章 120: Guardian Prototype Mk. I

Karni had to admit: it frustrated him that the Dragonwolf Katana girl refused to battle him, but this much weaker girl he just beat did. He understood it. He really did understand the reasons behind the katana girl not fighting. The fight he just finished was instantaneous after all, but it still frustrated him at the inability to temper his skills.

He was currently at the point where holding back also would not help him in training. He specialised in control; he had no need to hold back to practise it. Not anymore at least, not this kind of holding back.

This made the match quite uninteresting. A simple flick of the wrist sending one drumstick ahead, then hitting it with the second, rebounding into the girl's head. The end.

Somehow, the girl had only three Soul Rings. From what Karni saw, she made it here partly through luck and having a tricky to deal with Martial Soul. A ghost type which was hard to touch. Unfortunately, ghosts were not immune to Sound. Hence Karni needed no special tactic to deal with her.

If nothing else, this gave him the time to return to Tang Sect and complete his first prototype of the Guardian Greatsword.

He reached the 10th floor underground and scanned his card. "Mecha Weapons Division Manager, Val Karni, welcome."

Karni had become the Mecha Weapons Division Manager in this whole project and lead the division from here. His research was unique enough that the Sect felt that there was a need for another subdivision to truly specialise in Karni's idea of weapons. In a similar vein, due to his expertise in prosthetics, he became a sub-manager at the human division.

Back on Douluo, he received a partner to be the manager there as well. To his surprise, it was Liu Liu. Apparently, she had recently been invited to the Science Division due to her work with the Shrek Orphanage. Based on her unique abilities, Karni would guess that she would progress to the inner sect at about the same time as the other Shrek Seven Devils.

In such a way, the team Karni received here alongside with Liu Liu from Douluo and Siduo had come up with quite an efficient design for the Guardian Greatsword. Except, well, the first Greatsword was a human sized Greatsword, which would make it just a normal straight sword for the Mecha. While experimenting with complexity was easier with bigger size of the base material, it cost a lot of money. Until they had something truly stable, they were unable to move to the next step.

It was quite a complicated yet personal design, based on Karni's Martial Soul. The most difficult part was creating a central network of Soul Arrays, each individually connected to a Soul Ring, yet also needing to make a formula that future research could follow when creating these weapons, just like Battle Armours had a certain formula to follow.

This was how they created a generalised circular design which took in the Hexagonal Array Theorems on the inside. To connect Soul Rings into the weapon, one already needed to be a 4-Star Designer. Well, that was not completely true. They could be a 3-Star Designer if they wished to connect with only a single Soul Ring, but a 4-Star Designer to connect three.

As of their current development, the limit of the Soul Rings the weapon could hold was six. For that, one needed to be a 5-Star Designer. The way they set it up, the first three Soul Rings required knowledge of 4-Star Designers due to overlaps in Soul Arrays, while the next three Soul Rings, could easily be fit with 5-Star Designers skill. The Arrays for each Soul Ring criss-crossed one another at precise angles, giving requirements of the 5-Star level. This did, however, cause a problem for the next levels. To add more Arrays, they couldn't cross one another anymore, less they would destabilise. This meant they had to go into true three-dimensional arrays. The 6-Star rank.

But Karni encountered another problem. With his current knowledge of the 6-Star Rank—he was quite close to it by now, so he knew a lot—he knew that the next stage would not be possible with just going into three dimensional hexagons. To connect the next two Soul Rings, non-Euclidean understanding of Soul Arrays would be needed. The Ziwen Geometry, as it was called here. And that was the 7-Star Rank instead.

The problem came from needing to from a sphere on which to design Soul Arrays. He didn't know how it would work, but he was sure that the 7th and 8th ring would work with it. Taking half of the sphere each. It was a big problem, because he had no insight in this field yet. Ziwen Geometries were one of the biggest obstacles for Designers. Most who achieve 6-Star rank achieve the 7-Star rank, but it also takes them years to reach it, due to how much they need to study up on.

Unfortunately, it was not as straightforward as "just put arrays on round or elliptical objects". The energies changed, the way to design arrays changed, the physics changed, the math changed. Even with Karni's talent, he would need to study up on it for a few years.

That did beg the question of how the final Soul Ring would be added to make a complete whole… Would it need Infinite Geometry or the understanding into the 4th Dimension? He could not know, because he understood neither of them.

Karni decided to first design a basic 5-Star formation. In his case, he would only need 4 inscriptions, three of them on one plane crossing each other, while the 4th inscription would be at the right angle to those three, intersecting in the middle, mirroring them.

