Chapter 144: The Prime Genesis Battle Suit

Meanwhile, at the Xizi Qingyao Restaurant, the waiter cleaning private room 302, "Broken Bridge Remnant Snow," noticed that a corner of the hardwood round table was missing.
Then, in a corner of the room, she found the piece of wood that Little You had broken off.
She picked it up and held it against the chipped edge on the table to compare.
"Strange, when did this table break? Anyway, it wasn't me who broke it."
She didn't dwell on it much; after finishing the cleaning, she simply reported it to the manager on duty.
Since it was just a matter of replacing a round table top, the restaurant didn't attach much importance to the incident in the end. Even if the previous group of guests had broken it, given today's events, they certainly wouldn't try to seek compensation from those students.

At the same time, Wu You was curiously examining the information regarding the new creature.
No base rating tier?
He had already created quite a few alchemical creatures, but this was the first time Wu You had encountered such a situation.
Could it be that even the system found it difficult to evaluate this kind of organism?
Upon closer reflection, however, that made a certain amount of sense.
Although the Source of All Springs currently stored in the beast pen was a single sphere, in essence, it was an aggregation of countless tiny individual muscle-cell-like organisms.
If one were to evaluate a single cellular organism on its own, it would probably struggle even to achieve the lowest rating tier.
However, when evaluating its aggregated form, it was hard to say how much power it could unleash; a sphere the size of a table tennis ball versus one the size of a football would undoubtedly be vastly different.

Yet, the additional note stating "Uncultivable" shattered Wu You's plan to directly nurture it until its potential was exhausted.
Select summon: Source of All Springs.
With a flash of black light, an orange-sized white sphere appeared in Wu You's palm, weighing roughly the same.
He squeezed it with his hand; initially, it felt quite soft, but as he increased the pressure, the resistance he encountered grew tremendously.
Peculiarly, if he applied force very gently, he could slowly flatten the sphere, but increasing his strength abruptly made it stubbornly resist compression.

For now, this portion would serve as the master template for all future Sources of All Springs.
He caused a fingernail-sized subsidiary part to separate from this master template.
After storing the master sphere back into the beast pen, he attempted to retrieve the separated portion, but the result was that it could not be recalled.
However, when he summoned the master template once more and attached the subsidiary part back onto it, it could then be successfully stored in the beast pen together.
It seemed that trying to use clever tricks for transportation was not going to work.
Crucially, once the subsidiary cells aggregated and proliferated to a certain quantity, giving rise to active logical intelligence, it was likely that the individual subsidiary parts would no longer be able to re-aggregate with one another.

Since the conditions were basically met, the next step naturally was to try and create a "First-Generation Biological Symbiotic Armor."
He separated another subsidiary part, this time about the size of a 1-millimeter steel ball.
The next step was to make it proliferate rapidly.
Wu You ran to the kitchen, took two frozen raw chickens out of the refrigerator, and placed them on the kitchen counter.
Without even thawing them, he directly placed the tiny subsidiary part of the Source of All Springs onto one of the chickens.

"Begin."
The subsidiary part of the Source of All Springs received the order, and within an extremely short span of time, transformed from a sphere into an extremely transparent thin membrane, enveloping both frozen chickens.
Wu You watched with the wide-eyed curiosity of a baby.
A subsidiary part the size of a mere 1-millimeter steel ball had expanded into a membrane that embraced two whole chickens.
How impossibly thin must this membrane be? No wonder it was completely transparent.

He had the urge to try the observation mode, but since this subsidiary part was not yet cataloged in the system's database, he had no idea how to access the observation interface.
Yet, the moment he stared at it and thought about it, he actually entered the subsidiary's observation mode.
What met his eyes, however, was a blur of indistinct colors—nothing could be seen clearly at all. This must have been caused by cramming the imagery of countless cells onto a single "screen," resulting in a completely scrambled display.
After staring at it for a few seconds, Wu You felt slightly dizzy and hurriedly exited the mode.
He wondered if it would improve later when they aggregated to form active logical intelligence; for now, he decided not to use the observation mode casually.

