An external weapon was a kind of add-on made with special techniques. It connected directly with Titans' body to provide some defense. This was often used by the support and energy types because their bodies are relatively fragile compared to other Titans.
Adam applied for an add-on similar to a breastplate to protect his Vital Generator. According to Windflame 222, Iron 27 had an external weapon made from a metal he refined when he advanced. It could withstand three full attacks of level-four Metal Eaters.
After making sure Adam had no other requests, Windflame 222 quickly left. In less than an hour, he brought everything Adam needed. Then, he eagerly waited to watch Adam advance, refusing to leave.
Adam had no choice. In the Titan race, there was no concept of privacy. Besides, electromagnetic abilities couldn't be learned in a few minutes just by watching. Adam wasn't sure if there were races in this mysterious world that could understand terrifying abilities just by watching, but the Titans in Ironburg definitely weren't among them.
"When my Original Flames start burning, you need to stay away from me, or you might ruin the wind-flame alloy body you worked hard to get," Adam warned.
Windflame 222 remembered the abilities Adam showed during the mission. He hurriedly retreated a hundred meters, then signaled Adam to start.
The advancement of a Titan seemed quite boring.
Adam placed his hands in front of his chest and gently pulled them apart, opening his chest cavity like a door.
The Vital Generator, shining with pure silver light, was exposed.
Then he sat down, grabbed the condensed energy blocks, and threw them into the Flames.
He calculated the time it took for the Flame to digest the energy and kept reducing the interval based on this time. He gradually pushed the spark towards the limit of energy release to achieve a complete breakthrough.
During this process, the Flames grew larger, and the light it emitted during combustion became brighter.
A strong magnetic field covered a radius of a hundred meters. The energy floating in the air kept gathering and exploding, while the sturdy metal used to build Ironburg flowed like water.
Six hours later, the spark expanded to its current limit and burned violently in the Vital Generator.
After Adam threw in the last energy block, the Flames suddenly contracted sharply. The six-meter-high flame instantly shrank to the size of a fist, and everything within the range of the magnetic field froze at that moment.
The Vital Generator and the mithril body disintegrated and dissolved at the same time, floating in the air like liquid, solely maintained by the energy of the Flames.
A few seconds later, the Original Flames, still the size of a fist and paused, exploded suddenly.
The energy that reached the second level gathered the scattered external energy in an instant.
The Vital Generator was rebuilt, forming a hypercube on the outermost layer. The first inner layer consisted of concentric spheres with decreasing radii from the same center; the second layer was made of six interlocking hexagrams; and the innermost layer was composed of active electrons invisible to the naked eye.
Dense energy circuits intertwined within this complex structure, connecting to the Original Flames at the core.
Adam's body rapidly reformed after the Vital Generator was upgraded. The repulsive force of the mithril atoms was further reduced, showing a tendency to liquefy externally. His height decreased again, leaving him only four meters tall.
Adam's advancement went smoothly.
After closing his chest cavity, Adam landed on the ground with a thunderous roar. Although he was only four meters tall, his weight was nearly a hundred tons.
When Adam's feet touched the ground, the previously destroyed area quickly restored itself. Windflame 222 approached cautiously and poked Adam's head with his finger, finding no dent. He muttered, "It's gotten harder, huh? Mithril can be this hard? Shrinking doesn't seem as bad as I thought, huh?"
…
Three days later, Adam met his teammates for the mission in front of Ironburg's city gate. There was the black Iron 27, and a silver-white Titan.
"This is Lithium 15. Your task is to cover us as we approach the Metal Eaters' nest and then destroy it."
Lithium 15 was even taller than Iron 27, but when they both stood on the ground, Adam could feel that Lithium 15 was much lighter than Iron 27, probably due to lithium's low density.
After Iron 27's introduction, Lithium 15 smiled at Adam, "You must have a name now, Mithril Knight."
Titans don't have genders, but Adam felt a feminine character from Lithium 15.
Adam said, "You can call me Mithril 99. After my advancement, my abilities have improved greatly. If it's just the two of you, as long as both of your heights don't exceed forty meters, I can keep the promise I made before."
"99? That's an odd name. But forty meters, huh? That's a bit troubling," Lithium 15 said, twisting his body awkwardly and struggling to shrink. During this process, massive amounts of fire energy radiated outward. Adam had to raise his electromagnetic barrier to full strength to avoid being melted.
Iron 27 did the same, except the energy he released while shrinking had different properties. It seemed they didn't want to waste a moment.
After thinking for a moment, Adam said, "I can help you now if that's ok."
Both of them stopped their attempts to shrink. Iron 27, after setting up a layer of defense on Adam's surface, didn't hesitate to open his own body control permissions to Adam. He connected his own field with the one Adam was emitting and said, "I'll leave it to you then."
Adam had always wanted to test the extent of his abilities on other Titans, but he had previously refrained from doing something so impolite. Now that he had the opportunity to experiment, he fully activated the magnetic field to take complete control over them.
Adam discovered that the metal atoms constituting their bodies all carried information of their own Flames. Even though they had given out their permissions, there were still restrictions against external energy. This wasn't intentional on their part but a natural defense of the body.
After the different Flames' wills made contact, they spontaneously began the process of permission verification and exchange. Throughout this period, Adam observed their expressions and realized that both Iron 27 and Lithium 15 seemed unaware of this.
"It seems there are still many secrets to the spark," Adam noted to himself.
As they shrank, they released a massive amount of energy, but it was all countered by Iron 27's defenses.
Ten minutes later, Adam managed to shrink them to thirty-seven and thirty-nine meters, respectively. This was the limit; compressing them even a centimeter more could potentially cause these two level-four beings to explode, leading to catastrophic consequences.
Lithium 15, satisfied with the adjustment, moved around a bit and then said to them, "I'm going into a semi-hibernation state now. The rest is up to you."