This was honestly quite easy to do, because Karni had long since passed the skill needed to make these. He did not need to think much about it. He designed the first three, and inscribed them on the metal himself, then made the last design and inscribed that on a different metal, than placed the metal with the Soul Array at the right angle to the previous.

Yes, Karni was inscribing himself, because during these last few weeks, he finally reached the 4-Star Rank as a Mechanic. It was about time as well. He'd been at the 3-Star level for too long. While these designs were complex from a design standpoint, it did not require 5-Star skill of mechanics and manufacturers.

Not this part at least. He handed the core of the whole weapon to one of the men under his team, who was a 6-Star Manufacturer. The unique thing this about this weapon was that the Soul Array, while being the core, was the easiest part. The problem was adapting to that core based on one's unique Soul Rings. Those usually required 5-Star Manufacturers.

An example of this was Karni's first Soul Ring. Karni needed quite a lot of time to decide how he could adapt something like future sight to a weapon. By the end, he decided to add a layer to the weapon, which turned it partly translucent, and through which, when Karni would defend, he could see what was happening ahead of him in future sight. On the other hand, it could also function like a mirror to see what was happening behind him as well.

In such a way, when Karni would buckle up with the Greatsword and use it like a shield, he could still see ahead of him, and what was bound to happen.

This was where the difficulty came from. This function was not a lone function that the Soul Tool would have on its own, it needed to transfer and channel his powers into the Soul Tool instead.

He had to make a unique adaptation like this for every skill. The easiest of which was Shifting, which was still just Shifting, but the weapon was part of the Martial Soul, so it did not require more Spiritual Power to Shift with it.

Karni had to admit that he was also biassed. As he was watching the man manufacture his weapon, he was feeling a bit nervous. Something he would never feel if Siduo were the one doing the job. He missed his feral cat carving out what he designed.

It was dumb to not be confident as well, because this man had better skill than Siduo. She was a 5-Star Manufacturer. This man was a 6-Star Manufacturer. And 6-Star Manufacturers would also be needed once they start inscribing Six Soul Rings due to the increase of complexity, and the semi third-dimensional designs.

It was interesting to think about. They needed a 5-Star Designer to design something so complex that they would need a 6-Star Manufacturer.

His fears about the man proved to be unfounded, as the man soon completed his designs to absolute perfection, looking satisfied. "It really is a joy to carve your designs, manager." The man, who was older than Karni, addressed him respectfully.

Karni smiled and checked out his new weapon. It was perfect, just as he imagined it. He was ready to face the princess with their first prototype.

… … …

It was now the final match of the Round Robin stage of the tournament. Today, not only would Karni face Dai Yun'er, the princess, but Yue Zhengyu would also face Long Yue. It was an important match, not just because of Long Yue, but because Yue Zhengyu as of this moment, was equal with another member. If he could somehow beat Long Yue, he would end up being second.

It was unfortunate that Karni already knew the result. Frankly, Yue Zhengyu had no chance. Karni was, however, very curious of Long Yue's strength, and to see, if Yue Zhengyu would be able to continue participating. From what he knew Yue Zhengyu had to drop out after this. He was curious if things would change like they did with Hua Lantang.

Yue Zhengyu went before Karni, so Karni had the chance to watch. Yue Zhengyu fought well. His angelic abilities, and holy light proved to be a decent challenge for Long Yue. However, Karni soon began to squint. Once Long Yue used some abilities… Well, Yue Zhengyu was immediately on the run, and he could not run long. Karni's Purple Demon Eyes however managed to get a lot of information of Long Yue's two skills that he used. Yes. Long Yue only used two skills to defeat Yue Zhengyu. That was the power of a Soul Emperor. It went similarly to original. Karni could not see Yue Zhengyu recover in time for his next match.

This automatically put Long Yue in the right side bracket for the tournament stage. All the even numbers went there.

If Karni wanted to face Long Yue before Wulin, he had to win his group or be third; but being third was impossible for him now. So, if he had to win his group… he looked ahead of him. He had to beat the princess.

He breathed in, calming himself. His turn had come. This would not be easy. That woman was above him in Spiritual Power at the moment—a Bonus of having a true Spiritual Martial Soul. He was curious to see just how strong Spirit Abyss Realm felt to fight against.

Karni and Yun'er walked into the arena, not saying a word. Both were focused. Both respected each other as fighters. Now it was time to see who was stronger.

The match started. Yun'er dashed with the speed of a cat, approaching him in a silhouette not much different than Siduo's own.

