The reason he started with a little skirt was, of course, not because Dark had any particular fondness for skirts.
He simply took his promises seriously.
During his duel with Senior Elsie Kevin, he had made a promise to Sylveon: once he learned Armed Synthesis, he would find a way to make her a set of dress-up clothes.
Armed cards did have their limitations when used on Magic Guide Spirits, but Dark figured that at his current level, he couldn't produce a proper Armed card of the kind that consumed vast amounts of magical power anyway.
If he could scrape together something even marginally more useful than a simple costume-change card, he'd count himself very lucky indeed.
In any case, since this was only an early experiment, it didn't really matter which type of Armed he started with.
...
Using the little skirt illustrated in Elf Craftsmanship — Wood Carving as a reference, Dark picked out a length of wood from his materials box and set to carving.
Carving a small skirt that didn't need to be especially intricate was, in truth, a fairly limited challenge.
The main difficulty was concentrated in the hollow interior.
For a beginner, exterior carving and interior carving were two entirely different tiers of difficulty.
But Dark had hit upon an idea even back when he was still learning figure carving.
Something like this — which required hollowing out the inside — could be greatly simplified through a "modular" approach.
In other words: divide the skirt into two or four sections, leaving interlocking joint structures at each contact point. Once every section was carved, they could be assembled together into a complete skirt.
This method would sidestep "interior carving" entirely.
And as a bonus, it was also the embryonic form of how armor was made.
It took nearly an hour before Dark finally finished carving the little skirt.
He had based it on a lace-skirt template — though the finished product came out without any lace...
At any rate, next came the vest and bracelet.
Since the puppet serving as his model was roughly thirty centimeters tall, the matching skirt, vest, and bracelet were all correspondingly tiny.
By around nine o'clock, Dark thought it over and added a sun hat as well.
He set the sun hat on the puppet's head, and just like that, the complete little outfit was finished.
No paint, but it looked surprisingly convincing.
Dark glanced up at the time.
"Nine-thirty… still some time to spare."
He tidied away his carving tools and leftover materials, then prepared to make his first attempt at the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle]!
...
The [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] created by Alvit demanded a unity of mind, magical power, and armament — the clothing or weapon had to be handcrafted by the synthesizer themselves before it could be transmuted into an Armed card.
However, there were no requirements placed on the quality of the clothing or weapon itself.
The only caveat was that an Armed card, once successfully synthesized, could only fluctuate within a small range of sizes — with a few special exceptions.
So even if Dark successfully transmuted this little outfit into an Armed card, it still wouldn't be wearable by Sylveon just yet.
But that was fine — he could make a properly sized set afterward.
...
Armed-series Magic Guide Cards were a branch of Equipment cards, alongside Equipment cards and Weapon cards proper, all falling under the broader category of Tool cards.
There were generally two approaches to crafting this class of Magic Guide Card.
The first was Magic Guide Synthesis — transmuting a ready-made tool directly into a Tool card.
The second was direct synthesis using raw materials, much like forging a weapon.
Dark had used the second method once before when synthesizing an Energy Potion — pouring a mixed juice of White Dry Fruit and Blue-Blue Fruit into Transmutation Circle No. 3, ultimately producing an Energy Potion card.
But Alvit's "Tri-Armed Synthesis" leaned more toward the first approach.
It used a ready-made "armament" as its core.
And unlike orthodox Tool card synthesis methods, the "Tri-Armed Synthesis" placed extremely high demands on the application of mind and magical power, while its requirements for supplementary materials were comparatively low.
A self-made armament as the core.
Mental power as the furnace.
One's own magical energy as the fuel.
The three united as one — that was the "Tri-Armed Synthesis."
Conceptually, it reminded Dark a little of "artifact refinement" from cultivation fiction — it felt slightly out of place with the aesthetic of this world.
Although the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] was only the prototype of Transmutation Circle No. 99 — the one known as the "Alvit Transmutation Circle" — the "Tri-Armed Synthesis" method built upon it was already extraordinarily difficult.
