During the exchange between Bai Liu and Tang Erda, General Hua Gan took out a measuring tape and carefully measured Mu Sicheng's left hand from fingertip to fingertip, then checked the distance between his shoulder crests.
"The arms are two meters and seventeen centimeters long, the fingers are nine centimeters, the shoulders forty-six centimeters wide, and the upper limbs about seventy-seven centimeters."
As his apprentice took notes, Hua Gan pressed down on Mu Sicheng's scapular bulge and added, "The upper limbs could be longer—around eighty-five centimeters."
Mu Sicheng shifted uncomfortably.
The apprentice glanced at him with incredulity and a hint of envy, muttering, "The hands are so long… what a monkey…"
Mu Sicheng shot him a glare. "I'll grow! I'm still young; I can grow all over! Even my chest can grow again!"
Apprentice: "…"
General Hua Gan interrupted, "He's complimenting you. Long hands are a good thing."
Mu Sicheng looked over, bewildered.
Hua Gan continued, "Judging by your build, you must have played a lot of sports. In most sports—basketball, volleyball, even table tennis—longer hands are generally more advantageous. You've been dominant in sports since childhood, haven't you?" He swept his arm toward Mu Sicheng.
Mu Sicheng nodded hesitantly.
"Longer hands give you a wider range of attack and defense. I've seen the footage Charles sent me: your reflexes are fast, your dynamic vision is exceptional, and ninety percent of raids that enter your range are broken."
Hua Gan put away the measuring tape and looked up. "Do you know what this means?"
Mu Sicheng hesitated, and Hua Gan, expecting no answer, continued, "Your team lacks a player who can serve purely as a [shield]. Your high movement speed and sneak attack skills make you a [roamer] or [attacker], but your arm length widens your defensive range—essentially making you a capable [shield] at arm's length."
Hua Gan sidled closer. "You compensate for your team's defensive gaps while acting as a [rover] and sub-attacker. This threefold role allows tacticians to use you as both a contraction point and an extension branch in battle, maximizing offensive flexibility while minimizing risk."
He handed Mu Sicheng a piece of iron armor as casually as if instructing him to wash his hands. "Now hold this and put your hand into the lava."
Mu Sicheng, startled: "Oh… okay… what?! Why am I reaching in?!"
Hua Gan gave him a strange look. "Your weapon is a monkey's claw. Of course, you have to quench it with your hand."
Mu Sicheng glanced at the gurgling lava, where the apprentice had just dropped a glittering diamond that vanished into smoke in less than a second.
"Has Master's lava temperature increased again?" the apprentice muttered, slapping his forehead. "Diamonds with a melting point of four thousand degrees can only make a base. The cost of transformation has gone up again..."
Mu Sicheng froze. This bastard! If I reach in, my two-meter arms will be reduced to one meter instantly!
He fought the urge to pull back, so Hua Gan dryly turned to Bai Liu: "Hey, your team members aren't cooperating with the transformation."
Bai Liu, talking to Tang Erda, peeked out. "What's wrong?"
Hua Gan pointed at Mu Sicheng, hands behind his back. "I told him to put his hands in the lava. He refused."
Mu Sicheng's eyes widened as he cursed. "What do you mean, refuse?! Try it yourself, damn it!"
Bai Liu raised his chin to Tang Erda. "Go help him."
Mu Sicheng, seeing Tang Erda approach, covered his chest and screamed, "Hey…! Don't come closer! Ah—!"
Forced by Tang Erda, Mu Sicheng dipped his hands into the lava and froze. "Eh… it doesn't hurt?"
The magma lapped warmly against his monkey-like hands. The metal in his claws melted like butter on an iron plate, flowing around the edges of his fingers. Not only was it not too hot—it was actually comfortable.
Now on his feet, Mu Sicheng arrogantly doused his arm with lava, glancing at Tang Erda and kicking him away. "Get out of here! I'll do it myself..."