Karni breathed… and pulled out the Guardian Prototype Mark One. His Bo Staff stuck into it, serving as a handle, while the blade was the actual Soul Tool.

He could see Yun'er grin when she saw it. Karni kept his promise. But Karni wasn't exactly grinning. He was focused and serious. He was not used to fighting like this yet, so he couldn't afford to fight with a relaxed mind.

And just as she got close, Karni swung that oversized sword with speed she did not expect he had.

Yun'er dodged it at the last second, quickly changing her tactics with a Spiritual Attack.

But instantly there was a problem. Karni hid behind the sword, and the Spiritual Power did not like to interact with metal.

Karni was extremely fast with the Greatsword. Sure, it was his first time using Greatswords in person, but he had an affinity for Greatswords. His body was more efficient than a Mecha. He had the Tang Sect techniques to wield through his body, as well as the recent training of Hu Jie. Finally, there was that problem he had yet to solve. It was stronger than it should be for whatever reason. His team had yet to figure out why that happens, but it likely came from his Martial Soul and not because of the science.

As soon as he blocked that Spiritual Attack, the Greatsword shone with a yellow-golden light, blinding Yun'er for a second.

Yun'er opened her eyes and cursed. She saw tens of Karni's around her fully golden.

This was how he adapted his Second Soul Ring, Vision Bestowal. The Sword lit up brightly, and as long as one looked at it for a bit, they would get hit with the ability.

Karni hid himself withing the golden shadows, dancing with that Greatsword. He attacked once, twice, thrice… But Yun'er's instincts were too sharp. She dodged many shadows she saw that were not real, but she also always dodged Karni's attacks. Either her instincts really were like a cat's, or the Spirit Abyss Realm was simply that incredible. Oh, who was he kidding. It was probably both.

Karni swung from left to right using his Drunken Ghost Dance together with CCCD in beautiful fusion. He danced between her attacks, neither of them hitting each other. The Guardian Prototype Mark One was nailed into the ground with another miss, and Karni stepped on it then jumped, bring the Greatsword with him. He swung at her from above. She dodged. He spun to the side from the crush. But she dodged again. Then he spun once more, coming from the top right at her. And she stretched beneath it. Dodged again and again.

Karni felt his Vision Bestowal waning on her. So, he decided to go an extra little mile. He stopped fully hiding himself behind the golden visions, then positioned his feet in a horse stance away from Yun'er and spun. Once. Twice. And YEET. Karni threw the Greatsword at Yun'er with all his might.

But Yun'er dodged it at the last second, while at the same time finally overcoming Vision Bestowal. She dashed from where Karni threw it… except he wasn't there. Her hair stood on ends. Danger.

She jumped high and looked below. Karni with the Greatsword again. He Shifted while it was being yeeted, changing its direction last second. Karni clicked his tongue at the fact she dodged yet again. The Greatsword was stuck in the ground now. She was just as slippery as Siduo, if not more so. That Spiritual Power of hers gave her a terrifying sense of her surroundings.

While she was falling from her jump, Karni saw that little shine happening in her eyes. She was about to use Spiritual Disturbance on him.

His Bo Staff—still the handle of the weapon—split in two in an instant. Karni took the bottom Drumstick and stuck it into yet another hole in the Greatsword, and the Greatsword itself suddenly split in two. A big section of it formed into a Shield, while a small part stayed stuck in the ground. Karni immediately put the shield in front of him.

He timed it perfectly to block her Spiritual Disturbance, hearing a grumble from the other side of the shield. He reactivated his First Soul Ring, which he, like always, had activated from the start. The shield he just got in front of him turned translucent on his side. He saw as Yun'er jumped above, trying to secretly attack.

That attack was weird. Dangerous. It was her Hell Slash fused together with something else. Spiritual Power!

Karni pulled the smaller part of the Greatsword—now just a short sword—from the ground and threw it at her. She was forced to deflect it, though she did so with ease. What she deflected was basically a normal sword without any power.

However, Karni disappeared beneath her, and reappeared by the side of the straight sword, fusing it back together into the shield, reforming the Greatsword.

Karni could have left his ability to split his Bo Staff alone, but it had become such a key asset to his arsenal that he could not stop himself from implementing it into the Greatsword somehow. He gave the Greatsword an ability to split into two unequal halves. A Shield and a Sword. The Shield was the one with the core of the Soul Array, while the Sword was just a piece of sharp metal, not connected to the shield. The only thing it had was the Drumstick as the handle. In the future, Karni planned to connect the powers between those two parts as well. He just hadn't had the time to figure that part out yet.