The quality and mastery of one's mind and magical power were two mountains all but impossible to surmount.
As Dark understood it, the difficulty of the "Tri-Armed Synthesis" fell somewhere between synthesizing a [Fusion] card and synthesizing a [Zoo] card.
Under normal circumstances, without anyone guiding him, there was no realistic way he could master the "Tri-Armed Synthesis" on his own.
But fortunately, this synthesis method was exceptionally well-suited to him.
Whether it was his command of mental power or the quality and quantity of his own magical energy, he had a certain confidence in both.
His only weak point was, ironically, the one thing everyone else found simplest: the self-made armament.
...
Now that he had more or less overcome that weakness, he was roughly ready to attempt the "Tri-Armed Synthesis" for the first time.
Just yesterday, he had gathered every material he needed.
Everything was in place — all that remained was to begin.
...
"Glug glug."
After handing the empty apple juice carton to DemiDevimon, Dark finally began his first attempt.
The "Tri-Armed Synthesis" was, after all, a work Alvit had produced during her student years. Its distinctive features were concentrated mainly in the later stages of drawing the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle], while the early stages largely followed the standard synthesis method for Equipment cards.
Standard Equipment card synthesis, like the Magic Guide Language, was second-year curriculum.
But the relevant textbooks were scattered all over the Library — it was simply a matter of whether one wanted to learn, and whether one was capable.
Dark clearly fell into the capable category.
Standard Equipment card synthesis was, after all, just a method — not nearly as complex as the Magic Guide Language.
Following the steps he had memorized, he first processed all the necessary materials and sorted them neatly, then began brewing the magical potion.
The main component here was a special magical potion called "Manjusaka."
Manjusaka — the Red Spider Lily — was a crimson flower said in legend to bloom in the underworld, on the far shore beyond death.
The dead, wandering through the void of the netherworld, would occasionally encounter that blaze of red.
Once drawn close, the Manjusaka would transform into whatever they desired most, clung to most dearly, could never reach — luring them into a waking dream until they were quietly devoured, consumed without ever knowing it.
The Manjusaka potion took its name from this flower for an obvious reason: it, too, possessed the power of "transformation."
Many things involved in Magic Guide technology were, to ordinary eyes, utterly forbidden.
A potion like Manjusaka was a contraband among contrabands.
Yet within the domain of Magic Guide practitioners, it was one of the most commonly used potions of all.
Equipment cards, Weapon cards, and even Field cards like [Zoo] all required Manjusaka to produce their base layer.
Its role in this class of Magic Guide Card was much like that of Spirit Honey to Magic Guide Spirit cards.
Because the essence of all such Magic Guide Cards was, at its core, an application of true projection.
"After applying Manjusaka evenly onto a blank Magic Guide Card, the card acquires the foundation of a transformation ability..."
...
About forty minutes later, Dark had finally advanced the synthesis to the later stage that required the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle].
He carefully inspected the semi-finished product on the table, confirming that his first piece met an acceptable standard, and only then began inscribing the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] onto it.
The [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] was a three-dimensional transmutation array. Its difficulty far exceeded any flat diagram.
But Dark had already put in quite sufficient practice for this.
He channeled magical power into his Magic Pen and, over the course of ten full minutes, finally completed the inscription of the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle].
Throughout those ten minutes, he did not pause for even an instant. His magical output was steady and fluid — already surpassing the limits a normal human being could achieve.
The finished product was a near-perfect sphere.
To Dark's knowledge, it was the only transmutation array in existence that took the form of a complete sphere.
But successfully inscribing the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] was only one threshold of the "Tri-Armed Synthesis."
What came next — the "Mental Smelting" — was where the method truly began to weed people out.
...
The foundation of "Mental Smelting" was channeling "mental power" into the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle], transforming that already extraordinarily complex array into a "Mental Furnace."
To accomplish this, one first needed some understanding of what "mental power" actually was.
What is "mental power"?
Literally, the power of the mind — which, of course, goes without saying.
Up to this point, Dark had encountered mental power in quite a few forms.
