Noah knew the flaws of the Elemental Forging method better than anyone else. He had long since surpassed the previous experts in that field. He was a pioneer when it came to that inscription method.
One of the most significant flaws in the Elemental Forging method was that inscribing the same item multiple times would lead to a weaker structure. The final product wouldn't carry the intended power either.
Noah had fused his body with a Light-devouring Dragon when he was only a human cultivator. In theory, he had already used the first round of forging.
That was the reason why he had held back from improving his bloodline. He had managed to link the fourth center of power to his heart, but that wasn't a proper forging. His body had taken care of fusing the two organs for him.
Yet, Noah's body had gone through many changes since the fusion with the magical beast. It had evolved to express his individuality, and it had also entirely changed after attuning with the black star.
Noah's confidence came from that event. His body had evolved past the initial forging and had broken through the limits of the three major types of beings. Many experts still viewed him as a hybrid, but Noah knew that he had become something far superior.
Since the evolution had modified every fiber of his body, Noah felt confident that it didn't carry any trace of the previous forging. Moreover, the dark matter improved his tissues constantly, so he didn't believe that they still counted as inscribed items.
Noah couldn't test that because any trace of his forging had vanished after the many evolutions. Thirty-seven's hesitation came from that issue. The automaton wouldn't advise undergoing a forging in those conditions.
However, Noah had already made his mind, and he had also chosen the organs that he had to fuse. A failure in the procedure wouldn't kill him if he limited the forging to a few parts of his body.
The organs that he had decided to modify were his lungs. The Light-devouring Dragons' innate ability was powerful when it came to the magical beasts' world, but it fell short compared to Noah's prowess.
A strong ability wasn't enough for him anymore. Noah needed the best of the best at his current level. He would ignore any skill weaker than his slashes otherwise.
The Light-devouring Dragons' flames had unlimited potential, but Noah's growth had outclassed even that ability. His fast improvements didn't give time to his innate ability to catch up.
Noah's flames were by no means weak. They were stronger than any innate ability cast by magical beasts in the middle tier. Yet, his battle prowess had already reached the peak of the upper tier, which made them useless when he went all-out.
The ability that Heaven and Earth had deemed as unfair wasn't even worthy of its casting time in Noah's eyes. His power barely made any sense anymore, especially with his ambition removing the limits of his centers of power.
Noah didn't want to give up on his flames, and he wouldn't just ignore them as he strived for the higher ranks. Improving an ability was easier than creating a new one in the end. He preferred to invest time in that project rather than spend years meditating to invent something.
Of course, Noah invested time in that project because he believed that the finished product would bring his battle prowess to a superior level. He could already imagine his flames obtaining the same capabilities as the Eternal Snake's silver liquid.
There was another aspect of his body that made him confident in the success of the procedure. The black hole automatically helped in any struggle that Noah faced. He didn't even need to control it to obtain its support.
His fourth center of power would surely help during the fusion. Noah didn't fear anything with the dark matter by his side.
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The main problem in that project was the modification of the Eternal Snake's glands. Those creatures had a water aptitude, and the nature of their innate ability didn't work well with flames, even if they were of the darkness element.
That was a structural issue that Noah had to solve to approach the last stage of the project. He also had to modify the glands to match his lungs in terms of raw power and fabric.
The experience gathered while creating living weapons helped Noah with those issues. Thirty-seven had also reviewed the project, so Noah already had a series of concrete ideas for the testing phase.
The glands didn't share the same sturdiness of the Eternal Snake's skin. They were softer and had an innate immunity to the freezing properties of the silver liquid.
Noah's lungs were the same, even if their immunity worked on his flames. His first step consisted in making the two organs compatible while modifying only the glands.
It would have been easier to modify both organs and make them reach a common ground. Still, Noah couldn't change his body due to the flaws of his inscription method.
Each Eternal Snake had two glands, and Noah approached the testing phase one organ at the time. He even experimented more wildly since he had gathered many corpses. He could ignore losing a few materials if that helped him create the strongest possible version of his final product.
Noah had to come out of his cave from time to time to search for crucial materials. The Hive had emptied the inventories in the separate dimension, so he had to gather resources by himself.
That ended up being relatively easy. The higher-ups of the three organizations had completed a thorough inspection of the world after they came out of the separate dimension, so Noah knew where to find the materials that he needed.
The Eternal Snakes' invasion couldn't affect those spots too much because they contained rank 6 materials. Noah mostly needed sturdy metals that could change the glands' nature, so there was a limit to the damage that those creatures could cause in those areas.
The only obstacles in the gathering of materials were the creatures that inhabited those areas. Yet, that only increased the number of corpses in Noah's possession. His kill count went from eleven to sixteen in the weeks that followed his first hunt.
Noah's initial tests turned out to be complete failures, but he expected as much. Changing an organ's nature wasn't an easy feat, especially when he had to make it as powerful as his lungs.
Noah could test more than ten different metals on each gland since he only aimed to change their nature in that phase. His approach was similar to when he had modified the Demonic Form spell. He would cut the organ into pieces and test different fusions to see what worked.
Noah had to come out of his cave to gather materials multiple times during that phase. He even had to find another opening for the red sea to search for creatures and materials that could bring the nature of the glands closed to his needs.
In the end, he completed that phase by involving the Will-consuming runes in the procedure. His greed, ambition, and dark matter managed to change the nature of the glands after sealing them together with a combination of different metals retrieved in the sea of magma.
Noah felt excited at that initial success. That was the biggest hurdle to overcome before the actual fusion, and it had taken him only a couple of years to complete it.
The following phases were easier. Noah only had to apply those modifications to a complete gland without ruining its intrinsic properties.
Then, he needed to hunt a peak upper tier Eternal Snake without damaging its organs. Noah had already killed a creature on that level, but he had ruined its glands when he dissected it. Still, he knew that the battle wouldn't be as harsh as the previous one.