As he fell, he spun in mid-air, at the same time Shifting himself close to Yun'er and slashing directly at her head.

Yun'er immediately released her fourth soul ring and split into multiple doppelgangers. Karni missed her completely. But as the Greatsword crashed into the ground, it released a boom so loud it immediately destroyed all the doppelgangers near him.

His Sound would always remain a core of his arsenal, no matter the shape of his tools. He had a lot more options in how to use it now, but he hadn't truly figured out the best ones. He just thought of this one. Yes, each strike should have Sound in them. Explosions of Sounds for everyone!

Which immediately reminded him... He spun in place, slashing at nothing, but Sound was released. Sharp Sound, yet discordant Sound, unpleasant for the ears. Yet more doppelgangers fell, some took the hit, but one of them jumped.

Karni immediately sent the Greatsword flying at the one jumping. He could tell the princess had yet to fully master her fourth Soul Ring of the Hell Cat. She had likely focused on her Spiritual Abilities the past year.

Just before the Greatsword hit, Karni sent out a Spiritual Ray from his Soul Bone, screaming at the same time to disguise what he truly did as a Sound Attack.

The princess was hit by the ray, pausing and then getting hit by the Greatsword, but not without placing her hands in front of her at the very last second. Damn that Spirit Abyss Realm, she was incredibly resistant to his Nerve Authority!

But Karni Shifted to his Greatsword at the first turn it did after the hit and threw it toward the princess for the second time. She managed to dodge, but Karni released Sound while the Greatsword passed her, knocking her on the ground. Yet another attack he came up with on the spot. Her arms didn't seem to support her fall. He must have broken them in the previous hit.

Karni fell on the Ground, unable to actually Shift as the Greatsword was stuck on the ground and quickly ran toward it. While running, he improvised an attack as the princess was rising, punching out with Sound in his arms. He knocked her back down, reached the Greatsword, and jumped with it for an attack. But he spun mid-air, moving to the side, stopping his attack.

The princess lay on the floor, breathing heavily, and blood was oozing from her mouth, and ears. Her broken arms did not help her appearance.

Yet despite it all, her eyes were still ferocious.

Karni sighed, putting the Greatsword on the ground gently. He grabbed a little Bun he had saved up from Xu Lizhi regularly keeping them in flow and fed it to her. "It's a recovery bun from our food type member."

She begrudgingly took it. The referee then came down. "Princess, do you wish to forfeit?"

Per the rules, she was technically still in the fight. She had neither fainted, and she could have still walked around if she wanted to. But she'd gathered experience in all these years. Despite her mind willing to fight, she knew to ignore it and stay on the ground. Her injuries were severe.

She nodded to the referee.

"It was a good match, Yun'er." Karni smiled and helped her up.

"Yeah right. I didn't even get a hit in."

Karni chuckled. "Well, if you did, it would mean you surpassed my ability to see the future."

"I'll get you one day. I promise you that. And if not for that new weapon of yours…"

"You might have won." Karni admitted, helping her to her side of the resting area. It was true. He would have genuinely been in danger. Her Spiritual Attacks were not something he could dodge with ease anymore. They were both fast and wide. Completely different than when he was last here trying to fight her. Back then she was predictable, and her Spiritual Attacks one-dimensional. The Guardian lived up to its name. A weapon and a shield at the same time.

She sat down and looked up at his weapon. "Say, you think you can get me one of these as well?"

Karni looked at his weapon. "Well, it's being fully developed by the Tang Sect now, so you'll be able to get it somewhat soon, I think. Give it a few years." Karni smiled cheekily, for once, being in a genuinely good mood.

"Though I will admit, we have yet to figure out how the weapon would gel with Beast Martial Souls and Body Martial Souls. I also still have to figure out Twin ones."

"Is there a division I could join in to help?" She seemed to think quite highly of the weapon. And seeing her usual usage of powers, she could definitely benefit from it. She seemed to focus her Hell Cat more on Spirituality this time than last. The few attacks she almost hit him with were all combined with her Spiritual Power.

"Mm. I'll give in a recommendation, though you will be tested for aptitude beforehand. What is your profession level?"

"4-Star Designer for a while now. I'm close to reaching the 5-Star level."

"Perfect. There shouldn't be any problems there."

… … …

"Wait, wait, wait. Big Sis Siduo is one of the founders of the project?" Yun'er was shocked. It's been a week now since their battle. She healed fast and quickly joined the project. Later today the final roaster for the tournament would come out.