The foundation of Mind Mage Red's mental summoning art — the "bond" between a Magic Guide practitioner and their Magic Guide Spirit — was one manifestation of mental power.
Another was the Ultimate Move he had unleashed using Virt's [Magic Beast (Stag)] — "Light of the Mind."
That had also been his first clear, direct contact with "mental power."
And it was after that experience that he had arrived at his most basic understanding of it.
It was precisely because of that foundational understanding that he had gradually come to confirm: the Seven Deadly Sins were also a manifestation of mental power.
Pride, Envy, Wrath, Sloth, Greed, Gluttony, Lust!
Each of the Major Sins represented a distinct form of mental power.
...
So, given that he currently had no access to "Light of the Mind" and had not yet mastered the "mental bond," the only "mental power" available to him was the Major Sins inherent in himself.
And as for how to channel the Major Sins — and how to use them — he had, in fact, already worked out a complete and mature system.
...
"It's time to confirm whether this will work."
Dark steadied his mind and reached to the corner of the workbench for the thought-bottle he had prepared in advance.
Inside the thought-bottle was a mere 0.5 points of [Lust].
That paper-thin luminous haze was like the faint glow cast by a distant lamp — barely visible.
He took the magic dropper, inserted its tip into the membrane sealing the thought-bottle's mouth, and slowly rotated to draw up the liquid. Once a wisp of that haze had been drawn into the tip, he gently withdrew it.
This sliver of [Lust] was probably less than 0.1 points.
But for this particular experiment, it was already quite the extravagant expenditure.
Dark almost couldn't bring himself to use it.
With complete focus, he observed the glowing sphere of the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] and let that wisp of [Lust] drip into it.
The instant the haze made contact.
That barely perceptible wisp of [Lust] seemed to dilute — spreading outward along the surface of the glowing sphere, quickly suffusing the entire transmutation array.
This phenomenon was exactly the same as the "mental irrigation" that Principal Cynthia had described to him.
Even though he had anticipated it, Dark couldn't help but be astonished.
"Less than 0.1 points of [Lust] is enough to transform the [Tri-Armed Transmutation Circle] into a Mental Furnace!"
"Then next, I place the self-made armament inside, channel in magical power, and smelt it."
Dark didn't hesitate. He placed the entire little outfit directly into the Mental Furnace, then pressed the tip of the Magic Pen to the apex of the transmutation array and began gradually infusing magical power.
As magical power flowed into the furnace, white light grew steadily brighter.
The Mental Furnace was like a bottomless magical power extractor, greedily devouring Dark's energy.
The magical power required for "Mental Smelting" was immense.
An ordinary Magic Guide practitioner might need to down several bottles of Mana Recovery Potion just to hold on until the end.
Feeling the magical power inside him draining at a terrifying rate, Dark couldn't help but be alarmed.
A synthesis method that guzzled magical power like water — only a "saint" like Alvit could ever have devised something like this.
"Gatomon!"
Dark called out quietly.
Gatomon, who had been standing ready, picked up a bottle of Mana Recovery Potion and poured it down his throat.
The moment that bottle hit his stomach, Dark's already exceptionally high rate of magical recovery surged even further, finally carrying him through the entire "Mental Smelting" process.
He made his final infusion of magical power, pressed down with the Magic Pen, and the spherical transmutation array rapidly contracted — quickly collapsing into a thick luminous membrane that draped itself over the surface of the card.
Only when that membrane sank into the card face did the entire "Armed Synthesis" process truly come to completion.
Dark looked up at the clock on the wall: "Eleven o'clock already?"
...
The Magic Guide Spirits had apparently sensed that the experiment had reached a stopping point, and gathered around one by one.
Meowth in particular — clutching its wooden carving of a fat-headed fish — was fairly buzzing with curiosity.
They all seemed to understand, in their own way, that the outcome of this experiment was intimately tied to every single one of them.
...
They waited for about three more minutes.
Only then did the luminous membrane gradually thin, and finally sink into the card face.
On the card's surface, the image of a complete little wooden outfit slowly began to emerge.
"It seems... it worked?"
...
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