Before he could finish, a splash of foam burned a hole through his trousers in an instant. Flames licked the edges, making Mu Sicheng jump. Liu Jiayi quickly extinguished the fire.
She looked at the burned hole, just under twenty centimeters below his navel, and sighed. "This is lava. Quenching weapons is one thing, but it burns your clothes."
Mu Sicheng sat by the boiler, blanket over his legs (Bai Liu insisted he cover himself after the trouser incident), head hung low like a scolded child, carefully washing his hands in lava.
Meanwhile, Liu Jiayi and Mu Ke's transformations were more controlled.
"I want to expand my control," Liu Jiayi said, removing her glass vial of poison and antidote. "The fragile glass limits me. I need a shorter interval and a more volatile container, preferably with some offensive capability attached."
General Hua Gan thought for a moment. "There's a container that fits your requirements, but I don't know if it will fuse smoothly with your vials."
Liu Jiayi tilted her head. "What container?"
"Wait, I'll find it…" Hua Gan dug into a pile of what looked like junk, scratching his butt occasionally. "…Ah! Here it is!"
Liu Jiayi picked up two rusty cans, eyebrows twitching. "A… mace bottle?"
Hua Gan patted the ash off his hand. "I didn't say you'd use this one. Just a reference. It's a spray-paint-style bottle you can store poisons and antidotes in. It maximizes healing effects and extends range. With proper dosing, you can even use your skills as if you had no cooldown."
Liu Jiayi weighed the bottle of pepper spray in her hand and tossed it back to General Hua. "If I use this, what's the maximum control range?"
Hua Gan examined the spray bottle. "I can modify the nozzle for a range of thirty meters, but at that distance, the drug's effect will be very weak—dispersed almost to the point of serving only as a deterrent."
Liu Jiayi nodded. That was typical for spray-type containers: the further the target, the weaker the effect.
Hua Gan put on his welding helmet, pulled out a torch, and pointed it at the bottle, giving Liu Jiayi an inquisitive look. "If you're certain about this container, I can make several nozzles with different potencies: a fifteen-meter nozzle for maximum concentration, then twenty-five meters, and finally thirty meters for weaker concentrations."
Liu Jiayi asked, "Can the spray pattern be modified, too? Like a narrow, concentrated stream or a wide 'shower' diffusion?"
Hua Gan nodded sharply. "A small thing."
"Then this is it," Liu Jiayi said.
The apprentice placed Hua Gan's modified spray bottle and Liu Jiayi's glass vial into a funnel and submerged them in the lava.
Mu Sicheng, still washing his hands in lava, peered curiously as Liu Jiayi's glass vial slowly melted and fused, bit by bit, onto the spray bottle at the other end.
Hua Gan tossed a pair of black daggers into the air, catching them on his index finger, and glanced sideways at Mu Ke. "These aren't your skill weapons. There's no desire connection between you and them."
"They were handed to me by someone else," Mu Ke replied honestly.
"Light, fast, and sharp," Hua Gan said, running his thumb along the blade. He made a face, smacked it lightly, and stuck out his tongue in mild disapproval. "These are top-tier assassin daggers. Their only weakness is that they're hard to wound with."
"They come from a soft-hearted, cowardly person," Hua Gan continued, scanning Mu Ke. "Quite different from you. Your aggression, though subtle, is strong. The daggers you would spawn are ruthless and venomous—seemingly harmless but capable of true harm. Not unlike these, whose blades aren't even open yet."
Mu Ke smiled faintly. "Is that so?"
Hua Gan nodded. "Because these aren't your original weapons, the alteration process is more troublesome. I can handle that. The trickiest part is whether you'll maintain a soul connection after the modification. These daggers are not derivatives of your desire; I don't know if they'll respond to you after the transformation."
"What happens if they don't fit?" Mu Ke asked.
