Kaijin Fighter: So I Have to Make Monsters, So What?

'Huh...this is utter crap.'

When Zhen Liu returned to the forge room, after reassuring the Kaijin and sending them on their way, of course, he immediately beelined to the bodies of cursed metals he had made for the god fragments and realized...they were crappy.

No, that wasn't a strong enough word; they were shit.

Relying solely on material composition, Zhen Liu could tell that these bodies he had made were the equivalent of Gold-tiered aether treasures, aka, the kind of thing that medium-sized kingdoms would gladly go to war over in order to empower their royal families.

Now, technically speaking, these freshly forged bodies would've been enough to fulfill his obligation to the god fragments. For all intents and purposes, he could literally go ahead and bestow upon them these new forms and have them deal with Smoking Mirror posthaste. However, doing this would go against Zhen Liu's newly acquired standards.

'If I want it even match a fraction of that power I was just exposed to, I'm going to need something...extra.'

In the same way one's worldview expands, shatters, and changes upon learning new information, for example, when one is taught how every living thing is actually made of even smaller living things, Zhen Liu had come to realize his own applications of [Chaos] had been...rather lacking.

Briefly popping his head into the [Space Between Realities], name pending, made Zhen Liu realize that there was a lot more behind [Chaos] than what he had initially thought. Hell, there were a lot of applications to the stuff that he and his kaijin were barely touching upon.

Granted, that brief interaction with that big mama dragon also made him realize that tapping into such power prematurely was just asking for trouble.

However, there wasn't anything stopping him from improving himself until he could get to that point.

That stated, as Zhen Liu continued to look over freshly made metallic bodies before him, noticing all the room for improvement that could be done, he began to ponder on what his next course of action should be.

'Okay, I'm immediately discarding the idea of remaking these bodies from the ground up,' Zhen Liu first concluded. 'I can't afford to do that kind of shit, and I'd rather not leave some kind of prototype around, only for it to bite me in the ass later.'

Just because Zhen Liu thought that these newly crafted bodies were below standard didn't mean that others shared that same criterion.

Unless he actively destroyed his new creations, there was a chance that others with less scruples than him would attempt to hijack his work and turn it into their own personal weapon to use against him.

Granted, he was against the idea of destroying the bodies as well.

He had sunk in a way too much effort in gathering all of the materials he needed, shaped them into the proper shape with the [Hammer of the Dearly Departed], and and they haven't been used yet.

As far as Zhen Liu was concerned, he could still use the bodies for his own kaijin...maybe.

'No, that's not a good use either, especially since these bodies still has underutilized potential...wait a minute...'

Technically speaking, there were still ways to improve the metallic bodies now that they were forged, he just needed the right materials and knowledge to do so.

Unfortunately, while he had plenty of the latter, he didn't have enough of the former.

'Even relatively mundane items or low ranked aether treasures can be improved if infused with the power of natural aether treasures like my [Ghost Flame] or if I use runes...but I don't think I have anything like that right now...' Zhen Liu concluded. 'Heh. Mechanical vs spiritual upgrades.'

In terms of raw energetic input, he had access to [Ghost Flame], technically two types of [Beast Flame], the fourteen [Flames of Vice and Virture], and his own brand of [Chaos].

At this point, he had already used his all of his flames to alloy the bodies into their current state, while his own [Chaos] wouldn't really add anything different to the mix.

As such, Zhen Liu eventually concluded that there were only two ways going forward with these metallic shells.

Option one: find a new form of natural aether treasures that wasn't fire-related to empower the bodies.

By a massive technicality, he had yet to actually quench these metallic shells of his. In fact, they were still blistering hot and still a little molten when Zhen Liu had to leave the forge to go and deal with that overlooked rift.

He was about to just use his own [Chaos] to cool the bodies, mimicking the aquatic power he tapped into when he performed [Tiamat's Dance], but that was no longer the plan.

If he wanted to do right by these bodies, these gods, and himself, Zhen Liu was going to need acquire an actual form of natural aether treasure water or ice.

Thankfully, he had an idea on where to acquire something like that.

'Actually, this would also be a good way for me to check on Jin Fang and Jinju Ren while I'm at it,' Zhen Liu mused as he planned to visit Roaring Tide again. 'Its been awhile and...wait...'

The last time Zhen Liu disappeared without saying a word and almost wound up dead, Jin Fang gut punched with all the rage a jilted lover could muster...which was a lot.

That was back when she was a maid/childhood friend/assassin(?) at home...now she was technically the crown princess to a whole ass underground kingdom and had been training with Kaijin for the past three months to live up to her scary mother's legacy.

In other words, Zhen Liu's gut was probably unprepared for the blow she was going to inflict on him.

'On the one hand, I kind of deserve it for not immediately figuring out a way to inform her of my status. On the other, I wasn't expecting any of this to happen...then again, I didn't expect to take an arrow to the brain either...'

Regardless of any relationship issues, Zhen Liu was still going to go to Roaring Tide to see if there were any forms of aether liquids he could make a part of himself.

'That or see if primordial fire is a thing...'

Option two was a bit more feasible in the short term for Zhen Liu, which was to simply brush up on his smithing techniques in a wholesale manner.

The man knew that he wasn't a veteran craftsman, so his works weren't up to snuff to those who truly dedicated themselves to the craft. However, he did have access to a near infinite library that had basically every bit of knowledge to every single subject in existence.

It wouldn't be a massive stretch to assume he could find a couple dozen tomes dedicated to forging treasures and several more dedicated to working with runes.

That meant that all he needed to do was contact Logos and Pathos about having that information packaged and downloaded into his skull.

At least, he hoped it was going to be that easy.

He was just about to contact Logos and Pathos and get to work in that regard, until he remembered something rather important in relation to his predecessors. Namely, that several of them were craftsmen of various walks of life...and there was a very high possibility that those bastards kept whatever knowledge pertaining to their work locked behind some kind of inheritance seal.

As such, before contacting them, he decided to go over the list of Kaijin Lords he knew had a history of crafting behind them.

Not because he wanted to see if he could just bypass their restrictions or anything like that, but because he wanted to see if any of them were close enough to his current position in Dozing Salamander or Stampeding Bison so that he didn't have to go that far.

Time was a factor, after all.

'Alright, off the top of my dome there was the Mad Craftsmen, the Doll King, and I think...what was his title again...the Rainbow Smith?,' Zhen Liu listed off of his fingers. 'I really hope Logos and Pathos can give me a lead here.'

...One walk over to their reference room later, because he was very tired of having things downloaded to his head...

<=Actually, there is an inheritance near you that meets your criteria.=>

"Really?!"

By the time Zhen Liu made his way over to Logos and Pathos, the twin curator spirits were already in the midst of compiling information related to his latest query and has already cross referenced it on to their map of the world.

Apparently, there was precisely one Kaijin Lord inheritance near him at this point in time that met his criteria, and it was none other than the aformentioned Rainbow Smith.

There was just one very big problem: it was in the middle of a big ass city.

"Wait, what?"