The "Low-Registry" was less of a library and more of a graveyard for forgotten ideas. It was located in the lightless belly of the central dreadnought, a place where the air was thick with the smell of moldy vellum and cold iron.
Hanzo and Lin sat huddled in a corner of a stone-vaulted chamber, lit only by a single, flickering oil lamp they had bartered from a street-side vendor. For the first time in days, they had food—actual grain biscuits that didn't taste of silt—and a jar of medicinal salve that Lin was carefully applying to her bruised temple.
But Hanzo's attention was entirely consumed by the heavy, oil-stained scroll Master Vorian had given him.
As Hanzo unrolled the thick, metallic paper, his eyes widened. To a normal person, the scroll was covered in a chaotic mess of geometric lines, overlapping circles, and a script that looked like bird scratches. It was a dead language from a dead era.
However, as Hanzo focused his gaze, a familiar blue hum began to vibrate at the base of his skull.
[External Data Source Detected: High-Density Schematic.] [Compatibility: 88%. Initiating Real-Time Translation...]
The lines on the paper began to move. In Hanzo's vision, the "bird scratches" rearranged themselves into clear, architectural annotations. The blueprints weren't for a building or a machine. They were for something the ancients called a "Nervous Conduit."
"What does it say?" Lin whispered, leaning over his shoulder. "Is it a map to the Old World?"
"No," Hanzo murmured, his fingers tracing a diagram of a skeletal limb. "It's a manual. It explains how they used Lunar-Zinc to bind metal to living marrow without the body rejecting it as a poison."
Hanzo looked down at his left arm. He had survived the integration of the Alpha-bronze by sheer luck and the raw power of the Core. But reading the records, he realized how close he had come to total structural collapse.
The ancients didn't just force metal into bone; they created a micro-lattice—a web of tiny silver threads that acted as a shock absorber between the rigid metal and the soft biological tissue.
"I built a wall where I should have built a bridge," Hanzo realized.
The reason he was sinking three millimeters deeper into the soot wasn't just the weight of the bronze. It was because the bronze wasn't distributed. It was sitting in his arm like a dead stone, forcing his human muscles to do all the work of carrying it.
[Current Status: Phase 0.2 (Unstable Integration).] [Projected Solution: Phase 0.5 (The Internal Anchor).] [Required Materials: High-Purity Mercury, Star-Iron Filings, Stabilized Nutrient Salts.]
"Lin," Hanzo said, his voice turning serious. "The medicine for your mark... and the materials I need to fix my arm... we won't find them in the Trade-Ring."
Lin looked at the silver-hex on her neck. In the dim light, the mark seemed to pulse with a faint, predatory rhythm. "The clerk said the good stuff is only for the Guild-Born."
"Then we go where the Guild doesn't look," Hanzo said, rolling the scroll back up. "Master Vorian gave me these records because he wants to see if I can survive the next step. He's testing me, even from a distance."
He stood up. The heaviness in his left arm was still there, a constant reminder of his incompleteness. He wasn't a cyborg, and he wasn't a monster. He was an unfinished structure—a tower with a grand spire but no foundation.
As they prepared to leave the registry, a sound echoed through the stacks of old paper. It wasn't the sound of footsteps, but a rhythmic hiss-click, hiss-click.
Aero, who had been guarding the entrance of the vault, suddenly dived from the rafters and landed on Hanzo's shoulder, his brass feathers bristling. The falcon's head tilted 180 degrees, his artificial eyes glowing a sharp amber.
"Someone followed us," Lin breathed, her hand going to the hilt of the small knife they had bought.
Hanzo didn't reach for a weapon. He closed his eyes, feeling the vibrations of the iron floor beneath his feet. His integration allowed him to feel the stress points of the building. He could feel the weight of whoever was approaching—they were heavy, heavier than a normal man.
"Three of them," Hanzo whispered. "Heavy boots. Metal-plated aprons. Vorian's laborers."
The High-Artisan had given him the records, but he had no intention of letting the "anomaly" keep them for free. The test hadn't ended at the Exchange. It was just beginning.
"Behind the pillars," Hanzo commanded, his voice cold and steady. "If they want the knowledge I'm carrying, they'll have to learn that a foundation is also a weapon."