"You'll 'burst' with the daggers," Hua Gan said, flexing his fingers. "The safest way to transform them is to leave them untouched. If you're safe, the daggers are safe."
"Safe…?" Mu Ke's long eyelashes lowered, giving him a delicate, almost fragile appearance, like a finely crafted ornament.
"If it were before, I'd have taken the safer route," he said thoughtfully, looking up with a light smile, his gaze piercing Hua Gan but drifting lazily to Bai Liu, leaning against the wall.
Bai Liu watched calmly, as if he already knew Mu Ke's choice.
Mu Ke focused on Hua Gan again. "Is there a way to maximize these daggers' attack in a single strike—a blow that could kill an opponent instantly?"
"I want to be the best assassin I can be. The moment I infiltrate the enemy camp, I want to take out their tactician."
Hua Gan nodded. "Yes. But remember: assassins are at their core meant to sacrifice themselves. To speak so arrogantly of killing the enemy's tactician in one blow—are you ready to pay the ultimate price?"
Mu Ke didn't hesitate. "Yes."
Hua Gan stared at him for a long moment, then turned to the daggers on the table, inhaling deeply. "You are not suited for a short weapon with minimal 'blood.' You're suited to a long weapon, like a katana, one that sacrifices itself to the Lord."
Mu Ke didn't take offense at Hua Gan's metaphor of martyrdom. He bowed politely. "Thank you, Mr. Hua Gan."
Meanwhile, Mu Sicheng, still washing his hands in lava, watched as the apprentice approached with a funnel holding two daggers and a long, bloodstained knife, walking toward Bai Liu and Tang Erda.
The apprentice offered them timidly. "Here, your turn."
Bai Liu and Tang Erda exchanged a glance. Tang Erda laid his gun flat on the table and pushed it toward Hua Gan.
Hua Gan studied the weapon carefully, then removed the magnifying glass from his eye. "Your weapon doesn't need modification. Your desire hasn't changed—the same desire that brought you into the game initially. This weapon may only need fine-tuning."
He nodded at the rose emblem on the hilt. "It's time to give your weapon a new brand, a new home for your soul."
Tang Erda held the gun, rose brand pressing coldly into his palm, a mark that had followed him across countless world lines. It felt like Su Yang's gentle smile, the captain's call.
But the captain was now Su Yang. He no longer needed to wait for the irresponsible, evasive captain.
Tang Erda looked down at the gun for a long time, examining it before finally giving a low laugh and saying with relief, "Change it."
The apprentice took another funnel and put the gun and one of Bai Liu's gloves in it, submerging the lava and hanging it next to the boiler.
Mu Sicheng wondered, "Wasn't Bai Liu's weapon modification already completed? Why did you bring it back?"
The apprentice didn't even look back: "It's not to modify Mr Bai Liu's weapon, it's to use Mr Bai Liu's weapon to change the branding on Mr Tang Erda's gun."
"You're all that's left at the end." With a sweep of the bone whip Bai Liu had put up, Hua Gan raised an eyebrow, "Don't you understand the rules of a reformer? Weapon modifications don't do bone whips."
Bai Liu, who was hearing this for the first time, asked with amusement, "Why?"
Hua Gan pushed Bai Liu's bone whip back, "Because in this game, at the moment, the perfect weapon form is the bone whip."
"Any reformer who has seen Spades use a bone whip once has never been able to come up with an attack weapon more dripping with power than this." General Hua Gan paused as if recalling something, then added, "And I've seen it quite a few times."
"I thought to myself that I could not change a better form of weapon than the bone whip, so I made a rule that I would not change the bone whip."
General Hua Gan waved his hand impatiently, "Get your perfect weapon out of my sight!"
Bai Liu took the bone whip in good faith.
The renovation progresses to the end.
Liu Jiayi had bothered the reformer to mark her contact lenses (Hearts gave her the pair) with the mark of a wandering circus, and Mu Sicheng carefully pulled out his hand, long-soaked in lava. As the apprentice pulled up the funnel hanging over the edge of the boiler.
