precise enough that I’d prefer not to measure certain things by hitting them with a hammer.”

Valeria looked over the collection of hammers.

“That eliminates a substantial portion of the workshop.”

“Yes.”

FORGE didn’t give him a machine shop.

It didn’t fabricate components from nothing either.

What it could do was something no facility on Earth had ever been capable of: display functional compatibility between materials and guide biological adaptations that had no terrestrial equivalent.

Raven opened the project.

The representation no longer resembled a complete rifle.

Instead, five completed systems appeared separately, connected by incomplete pathways, while the sixth remained unresolved within the overall architecture.

The first major problem was highlighted between the Reservoir and the Black Mithril.

[Critical Incompatibility: Biological Mana Conduction ? Black Mithril Interference.]

[Projected Efficiency Loss Under Direct Contact: 62–79%.]

[Isolation Layer Required.]

Raven rested two fingers against the table.

“I need insulation.”

“What kind?” Valeria asked, moving closer.

“Something that can conduct mana without allowing the biological systems to touch the Black Mithril directly.”

“Conductive crystal.”

“Too rigid.”

“Mana resin.”

Raven looked at her.

“Can it withstand pressure?”

“Not the kind you’ve been describing.”

“Then no.”

Valeria thought for a moment.

“Treated monster tendon.”

Raven paused.

“Explain.”

“Artificers sometimes use it to connect organic cores inside enchanted armor. It maintains mana circulation and still has enough flexibility to move with the structure.”

FORGE reacted.

[Proposed Material Category: Mana-Conductive Biological Filament.]

[Functional Compatibility: POSSIBLE.]

Raven looked at Valeria.

“That works.”

She smiled with visible satisfaction.

“How pleasant.”

“What?”

“Being useful.”

Raven held her gaze for a second.

That word carried too much history between them now.

“I never said you weren’t.”

Valeria’s smile faded just enough to show that she had noticed the difference.

“That’s improving too.”

Raven decided the rifle suddenly required his full attention.

They found treated tendon in an armor workshop two streets away.

Raven bought three different types.

FORGE rejected the first immediately.

The second reached forty-three percent compatibility.

The third, harvested from something called a Coppervein Elk, reached seventy-eight.

Not ideal.

Enough to experiment with.

Over the next four hours, Raven constructed something that looked less like a weapon and more like an argument between anatomy and metal.

The Black Mithril had to form the structural core of the barrel, but it couldn’t directly contact the biological conduits. The Deepwell Reservoir needed to sit somewhere protected enough to survive impacts while remaining accessible for replacement and maintenance. The Impulse Spark had to remain close to the activation mechanism, but placing it too close to the Reservoir increased the chance of premature discharge.

The Pulse Core was worse.

Raven rotated the preserved organ inside a temporary mount.

FORGE projected three possible orientations.

[Projectile Acceleration Alignment: 61%.]

[Projectile Acceleration Alignment: 72%.]

[Projectile Acceleration Alignment: 84%.]

Raven selected the third.

Valeria had been sitting on a bench for almost an hour.

At first, she watched him work.

Then she read twenty pages of a book.

Then she stopped reading.

Eventually, she stood.

Raven heard metal move behind him.

“No.”

Silence.

Then:

“I was only looking at it.”

Raven didn’t turn around.

“You were holding it.”

“Technically, I can look at something while holding it.”

“Put it down.”

Valeria placed the handmade gauge back on the table.

“I don’t understand why you have so many tools I apparently can’t touch.”

“Because you’re bored.”

“That explains nothing.”

Raven adjusted a clamp.

“A bored person starts investigating. Someone who doesn’t know which part of a mechanism is aligned starts moving things. Then I have to figure out what changed.”

“I have an excellent memory.”

“I’m not questioning your memory. I’m questioning your ability to recognize what you shouldn’t move.”

Valeria crossed her arms.

“I’m an Elite Blood Mage.”

“And I wouldn’t touch one of your ritual circles because I know I don’t understand how it works.”

That silenced her.

Raven continued working.

Three seconds passed.

Then five.

“That was an annoyingly reasonable argument.”

“Thank you.”

“I don’t like it.”

“Also reasonable.”

Valeria returned to the bench.

“I’ll find a less destructive way to be bored.”

“I appreciate the sacrifice.”

“Before, you would’ve just said ‘good.'”

Raven stopped.

He looked at her.

Valeria wore that slight smile she used whenever she believed she had discovered something capable of irritating him for several weeks.

“Are you going to keep tracking the length of my answers?”

“Not always.”

“Good.”

“Only when it’s entertaining.”

Raven returned to work.

“That’s worse.”

The real problem appeared when he tried to integrate the Pressure Chamber.

FORGE didn’t need the Matriarch’s entire massive organ. The Authority had already identified the indispensable structures: containment rings, primary valves, and a muscular section capable of receiving, holding, and releasing pressure in controlled cycles.

Reducing the system was possible.

Understanding exactly how to connect it wasn’t automatic.

Raven spent nearly an hour following projected energy flows.

Impulse Spark.

Reservoir.

Pulse Core.

Pressure Chamber.

Barrel.

If the Activation System released too much mana, the Pulse Core saturated.

If the Pressure Chamber absorbed force too early, it reduced acceleration.

If it responded too late, the force transferred directly into the weapon’s structure.

Black Mithril would survive longer than steel.

That didn’t mean it would survive indefinitely.

“It’s timing,” Raven said.

Valeria had gone back to reading.

“What?”

“The main problem. It isn’t just containing pressure. Every system has to activate in the correct sequence.”

He set down the tool and pointed toward the components as he explained.

“The Reservoir supplies mana. The Impulse Spark initiates the reaction. The Pulse Core accelerates the projectile. The Pressure Chamber has to absorb excess force the moment it starts exceeding structural tolerance, then release it without reducing too much of the useful acceleration.”

Valeria closed the book.

“So you need four organs from four different creatures to behave like parts of the same body.”

“Yes.”

“That sounds worse when you explain it properly.”

Raven nodded.

“I’m discovering that too.”

FORGE updated.

[Functional Sequence Understanding Increased.]

[Assembly Stability: 38% → 44%.]

Raven looked at the number.

Valeria recognized the change in his expression.

“Better?”

“Forty-four.”

“Still sounds like an explosion.”

“Less certain.”

“What a relief.”

The progress hadn’t come from manufacturing anything.

It had come from understanding.

That confirmed another important limitation.

FORGE wasn’t simply waiting for components.

It was waiting for Raven to understand what he wanted those components to do together.

It could help translate biology into engineering.

It couldn’t make every decision for him.

Raven spent another hour designing a secondary pressure channel.

It hadn’t existed in the original concept.

FORGE suggested it only after Raven recognized that a real weapon needed some method of dealing with excess energy without turning every malfunction into catastrophic destruction.

The biological equivalent came from the Matriarch’s lateral valves.

That gave the system somewhere to vent.

Not elegantly.

But perhaps well enough.

[Assembly Stability: 44% → 49%.]

Raven leaned back.

Valeria looked at him when he told her the number.

“Almost half.”

“I’m not firing something that has a reasonable chance of disassembling itself inside my hands.”

“I’m glad we’ve established a limit.”

Raven took a drink of water.

“I’ve always had limits.”

“Yes. They’re just strangely flexible.”