Eye squinted and thought ‘It must be good tech… and relatively new if he is putting so many restrictions’. Eye said “What is it?” Jade said “Rune technology. Did you watch my fight with the Ocean Master or Quake?”

Eye said “I watched the battle with Quake”. Jade said “Those little symbols of energy are runes. They can be carved into materials and apply various effects. They can also be used in direct magic applications like I used”.

Jade opened a portal and brought out a bar of steel covered in runes and floated it toward Eye. Eye inspected the metal and Jade said “That is the Tier 3 creation living steel. It’s just a regular block of steel but it can rival the Rank 20 monster material that is now scarce. I believe this is the future of any civilization, if new monsters don’t come we can only go back to enhancing our natural elements”.

Eye said “True, I also made a similar thing with Reality Forging. Spatial technology, aura, hot weapon magic, rune technology and your experience with the soul, I believe that is enough”. Jade shook his head and said “I’m withdrawing aura technology and hot weapon magic”.

Puzzled, Eye asked “Why?” Jade said “I’m giving too much”. Eye said “No you’re not”. Jade said “Yes I am”. Eye said “Reality Forging is just that good!”. Jade said “What I gave you is just as good but you don’t see the value is why you need more. But I have a solution. I will enhance any weapon of your picking with aura technology and hot weapon magic. Adding that to the list of things I’m giving you should make what I’m giving equal. Plus, I’ll use my wisdom stat and soul glyph to enhance your weapon”.

Eye said “Why would I want that? I already have the Trident of Burden so whatever enhancement you make cannot make a weapon on its level”. Jade smiled and said “So if I enhance a weapon until it is tier 5 you’ll agree?”

Eye thought for a while before smiling and saying “Yes”. Gaining a new Tier 5 weapon that he could study and new technologies was a win-win for him. He wanted Jade to win so he didn’t try to give Jade a terrible weapon.

Eye gestured for Jade to follow him and led Jade through the hallway to a room while holding the Trident of Burden. The insides of the room were dark; something was absorbing the light that came from the shining corals in it. The source of the darkness was the floating armor made of purple tentacles weaved together. The armor seemed to be made for a mermaid or merman as the lower body part was that of a fish.

The armor was equivalent to a normal merman armor weaved out of light absorbing tentacles, except it was big enough for Jade to wear. The menacing aura intensified as the armor sensed their presence. Jade looked at Eye and asked “Does it speak?” He could see through the Astral Plane that there was still a soul inside the armor and it had a soul Mandala. He could see that it had an energy zone.

Eye said “It’s the armor I made out of the tentacles of the Rank 29 Deep Horror Demon: Cthullu. The other parts of his body didn’t show such a strong reaction to my Reality Forging. The better I made it, the more alive it became and the more it attacked me. When I made it into a Tier 4 Armament I needed the trident to be safe around it. It fears the trident”.

Jade could see why. In the Astral Plane, the trident was sending subtle but menacing psychic radiations toward the armor. Jade looked at the floating tentacle armor again and thought ‘This armor is straight out of a hentai’.

Jade said “I’ll make it submit”. Eye looked at Jade and asked “Would you like the trident to protect you while you work?” Jade said “That will just make it more arrogant. You really don’t know what happened? My expertise on the soul will help you greatly then. When you buy it that is”.

Eye nodded and said “Should I leave?” Jade smiled and said “Yes”. Eye slowly floated toward the door of the room and closed it behind him. After he left, the armor came to life; it writhed, squirmed and churned for a moment as if it was doing stretches before it shot its tentacles toward Jade.

Jade disappeared immediately as he thought ‘I’ve watch enough hentai to know where this is going’. The tentacles were fast and powerful, they tore through space chasing after Jade but they could not reach him. He always teleported away when it was just about to get him and sometimes its tentacles would rip through space and appear in an unintended spot.

The armor churned in rage and burst forth with more tentacles than it looked like it had. It was quite a big piece of armor considering it was large enough for Jade to wear but it should not have been able to cover the entire room with its tentacles. The tentacles instead seemed to grow like branches from it.

Jade swiped his hand and spatial slashes went forth and cut the tentacles into pieces. The loped off tentacles grew more tentacles like trees and the tentacles they were cut from healed and grew more tentacle branches.

Seeing that Jade was helplessly teleporting to the little remaining space the armor brimmed with joy and malice. Jade smiled and created a few energy runes which formed a circle and slammed together at the center as Jade sent them toward the mass of writhing tentacles.

A vortex was created as a result and the tentacles were gracefully sucked in as if there was oil on the vortex that made them keep sliding inside. The armor created more and more tentacles but the vortex kept getting more powerful, absorbing more tentacles as time went on.

The armor could still attack Jade with its tentacles for a while, although it couldn’t cover as much area as before. Later on the vortex became so powerful that it the armor became fully devoted to feeding it. Jade then floated toward and could finally see the name.

[Tier 4 Armament: Undying Hatred] Jade thought ‘Trident of Burden, Undying Hatred, such emotional names’. Jade took his time assessing the armor while it struggled to feed the vortex’s hunger. Jade thought ‘It has a soul but it doesn’t have a mind to think. It’s equivalent to a complex program that cannot be changed anymore. Eye basically made a malignant program that he can’t edit, a virus basically. The trident is the same except it doesn’t have ill intent. Reality Forging is sick though, it can make souls. No, more like it can take a part of the souls used in the forging and create an ego out of it’.

The rage of the armor kept swelling and swelling as it was eaten by the vortex without end. It snapped, as its anger reached a threshold and a row of small pitch black teeth lined the suckers of its tentacles. Jade looked at this change in intrigue.

The teeth bit on the other tentacles inside the space the vortex was sending them into. The tentacles were consumed and digested by the teeth that seemed to disintegrate them on touch and the energy they produced was sent directly to the armor.

The armor kept consuming its tentacles gaining more energy and used this energy to create more tentacles to attack Jade. The tentacles it used now had teeth on their suckers. Portals appeared and teleported the tentacles away from Jade whenever they came close. Jade was trying to annoy it even more.

The tentacles unsuccessfully tried to reach Jade but only found themselves at the end of the portals. The tentacles in the space of the vortex consumed themselves to the point where there were no more tentacles left in the space. All of it had turned to energy for the armor. With that, the armor had broken the physical connection with the vortex and had removed its tentacles far enough from it that it didn’t absorb them anymore.

Jade closed the vortex and the armor focused on attacking him, but all the got was the other end of a portal. The armor realized that Jade teleporting away from it was just a play, he could just stay in one place and teleport its tentacles away. Seeing Jade stand in one place without issue made the anger of the armor soar.

The armor reached another anger threshold and snapped. The tentacles in a certain area consumed themselves but the armor used the energy gained to create more tentacles in that area. The entire process created a single tentacle that was far larger than the normal ones.

The tentacle was three times as big as Jade’s body but it moved just as fast as the other ones. It slammed the tentacle toward Jade who thought ‘It observes while it fights and improves its fighting style when it snaps. This is its effort at trying to counter the portals; making a tentacle larger than the portals. This is going to be fun’.