The dark brown flowing metal armour on the monkey's paws was soft and tough, with the texture of animal leather and the coldness of metal to the touch. Mu Sicheng extended his long nails, which shone like silver plating, and with a casual scratch downwards, materials with a defence of four thousand or less vanished like tofu.
"Whaaaaat-!!!" Mu Sicheng jerked to his feet, his eyes glowing as he cupped his hands, "The attack value got a lot stronger!"
Mu Ke drew his own long samurai sword from the funnel. Unlike his appearance, it was an overly simple short samurai sword, about forty centimetres long, with a cold, snowy blade that reflects Mu Ke's unruffled face.
The two daggers could be seen in the middle, and when Mu Ke broke them off, the hilts broke off and became two daggers again, which fit together slightly, and then became magnetically attached to each other, turning back into a long knife.
Mu Ke looked at the knife in silence, his breathing inaudible, silent as a deep pool of stagnant water with no wind blowing through it, not a ripple, even his outward appearance became concealed like the knife.
He wrapped his hands around the hilt of his knife, his gaze snapping, and without warning, he swung down hard at a diamond that was sitting on the table.
The diamond was untouched.
Mu Ke sheathed his sword and turned away in a calm manner.
A dozen seconds later, some tiny cracks appeared in the centre of the diamond, which grew larger and larger, interlocking and uniting with each other, eventually causing the diamond to shatter into a puddle of pieces.
Liu Jiayi's glass vials had been transformed into two paint cans, one purple and one white. They were the length of an adult's hand, light and handy, with a dozen spray nozzles of varying range and dispersion positioned in the openings, which Liu Jiayi tried out with a new look in her eyes – and then etched an abstraction on the wall with the poison.
Only Tang Erda was more subdued when he got his weapon, looking at the hexagram and the symbol of the werewolf's eye on the handle, his fingers rubbing it mindlessly.
"I said..." Hua Gan interrupted the group of nonsense with a headache, "Almost there, you can't use offensive skills on people in the system lobby, you can only try them on objects, but dead things and the people you are actually against are not the same. Get into the game and try it."
Bai Liu gathered a group of excited children together and thanked General Hua.
But he was impatiently shooed away, "Get out, get out!"
Bai Liu led the completed team outside.
The side of Mu Sicheng's headset was engraved with a six-man star and werewolf markings by Hua Gan's hand, now covered by his hooked lips to his head.
Liu Jiayi sat on Tang Erda's shoulder, wearing contact lenses given to her by Hearts, her pupils reflecting a pattern of six stars and werewolf eyes – the ones she bothered General Hua to stamp on her contact lenses.
General Hua Gan wanted to put the team's emblem on Mu Ke's short sword, but Muke refused with a shake of his head – he was an assassin, and the lower the profile, the easier it was to sneak up on him, and such a conspicuous emblem would not help him to disguise himself.
And ...
Mu Ke raised his eyes and looked reverently and intently at the back of Bai Liu, who was walking at the front, breathing incredibly softly.
He does not need to have that mark engraved on the outside anymore, for his life, his memory, and even his soul are already engraved with that mark.
After straightening the edges of his gloves and dropping his hands naturally to his side, the back of his hands glowing with the six-manifold symbol of the flowing lava, Bai Liu lifted his eyes and took his first step forward.
"League match-up training officially starts tomorrow, and we're looking for games with league players to train for."
"Yes!!!"
Mu Sicheng, in a spirit of excitement, answered, "We'll beat whoever we can tomorrow!"
Bai Liu turned back, smiling, "The Killer Sequence."
Mu Sicheng is confused: "?! What?! Which guild?!"
"We're going to solo a copy of the ice field with Spades in it tomorrow." Bai Liu shook the fishbone whip in his hand absently, his grin deepening, "to get a taste of the rumoured most perfect weapon."