Arthur Conan leaned back in his chair, removing the complex goggles that had accompanied him for over ten hours. Though his pale face was etched with exhaustion, his eyes burned with a flame-like intensity.
Lin Jie also felt waves of dizziness from prolonged mental concentration, but he persisted, his gaze fixed unwaveringly on the masterpiece that would soon belong to him.
It was an armament full of contradictory beauty.
Its main body consisted of multiple layers of tough black UMA leather, perfectly conforming to every curve of Lin Jie's wrist and forearm, brimming with the fluidity and power of modern ergonomics.
Embedded atop the leather were several pieces of purified, smelted, and deeply colored Chaos Brass, arranged in a manner that appeared random yet secretly followed some occult pattern.
On the surface of these brass components, the curse runes left by the Gremlins slowly flowed, like living creatures with life.
Most striking were the golden "spiritual conduction circuits" faintly visible on the inner side of the vambrace, etched from electrum.
They cleverly connected all the independent brass components, ultimately converging at the palm position of the vambrace.
There, a brass piece polished into a circular shape lay quietly dormant.
"Come, Interpreter, give it a try," Arthur's voice carried the tension and anticipation of an artist awaiting recognition from a kindred spirit for his work. "Let's see if this little monster we created together meets the requirements of your crazy design."
Lin Jie nodded. He stepped forward and slowly inserted his left arm into this vambrace custom-made for him.
The moment his skin touched the soft, resilient leather inside the vambrace, a wonderful feeling of intimate connection spontaneously arose.
The golden spiritual conduction circuits seemed activated by his body temperature, glowing faintly.
And the Chaos Brass ingots embedded externally began to resonate weakly with his heartbeat.
This equipment was no longer an inanimate object but had become an extension of his arm, an organ filled with unknown power.
Following Arthur's instructions, he fastened several silver-made buckles.
The vambrace fixed perfectly on his arm—neither loose nor tight, with evenly distributed weight, causing no hindrance to his arm movements.
This was precisely the perfect embodiment of "ergonomics" with high integration with the body that he sought.
"Now, try to activate it," Arthur instructed from the side. "Forget those scientific constraints. Like when you interpret reverberations, channel your mental energy, your own will, along your arm into the vambrace. Command it, awaken it!"
Lin Jie took a deep breath and closed his eyes.
He recalled the sensations from his previous uses of [Reverberation Touch], then concentrated a faint but extremely focused mental intention onto his left arm.
He imagined his will transforming into flowing water, tentatively streaming into the golden channels on the inner side of the vambrace.
"Bzzz—"
A low resonance only he could "hear" sounded in his mind.
He felt his mental energy amplified several times immediately after flowing into those spiritual conduction circuits!
They acted like catalysts, completely activating the dormant power within the Chaos Brass!
A powerful curse force of destructive disorder, originating from the collective will of the Gremlins, was instantly awakened. Then, like a tamed hunting dog, it efficiently converged along those golden circuits with an unstoppable momentum onto the largest circular brass piece in his palm!
Lin Jie opened his eyes and saw the curse runes on the brass piece in his palm madly flowing at an unprecedented speed, even emitting invisible ripples like air waves.
He had succeeded!
He had transformed a passive curse that could only pollute the environment into an ability that could be actively released and precisely controlled, through an entirely new structure!
"How does it feel?" Arthur asked nervously.
"It feels..." Lin Jie moved his left hand, the power-filled sensation making him want to laugh out loud. "It feels like I could make all the clocks in Buckingham Palace stop simultaneously."
"Hahahaha! Good! Well said!" Arthur burst into hearty, almost mad laughter upon hearing this metaphor. "That's worthy of our masterpiece! It needs a name! A unique Grotesque Armament must have a name that reveals its soul!"
Lin Jie looked at the brass piece in his palm continuously emitting invisible interference fields, and a name naturally surfaced in his mind.
"Let's call it the [Cursebreaker Vambrace]," Lin Jie said slowly. "Its purpose isn't to release curses, but to break every spell we don't want to exist."
Arthur showed an appreciative expression.
"[Cursebreaker Vambrace], a good name! Much more concise than those crude ideas that only know to call things 'XX's Claw' or 'XX's Heart'!"
Just then, a homemade astronomical clock Arthur used for timing in the corner of his workshop suddenly made strange "clack-clack" noises. Immediately after, the originally steadily swinging pendulum abruptly stopped as if choked by an invisible hand.
Not a coincidence.
It was precisely the faint "Cursebreaker" field unintentionally leaking from Lin Jie's palm that interfered with its normal operation!
"Excellent, truly excellent," Arthur looked at his stalled creation, not angry but instead showing a delighted smile of finding worthy prey. "We need a more professional target to test its true power."
He brought Lin Jie to a separate "weapon testing room" on the other side of the workshop, with walls made of thick lead plates.
In the center of the room stood a life-sized mechanical dummy made of countless gears and clockwork, holding an alchemical firearm.
"This is a 'Clockwork Soldier' the Association confiscated from a heretical organization that worships the Machine God," Arthur introduced. "Its internal structure is far more precise than any weapon on the market, and therefore extremely sensitive to any form of interference."
"It's the perfect target to test your [Cursebreaker Vambrace]. Now use your ability on it, let's see what kind of spark the Gremlins' chaos can produce!"
Lin Jie nodded.
He stood about ten meters away from the Clockwork Soldier, took a deep breath, and once again channeled his mental energy into the vambrace.
This time he wasn't testing, but forcefully pouring in a more powerful will!
He raised his left hand, palm aimed distantly at the cold mechanical dummy.
"Bzzz—Bzzz—Bzzz—!"
The runes on the brass circular piece in his palm instantly rotated to their limit!
An interference field representing chaotic and destructive information, invisible to the naked eye, shot out like an intangible bullet!
The moment the field contacted the Clockwork Soldier, the previously stationary mechanical dummy simultaneously emitted a series of harsh "screeching" sounds from all its joint areas!
The alchemical firearm that was originally held high weakly drooped down.
The precision gears inside its chest cavity that were operating at high speed also jammed and locked up at the same moment!
In just one second, this war machine representing the peak precision craftsmanship of the 19th century had become a pile of useless scrap metal!