21st Century Necromancer
Chapter 854 - 848: Tear of Mani

In front of the torii gate of the Tenmangu Shrine, Akagi, Kaga, Hood, Belfast, and Kirov stood in a line. Each of them had summoned their ship equipment.

As aircraft carriers, Akagi and Kaga held traditional Japanese longbows in their hands. The flight decks that were once mounted on their ship bodies now floated beside them like rolled scrolls, with squadrons of carrier-based planes ready for deployment.

Originally, the flight decks of Akagi and Kaga were worn as armor on their shoulders, and launching carrier-based planes involved shooting them using their bows. However, after Chen Yu modified the summoning ritual and summoned ship-girls with casting abilities, he made some adjustments to Akagi and Kaga, altering the appearance of their ship equipment and granting them the ability to cast spells.

As for Hood and Belfast, their ship equipment remained unchanged, but they had gained new types of magic-infused shells to choose from during bombardments.

Kirov, being a later-summoned ship-girl and having a weaker base Power of Faith, lacked the ability to use magic.

Even so, Kirov was an authentic demigod. Anyone who underestimated her would pay a heavy price.

"What's our next move?" Kirov asked, her metallic gauntlets clanging as she punched them together before turning to look at Akagi.

Faced with Kirov's question, Akagi didn't reply with words. Instead, she pulled back the string of her longbow, where an arrow formed from magic power appeared and was drawn taut. She released it with precision.

The arrow nailed itself to the torii gate of the Tenmangu Shrine. After a brief moment of stillness, it transformed into a massive beam of light that shot forth, obliterating both the torii gate and the pathway behind it, leaving only a smoldering trench in its wake.

Seeing this, Kirov laughed, a crazed and triumphant grin spreading across her face. "Now that's more like it! I'm going in first!"

With those words, Kirov charged toward the Tenmangu Shrine. Flames erupted from her elbows, propelling her forward with a literal rocket punch.

Watching Kirov rush ahead, Akagi and Kaga exchanged glances and simultaneously drew their longbows. Hood and Belfast also adjusted the turrets of their ship equipment, aiming them at the shrine.

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While Akagi and the others began their assault on the Tenmangu Shrine, Chen Yu was deep in thought in his laboratory, pondering how to upgrade the Demigod Knight Armor.

The armor was fully laid out on an experiment table, with all detachable and openable components dismantled and meticulously arranged in order.

The design of the armor was ingeniously intricate. Although some techniques seemed ancient and primitive, the craftsmanship demonstrated the artisan's countless hours of dedicated effort and genius. However, due to limitations in their skill and vision, the armor's design appeared somewhat dated to Chen Yu.

The outdated aspects primarily involved the style of the armor and the inefficiency and limited functionality of the enchantment arrays within. However, elements such as the arrangement of the enchantment arrays and the integration of magical conduits within the armor even earned Chen Yu's admiration for the ingenuity of the ancient craftsman who created it.

The artisan did not treat the armor as a collection of individual parts but rather as a cohesive whole.

This approach offered obvious benefits. The enchantment arrays, originally burdening the main armor body, were dispersed across various components, significantly enhancing the armor's capacity to sustain enchantment arrays and increasing its overall power threshold.

However, this method was not without drawbacks. The armor had to be worn as a complete set to achieve its full demigod-level potential. Missing any component would greatly diminish the power it could provide.

Evidently, the craftsman anticipated such issues. When splitting the enchantment arrays, they deliberately reinforced the connections between the arrays and enhanced the functionality each array could support. Even if one or two components were absent, the armor's overall capabilities would not be significantly compromised.

Additionally, the entirety of the enchantment array schematics and the armor's forging techniques were embedded within each component. This meant that if certain parts were lost or damaged accidentally, they could be repaired using the embedded schematics, ensuring the armor would not become permanently incomplete due to missing components.

It was indeed unfortunate that, upon closer inspection, Chen Yu realized this armor had never seen combat. What was meant to shine brilliantly on the battlefield had instead become nothing more than a decorative piece in Empress Catherine the Great's palace—a masterfully crafted but ultimately underutilized artifact.

While lamenting the wasted effort and ingenuity of the artisan, Chen Yu began grinding various materials into powders. Mixing them with Dragon Blood, he created a violet ink in a small bowl.

This formula, documented in the Multiverse Universal Necromancy Spell Compendium, allowed for the modification of magic arrays without damaging them.

Though the craftsman's ingenuity was admirable, the craftsmanship and the enchantment arrays themselves were so outdated that Chen Yu could not overlook them. His first step in upgrading the armor was to modify these arrays.

After all, the 18th-century enchantment arrays were, in Chen Yu's eyes, woefully outdated and overly simplistic in functionality.

A demigod-level suit of armor without features like automatic size adjustment was tolerable. The lack of automatic cleaning was also forgivable. However, the absence of foundational abilities such as self-repair, magic power replenishment, strength enhancement, and stamina recovery was utterly unacceptable to Chen Yu.

While preparing the ink, Chen Yu flipped through the Multiverse Universal Necromancy Spell Compendium to the chapter on artifact crafting. There, he selected an exceptionally versatile magic array called the Tear of Mani, which he planned to incorporate into the Knight Armor.

The Tear of Mani was a highly multifunctional magic array. When applied as an enchantment on armor or a shield, it granted the wearer boundless vitality under moonlight. As long as moonlight touched them, the wearer could continuously absorb its energy, remaining tireless and unwearied.

Additionally, under moonlight, the enchantment provided a Moonlight Shield. Even if the shield was broken, it could regenerate quickly under the light of the moon.

Moreover, the Tear of Mani could summon creatures called Moonlight Spirits from the moonlight. These summoned allies offered various forms of support, such as healing and attribute strengthening. This made the magic array extraordinarily versatile.

The only drawback was that the Tear of Mani required moonlight to function at its full potential. However, this posed no issue for Chen Yu.