Chapter 30: Marrow Forge

The walk back through the BloodRider settlement felt different now.

Gio moved mechanically, his boots crunching on the packed dirt path between the beast-hide tents. Melody walked beside him, her tail swishing in slow, thoughtful arcs. Lloyd kept glancing back at the Elder’s tent, his expression troubled. Kojiro ambled behind them all, his lazy grin back in place now that the tension of the meeting had passed.

But Gio’s mind was still trapped in that dim, smoke-filled tent, the Elder’s blind eyes staring through him, those words echoing like a death knell.

What did that mean? Was it connected to the Velithari System? To the asteroid that had started the apocalypse eighty-seven years ago? To the king stirring in his sleep?

"Kid," Kojiro said, breaking the silence. "You look like you just saw a ghost. Spill it. What did that old man do to you in there?"

Gio hesitated. He couldn’t tell them everything—not here, not with Darwin’s soldiers watching, not with the beacon still broadcasting from the Commander’s bionic arm. But he could tell them something.

"The Elder said something," Gio murmured, keeping his voice low. "About my core. He said it’s... different. That it sings a song the King hasn’t heard in eighty-seven years."

Melody’s ears perked up. "What the fuck does that even mean?"

"I don’t know," Gio admitted. "But he called me ’the original blueprint.’ Whatever that is, it’s why the King might want me too and not just the beacon."

Kojiro’s grin faded. His purple-veined neck twitched. "Original blueprint, huh? That’s either really good or really bad. Probably both."

They reached the center of the settlement, where the air changed. The scent of roasting meat and curing hides gave way to something sharper—acrid smoke, molten metal, the tang of ground bone.

The forge.

It wasn’t a single building but a sprawling complex of open-air workstations carved into the canyon wall. Massive stone anvils sat before roaring furnaces fed by mutated beast bladders that pumped air into the coals with every squeeze. Dozens of BloodRiders moved between the stations, their tribal paints smudged with soot, their arms corded with muscle from years of hammer work.

"Whoa," Lloyd breathed, his noble’s eyes widening. "This is... incredible."

It was. The forge was a symphony of controlled chaos. Hammers rang against metal in rhythmic succession. Sparks flew in brilliant arcs. The heat was oppressive, a physical wall that pressed against the skin.

But what caught Gio’s attention wasn’t the scale. It was the materials.

At the nearest workstation, a broad-shouldered smith with a beard braided in red cord was working a blade. The metal wasn’t pure steel—it was a swirl of old-world alloys and something else. Something organic. Bone. The smith was folding layers of refined monster bone into the steel, hammering them together with precise, measured strikes.

"Core-infusion?" Kojiro murmured, stepping closer, his eyes sharp with interest. "Crude, but it’s core-infusion. They’re embedding residual bioenergy from the bone into the metal matrix. No wonder their weapons can cut through scaled hide."

Gio watched another smith at a neighboring station. This one was older, his face a map of scars, his arms covered in intricate tribal tattoos that seemed to shift in the firelight. He was working on a bone-blade—a curved weapon carved from what looked like the femur of a massive beast, its edge honed to a razor-thin line.

The master smith held the blade up, examining it in the firelight. Then he did something that made Gio’s breath catch.

He placed his bare hand on the flat of the blade.

A pulse of bioenergy—visible as a faint, reddish glow—flowed from the smith’s palm into the bone. The Marrow-Infusion. The blade hummed, the sound low and resonant, like a tuning fork struck against stone.

The smith gestured to an assistant, who brought forward a slab of old-world steel plate—thick, reinforced, the kind used in pre-apocalypse vehicle armor.

The master smith swung the bone-blade.

It cut through the steel plate like it was wet paper.

The slab fell away in two clean halves, the edges glowing faintly red from the heat of the cut.

"Damn," Kojiro whispered. "That’s not just sharp. That’s bioenergy-reinforced. The infusion is temporarily aligning the molecular structure of the bone, making it harder than steel. But it’s temporary, right? The glow fades after a few minutes."

The master smith nodded, as if he’d heard Kojiro through the noise. He set the blade down, and the reddish glow faded from the bone within moments, returning to its natural ivory color.

Gio’s System pinged.

[Scanning...]

[Technique Detected: Marrow-Infusion (Weapon Application)]

[Description: Bioenergy channeling into organic weapon matrix. Temporarily aligns molecular structure for enhanced cutting power and durability.]

[Duration: 3-5 minutes before bioenergy dissipates.]

[Analysis: Technique is functional but highly inefficient.]

Gio frowned. Inefficient?

The System continued.