Thus, relying on a mix of guesswork and observation, he watched the state of the subsidiary part on the kitchen counter.
The two frozen chickens slowly "collapsed" inward at a speed visible to the naked eye. As the thickness of the subsidiary membrane began to increase, the rate at which the chicken meat was devoured accelerated significantly.
"Such a terrifying proliferation speed, such a terrifying devouring speed."
Regrettably, the strength of the individual cells themselves was not high; before they aggregated and resonated into a unified whole, they were far too fragile.
In other words, Wu You could sense that they were relatively fragile while eating and proliferating, and only by aggregating into a unified whole to form resonance would they grow stronger.
Otherwise, he could have tried directly using subsidiary parts to "bite" enemies to death.

The two chickens vanished completely within two minutes, leaving not even a scrap of bone or a sliver of ice behind.
Yet, in the first minute and a half, merely one-third of the chicken meat had disappeared.
By this point, a pineapple-sized sphere rested before Wu You.
Before changing its form, Source of All Springs cells really seemed to prefer a spherical shape.
However, this quantity was still somewhat insufficient. There was no more chicken meat left in the refrigerator, so he decided to try "feeding" it other things.
And so, a dozen minutes passed.
From Chinese cabbage to rotting vegetable leaves, then to wild grass, tree branches, and sugar water...
Wu You discovered that the Source of All Springs ate almost everything except stones.
It didn't even spare mud—though rather than eating the mud itself, it absorbed the nutrients contained within it.

After a flurry of experimental proliferation, the initial subsidiary part had grown into a white sphere half a meter in diameter.
Moreover, they were equally capable of altering their color through pigmentation, though in an unconscious state, they preferred to remain colorless.
Now that the quantity was sufficient, he could begin shaping it.
Wu You took out his sketchbook.
Inside were several sets of symbiotic armor designs in different styles.

He temporarily ruled out overly flamboyant designs, deciding to start with a simple one that conformed to human ergonomics and aesthetics.
The simplest method was to let the Source of All Springs envelop a human-like form, refining the details only after the general shape was established.
Only Wu You was present here, but he certainly didn't want to play model.
He directly summoned a vampire, since it had the highest degree of similarity to a human.
"At your command, Master!"
Karl the vampire respectfully greeted Wu You.
"Right, you don't need to do anything, just stand there. Oh, and take off the clothes you're wearing."

When it came to Wu You's commands, alchemical creatures always executed them with absolute thoroughness.
Karl quickly stripped off his outer coat and inner lining, and was about to continue when Wu You called a halt.
"Stop, you don't need to take off your underwear. Alright, spread your arms and legs into an 'X' shape, stand there and don't move."
Once the vampire was standing properly, Wu You snapped his fingers toward the Source of All Springs with a sharp *crack*.

The next moment, several chunks split directly off the sphere, starting from the feet and gradually enveloping the vampire's entire body, covering everything except his eyes.
The surface of the Source of All Springs began to progressively mutate into patterns resembling human muscle texture.
The aesthetics of human physical strength unfolded continuously.
A minute later, the vampire had transformed into a stalwart figure clad in a full-coverage white muscular exoskeleton.
Although the muscle textures were distinct, at a glance, it gave the impression of a piece of individual sci-fi combat gear rather than biological attire.

Far from carrying the slightest hint of terror, it radiated a sense of powerful aesthetic beauty.
Its exaggerated yet unpretentious state of physical enhancement, combined with the streamlined form hugging the contours of the body, created a striking visual sensory impact that left no doubt about the immense power a person wearing such combat gear could unleash.
It was practically the muscular variant of Iron Man's suit, yet with a head design of exquisite beauty, clean and elegant contours, and an overall even more streamlined appearance.
And this was still without being bonded to active metal.
Wu You could already imagine how stunning it would look once completed!

However, this was merely the preliminary design phase; not even the simplest tests had been conducted yet, and the design still needed to be finalized and the combat suit's active intelligence stimulated.
At the same time, he had to consider the wearing characteristics of equipment for ordinary humans, modifying the combat suit into modular component assemblies.
Still, he could come up with a name first.
Let's call it the "First-Generation Source Combat Suit."