The air in the Industrial Spires didn't just smell like ozone; it tasted like copper and old blood.
The Reclamation Pits were a series of massive, open-air centrifuge silos. From the heights of the Gutter, Kenji and Bjorn looked down into a canyon of grinding gears and glowing green vats. Thousands of "Unsettled" refugees from the Migration were being moved along conveyor belts by massive, spider-like Processors.
[ZONE: THE RECLAMATION PITS (RANK SS - DANGER)]
[OBJECTIVE: RESCUE ELARA VOLKOV]
[TRACKING SIGNAL: 88% MATCH - SECTOR 4]
"Those aren't people to them anymore," Bjorn whispered, his knuckles white as he gripped his newly patched axe. "They're just raw mana-stock."
"The System doesn't waste energy," Kenji said, his eyes scanning the "Base-Code" of the facility. The lines of logic here were dense, reinforced by the high-gravity physics of the Outer Forge. "If you don't produce, you are recycled. It's the ultimate expression of the Architect's logic."
Kenji adjusted the Mana Filter he'd taken from Krot. It was humming against his chest, straining to purify the poisonous air.
"There," Kenji pointed.
A high-speed transport rail was carrying a specialized containment unit toward the central vat. Inside the translucent cage, a familiar frost-pattern was etched into the glass. Elara was trying to freeze the locks, but the ambient heat of the pits was melting her ice as fast as she could manifest it.
"She's losing mana fast," Kenji said. "Bjorn, the bridge. We need to intercept that rail."
"How? It's moving at two hundred miles an hour!"
"We aren't stopping it," Kenji said, a familiar, dangerous glint returning to his eyes. "We're Recycling its Friction."
Kenji leaped from the ledge, sliding down a massive drainage pipe toward the rail-track. As he hit the magnetic rail, he didn't use his strength to slow down. He used [Combat Recycling].
[SKILL ACTIVATED: FRICTION SIPHON (RANK 1)]
Every bit of heat and kinetic energy generated by the transport rail's magnetic resistance flowed through Kenji's boots and into his core. Instead of being crushed by the momentum, he was fueled by it.
[MANA RESTORED: 15%... 45%... 80%]
Kenji sprinted along the rail, a blur of violet sparks. He caught up to Elara's transport pod and slammed his hand against the glass.
"Kenji?" Elara's voice was faint, her face pale behind the fog of the containment unit.
"Hold on!"
Kenji didn't try to break the glass. It was Rank 20 reinforced alloy. Instead, he looked at the Conductivity-Lines powering the cage. He used his Micro-Forge skill to "re-wire" the pod's internal heater.
"Elara! Reverse your flow! Use the heat I'm giving you to create a thermal shock!"
Elara understood instantly. She stopped trying to make ice and instead expanded her mana-well to absorb the heat Kenji was shunting into the cage. The temperature inside spiked, then plummeted as she released a burst of Absolute Zero at the exact moment of peak heat.
SHATTER!
The Rank 20 alloy didn't just break; it detonated under the stress of the temperature shift.
Kenji grabbed Elara mid-air as they tumbled off the rail and into a pile of discarded bio-matter.
[RESCUE SUCCESSFUL: ELARA VOLKOV (RANK 5 - ASCENDANT)]
[TEAM SYNC: RE-ESTABLISHING...]
"You... you came to the Gutter for me," Elara panted, her fingers clutching Kenji's tunic. Her eyes were still the piercing blue of the North, but they were rimmed with exhaustion. "The Architect... he's not just revising, Kenji. He's building an army. He's using the 'Reclaimed' to forge Void-Walkers."
Before Kenji could respond, the ground shook.
A Level 20 Processor a mechanical nightmare with twelve scythe-like legs and a central "Eye" that fired beams of concentrated reclamation-acid crawled over the lip of the pit.
[BOSS DETECTED: UNIT 0-RECLAIMER]
[RANK: 20]
[THREAT: EXTREME]
"Fresh materials detected," the Processor's voice was a booming, synthesized growl. "Anomaly and Volkov-Asset. Re-indexing for Priority Processing."
"Bjorn! Now!" Kenji yelled.
Bjorn dropped from the overhead pipes like a falling star, his axe glowing with the kinetic energy Kenji had "echoed" to him during the rail-slide.
CLANG!
The axe hit the Processor's leg, but it barely left a scratch. The Rank 20 armor was too thick for their current levels.
"It's too heavy!" Bjorn shouted, being swiped away by a secondary limb.
"It's not too heavy," Kenji said, standing up. He felt the seven Stars in his chest still dormant, but vibrating in response to the massive mana-well of the Pits. "We just aren't using the right tools."
Kenji looked at the sea of scrap metal around them. This wasn't just junk. This was the "Waste" of the Outer Forge. It was high-grade alloy, discarded because it had "minor errors."
"Elara, give me a flash-freeze on the floor!" Kenji commanded. "Bjorn, keep its eyes busy!"
Kenji knelt in the scrap pile. He didn't forge a sword. He didn't forge a shield. He closed his eyes and reached into the "Base-Code" of the discarded metal.
[SKILL EVOLUTION: MASS-RECYCLE (RANK 1)]
The scrap metal didn't just fly to him it liquefied. A swirling vortex of silver and black ore surrounded Kenji. He wasn't making a weapon; he was making an Exo-Skeleton.
"If the gravity is 4x," Kenji whispered, his hands weaving the liquid metal into hydraulic struts and reinforced plating around his own limbs. "Then I'll just build a body that loves the weight."
[NEW EQUIPMENT FORGED: THE GUTTER-RIG (RANK SS - IMPROVISED)]
[STRENGTH MULTIPLIER: x5]
Kenji stood up, now encased in a jagged, hulking suit of repurposed scrap. He looked like a mechanical demon born from the trash.
The Processor fired its acid beam. Kenji didn't dodge. He raised a scrap-shield and absorbed the impact, the acid simply sliding off the "Low-Quality" outer layer.
"My turn," Kenji said.
He lunged. With the Gutter-Rig's power, he caught one of the Processor's legs and Tore it off with his bare hands.
[CRITICAL HIT!]
[SYSTEM ERROR: PHYSICAL FORCE EXCEEDS CALCULATED RANK]
"I'm done playing by your numbers," Kenji roared, slamming his scrap-fist into the Processor's central eye.