Karni laughed. "Yeah. She started fusing the mecha parts with her vehicle research, and the scope of it grew until it became a whole project. I was shocked as well. I joined this through other means, mainly trying to get the weapon figured out."

"Mm. So the weapons are to enable stronger ways of fighting with Mechas. That's an incredible idea. And these different shapes of Mechas as well. Their versatility will jump through the roof. Wait, why did she sign with a heart-" She stopped herself, looking at Karni. Then she started teasing. "Oh my, oh my. Look at you two love birds."

"Hey, we're kind of lonely without each other, you know? Let us have this one." Karni felt like sulking.

Yun'er laughed. "I can see that. Still cute though." She turned back to the blueprints. "I can see some improvements that could be made in the basic design for Body Souls. It could be kind of like those prosthetics over there-" She paused again. "Huh. I didn't know you researched prosthetics." She pointed at his signature.

"My first research field actually." Karni took them, reminded of the past. "So, what do you have in mind."

"Imagine that instead of prosthetics themselves, for someone who had a, let's say arms for their Martial Soul, you would envelop those arms in machinery which would then allow transfer of power to the actual arms of the mechas. I know some mechas do something similar already for Strength types but use your principles instead of those."

Karni looked at the designs, imagining it for a moment. "I can see that working. Gimme a sec, let me grab the rest of the design team."

In a matter of 2 minutes the whole team was gathered. After they listened to Yun'er's ideas a lot of them were in agreement. "We'll need to adapt the core array to that, but it shouldn't be a problem." One of them said.

Another one noted. "We should also make separate categories. Tool Types are very different from Body Types. And those are further different from Beast Types. We should set a standard for each of them."

"There's also Plant Types." Karni added, remembering Tang Wulin.

The rest of the team nodded. Karni clapped his hands to show he made a decision. "Good. Put yourselves in teams based on which of these four you're more familiar with. Yun'er, you're going on the Body Team for now. I'll be helping the Beast Team meanwhile. We have our work cut out for the next few months. For today, make plans and theories. We're inventing new technology here. Let us not be impatient."

Everyone nodded.

"Good. Let's end the meeting here and get to work."

… … …

Five hours later Yun'er and Karni left the building. They wanted to see what the tournament brackets looked like.

The official brackets were put on posters outside the arena.

Karni analysed them. He was on the right side as predicted. His immediate enemy was unknown to him. He'd have to look into him. More interesting were the people he would have to fight after that.

Immediately after the first opponent, Karni would face a friend. Xie Xie. And if he beats him, Lin San, the Wind King would follow. Further to the quarterfinals would be the Wolf King, who was an anomaly. To be fair, Karni was told Hua Lantang was among the weaker members of the Eight Heavenly Kings, so he did not worry too much.

And finally, he would be his biggest challenge should he make it to the semifinals, as well as his goal: Long Yue, Madman Long. Karni breathed out. He would have to beat him if he didn't want Wulin being almost beaten to death. … He thought about it. He… did he care about Wulin to such a degree when he knew Wulin would end up being okay? He had to be honest with himself: it was more about proving himself and wanting to be strong enough to change the future events that were genuinely terrible like Shrek's destruction.

But… one thing at a time. He tried to calm his thoughts. First, he had to figure out more ways to use the Greatsword together with his Martial Soul. He also had to figure out how to adapt the Disordered Drumstick Resonance and the Resonant Drumstick Spiral techniques to it. If he could do it at all.

He turned to look at the left side, Yun'er's section. Since she ended up being second, she was slotted away from Karni. Wulin ended up being third, due to his forfeit against Dai Yueyan, which meant Wulin would face both siblings eventually. It was basically the same as the original timeline. Yun'er and Wulin would meet in Top 32, same as Karni and Xie Xie, while Wulin would meet Dai Yueyan in Top 16 when Karni would face Lin San should he beat Xie Xie.

He could hear Yun'er breathe in relief. "Thank gods I get to face him. If I didn't, with you beating me, I might have lost."

Karni pointed at the one after her. "Well, you would still get to fight your brother and then Yuanen Yehui if you could beat your brother. Full strength types back to back to back… I don't know about your brother, but Yehui and Wulin will be quite the challenge for you."

Yun'er focused on Yuanen Yehui. "I can handle my brother with my Spiritual Power, but Yuanen Yehui? How? If she's a strength type, I could win almost instantly with the same tactics I use my brother"

"Let's just say she has ways to deal with your abilities." Karni nodded to himself. The Fallen Angel would be a very difficult matchup for her.

"Well then." He said, stretching. "I'm gonna go practice and look up my first match. See you later!"

"See you." She waved him goodbye.