Jonah’s new dorm wasn’t just a room; it was a small apartment. He stepped inside, his old miner’s boots feeling out of place on the polished wood floor. The main area had a comfortable couch and a desk stable enough for real work. But the real prize was through a second, heavy-duty door.

He pushed it open and stared. It was a workshop. His own private, state of the art workshop. The air was clean, filtered, and cool. There were empty shelves waiting for materials, a reinforced workbench, and strange, high-tech devices he didn’t recognize.

This was the privilege of a Black Badge. It was a world away from his tiny dorm with the secret Vivarium. It was a universe away from the soot-stained room in Cinderfall.

A few hours later, the space was no longer empty. Vanessa stood beside him, her expression a mix of awe and intense focus. Between them, on the sterile metal workbench, sat the Primordial Geode.

It pulsed with a soft, internal light, shifting through every color imaginable. It was a perfect sphere of raw potential, waiting for a purpose. This would be the Nexus Core for his masterwork.

“Okay,” Vanessa said, pushing up her sleeves. “The Headmaster has given us unlimited access to the essence vault. What’s the plan? What are we building?”

Jonah took a deep breath. His goal was clear in his mind. He needed a creature that could do what he couldn’t. A perfect scout, an undetectable assassin. Something that could see without being seen, and strike without a sound.

“Grade-4,” Jonah stated, his voice quiet but firm. “Four essences, one core. The focus here is stealth and precision.”

Vanessa grabbed a data slate, her fingers flying across the screen. “I’m pulling up the archives. Let’s make a list.”

They spent the first day just planning. It felt less like magic and more like engineering.

“First, for stealth, nothing beats a Glimmermoth,” Jonah said, pointing to an image on Vanessa’s slate. “The essence has both Air and Illusion properties. It can bend light around itself.”

“Standard invisibility,” Vanessa noted, typing. “Good, but predictable. What else?”

“For mobility, we need to think beyond simple flight. We need something that breaks the rules of space.” His mind went to the mission reports he’d been given access to. “The vault has a Phase Spider essence. Spatial Warp.”

Vanessa’s eyes widened. “Phase Spider? Jonah, that’s insanely unstable. Working with a spatial essence is notoriously tricky.”

“Which is why we have the Nexus Core,” he countered, tapping the glowing geode. “It’s designed to handle clashing concepts. We need that if we want real, unpredictable movement.”

She chewed on her lip, then nodded. “Okay. High risk, high reward. I like it. So we have illusion and teleportation. What about offense?”

“Precision, not power,” Jonah said. “I don’t want another Maul. I need a scalpel, not a hammer.” He scrolled through the list. “Iron-Billed Woodpecker. Its essence is Air and Piercing. It’s designed to punch through the toughest defenses with a single, focused strike.”

“A silent teleport followed by an armor-piercing attack. Deadly,” Vanessa murmured, a slow smile spreading across her face. “That’s three. What’s the fourth? We need something to tie it all together.”

Jonah thought back to the Sunken City, to the beasts that blended perfectly with their surroundings. “Camouflage. Not illusion, but a physical change. Swamp Stalker essence. It grants Chameleon Skin.”

Vanessa looked at the four essences listed on her slate.

Glimmermoth (Air, Illusion) Phase Spider (Spatial Warp) Iron-Billed Woodpecker (Air, Piercing) Swamp Stalker (Chameleon Skin)

“Four essences, four different methods of being unseen and unheard,” she said, her voice filled with excitement. “This… this is brilliant. It’s a creature built to be a ghost.”

The planning was the easy part. The real work began the next day.

For weeks, the workshop became their entire world. Jonah learned that creating a Grade-4 Progeny was nothing like his earlier synthesis. It wasn’t about instinct and raw power. It was about science.

He remembered the data crystal from the Artificer’s workshop. The ancient creator hadn’t just forced his will on stone and metal; he had designed pathways, etched runes, and balanced energy flows. Jonah had to do the same, but with life itself.

He would sit for hours, his eyes closed, his hand hovering over the Primordial Geode. He wasn’t pushing essences into it. Instead, he was channeling his mana, thin as a needle, and carefully inscribing the Artificer’s principles into the core’s structure. He was preparing it, creating a blueprint inside the geode to guide the four wild essences so they wouldn’t tear each other apart.

“The connection between the Illusion and Spatial pathways feels unstable,” he’d mutter, sweat beading on his brow.

Vanessa, surrounded by ancient books and scrolls, would look up without missing a beat. “The texts on runic circuits say you need a stabilizer. Try creating a small, looping channel of mana right there. It’ll act like a pressure valve.”

Jonah would adjust his focus, carefully weaving a fresh thread of energy into the core. He could feel the internal structure settle, the two unstable concepts finding a strange harmony.

Their days fell into a rhythm. Jonah would perform the delicate psychic surgery on the Nexus Core. Vanessa would monitor the energy flows, cross-reference ancient texts for forgotten scraps of information, and create small, temporary runic fields to help stabilize Jonah’s work.

Sometimes, he’d get so lost in the process that he’d forget to eat or sleep. More than once, Vanessa had to physically drag him away from the workbench and force a sandwich into his hand.

“Even a Beast Weaver needs fuel,” she’d scold, though her eyes were filled with a shared, feverish excitement.

He was no longer just following his instincts; he was becoming a true engineer of life. He was designing his creation with the precision of a watchmaker and the profound understanding of a biologist. He and Vanessa worked as a seamless unit, their partnership reaching a level of deep, unspoken trust. She was his researcher, his stabilizer, and his anchor to the real world.

Finally, after three long weeks of intense, focused effort, it was done.

Jonah pulled his mana back, feeling a deep exhaustion settle into his bones. He opened his eyes and looked at the Primordial Geode.

It looked the same on the outside, still a perfect, color-shifting sphere. But inside, he could feel it. He could sense the subtle, hidden pathways he and Vanessa had so painstakingly built. It was a masterpiece of magical architecture, a perfectly prepared vessel.

The four chosen essences floated in separate containment fields nearby, humming with power, waiting.

The Nexus Core was ready. The blueprint was complete.

All that was left was to begin.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep