Success with the Puppet Core was like finding the first flickering light in a total blackout. It gave me the "how," but I still needed the "where." I had the heart of the machine; now I needed the body a system that could take that purified energy and actually apply it to a human nervous system.
For the next three months, I went into full-blown crunch mode.
By day, I was the perfect apprentice in Workshop Three. I was quiet, I was fast, and I never complained about sanding down forearm joints. But every lunch break and every spare second was spent in my head. My workbench at home was slowly being taken over by a different kind of blueprint a merger of puppet frames, sealing guide-grooves, and energy conduits mapped specifically to the human meridian system.
I wasn't using scrap wood anymore. I was using high-grade, chakra-conductive timber and specialty alloys I'd bought with my Spider profits.
Building the furnace body was a logistical nightmare. It was basically a cylinder half the height of a grown man, and it took up most of my small room. Since I didn't have access to heavy machinery, I had to cut, polish, and assemble the whole thing by hand. Carving the micro-conduits for energy diffusion was the hardest part; I needed absolute precision to make sure the "Life-Energy" spread evenly through the chamber. One hot spot or one dead zone could cause a stroke or a localized seizure.
I spent my weekends hitting the scrap depots and asking the old-timers in the Maintenance Squad for "favors" with the heavy tools. I told them I was working on a "custom storage unit" for high-end puppet parts. They didn't ask questions; they just liked the kid who worked hard.
My dad, Sharyu, watched the whole thing from the doorway. He didn't understand the physics, but he saw the intensity. He saw the dark circles under my eyes and the way I stared at the blueprints like they were holy texts. He stopped asking what it was. Instead, he just started putting more of his paycheck into my "material fund" and helping me lift the heavy components. He was the ultimate silent partner.
Finally, on a quiet Sunday evening, it was done.
The Gen 1 Body Tempering Furnace was sitting in the middle of my room. It looked like a piece of retro-futuristic tech from an old sci-fi movie a heavy stone and wood cylinder covered in winding rune lines and copper conduits. In the center was a small, recessed port designed specifically to hold the Puppet Core.
My breathing was ragged. This was it. The "Initial Furnace" was live.
"I'm starting, Dad," I whispered.
Sharyu nodded, his face a mask of tension. He'd cleared his own chakra, his hands hovering near his weapon pouch. He was the safety officer for an experiment he didn't understand, ready to pull me out the second things went sideways.
I pulled the Puppet Core from my pocket. It felt warm, its blue light pulsing like a slow breath. I guided it into the port.
Click.
The core locked into the furnace logic. For a second, nothing happened. Then-
Buzz—!
The entire cylinder started to vibrate. The rune lines on the surface lit up in sequence, glowing with a soft, steady blue. I could hear the hum of energy moving through the conduits, getting louder and more stable by the second.
Sharyu instinctively reached for the core to pull it out.
"Wait!" I shouted, my eyes fixed on the readings. "The flow is stable! The resonance frequency is exactly where the math said it should be! This is just the startup sequence!"
I pushed my sensory abilities to the limit. I could "see" the energy moving. The furnace was drawing in the small pool of chakra I'd pre-loaded into the input nodes. It was hitting the resonance field, stripping the imprints, and turning into a gentle, warm stream of white light.
The interior of the chamber began to glow. It wasn't the harsh blue of raw chakra; it was a soft, inviting white. The loud hum died down into a low, steady "breathing" sound.
Success. The energy field was stable.
My heart was hammering against my ribs so hard I thought it would break. I looked at my dad, my eyes wide with a mix of terror and total triumph. "It worked. The field is holding. We're ready for the next step."
The next step was the "Human Trial." I had to step into that light and see if my theory about "bio-patching" actually held up. If I was right, this machine would start repairing the defects in my heart and lungs. If I was wrong... well, I'd probably just be a very expensive pile of ash.
Sharyu looked at the machine, then at me. He slowly unclenched his fists. He was terrified, but he chose to trust the engineer.
I took a deep breath, my eyes fixed on the white light of the chamber. The Initial Body Tempering Furnace was active.
It was time to see if I could finally fix the glitch.