[Flaw Detected: Bioenergy Flow Inefficiency]

[Current Method: Linear bioenergy injection from palm to weapon matrix.]

[Problem: 40% of bioenergy is lost to heat waste due to poor flow distribution.]

[Optimization Available: Radial bioenergy distribution pattern would reduce heat waste to 8%, increasing blade durability by 200% and maintaining infusion for 15-20 minutes.]

[Note: Optimization requires precise bioenergy control and understanding of weapon matrix structure.]

Gio’s eyes widened. Forty percent waste? The BloodRiders had been using this technique for generations, and they were losing almost half their bioenergy to heat? If he could show them the radial distribution pattern his System was suggesting, they could make their weapons twice as durable and keep the infusion active three times longer.

An idea formed in his mind. A dangerous, ambitious idea.

He stepped forward, approaching the master smith’s workstation. The old man looked up, his eyes... normal, brown, sharp and evaluating Gio with the same intensity he’d used to evaluate the steel.

"You’re city-born," the smith said, his voice rough like gravel. "What do you want?"

"I watched your infusion," Gio said, keeping his tone respectful. "It’s impressive. But it’s wasteful."

The smith’s eyebrows rose. The other workers nearby paused, their hammers hovering mid-strike. Kojiro shifted uncomfortably. Melody’s tail stiffened.

"Wasteful?" the smith repeated, his voice low. "Boy, I’ve been forging for forty years. My father taught me. His father taught him. This technique has kept our people alive for three generations."

"And it’s still losing forty percent of your bioenergy to heat," Gio said calmly. "You’re injecting the energy linearly, from your palm straight into the matrix. But the bone’s structure is radial. The energy disperses outward, and most of it bleeds off as heat before it can align the molecules properly."

The smith stared at him. The forge around them had gone quiet. Every BloodRider within earshot was watching.

"How... do you know this?" the smith asked, his voice dangerous.

Gio hesitated. He couldn’t exactly say my alien System analyzed it. He had to frame it differently.

"I’ve... studied bioenergy flow," Gio lied smoothly. "My mutation... it lets me analyze biological structures. I can see how energy moves through organic matrices. Your technique is close, but the flow pattern is wrong. If you distribute the bioenergy radially instead of linearly, you’d cut the heat waste to eight percent. Your blades would stay infused for fifteen, maybe twenty minutes. And they’d be twice as durable."

The smith’s expression shifted from anger to skepticism to something else—curiosity. He set down his hammer and crossed his arms.

"You’re telling me you can fix a technique my family has used for three generations?"

"I’m saying that I can improve it," Gio corrected. "But I need to understand your method first. I need to learn the basics of your beast-taming and infusion. How you channel bioenergy. How you bond with your mounts. The foundation of it all."

The smith was silent for a long moment. The other workers exchanged glances. This was a city-born boy, claiming he could improve their sacred craft.

"And what do you offer in return?" the smith asked finally.

"If you teach me the basics," Gio said, "I’ll show you the radial distribution pattern. I’ll optimize your forging process. Your weapons will be unbreakable. Your blades will cut through anything. And your people will survive longer in the wasteland."

The smith studied Gio’s face, searching for deception. Gio held his gaze, steady, confident.

Finally, the smith extended a calloused hand.

"I am Torvin," he said. "Master Smith of the BloodRider forge. You have three days, city-boy. Three days to prove your claim. If you’re lying, I’ll feed you to the warhorses myself."

Gio shook his hand. Torvin’s grip was like a vise, his palm rough as sandpaper.

"Deal," Gio said.

As they walked away from the forge, Kojiro let out a low whistle. "Bold move, kid. You just bet your life on a technique you’ve never seen before, might I remind you we were just normal folks until a few days ago?."

"Just trust me" Gio murmured. "I know what I’m doing. I just need to learn how to channel bioenergy the way they do, then I can apply the optimization."

"And if it doesn’t work?" Melody asked, her voice tight.

Gio glanced back at the forge, where Torvin was already watching him, his expression unreadable.

"Then I’m horse food," Gio said grimly. "But it’ll work. It has to."

Because if it didn’t, he’d never learn the beast-taming basics he needed. And if he couldn’t learn those, he’d never figure out how to protect himself from the King.

From Darwin’s plans.

From whatever was waiting for him at the end of the King’s Road.

The original blueprint.

Gio clenched his fist, his Bioenergy humming at a steady 100, and stared at the canyon walls rising around them. ℴℴ𝘮

Three days.

Three days to master a technique he’d only seen once. Three days to prove himself to a clan that didn’t trust outsiders. Three days before the King’s hounds came for them again.