Buzz—
After more than ten minutes, a faint glow slowly appeared on the Magic Jewel.
Cao Ye finally let out a long breath and wiped the sweat from his forehead.
Success.
If it had failed, the loss would have been enormous.
Still, successfully engraving the technique on the first attempt made Cao Ye feel a little proud.
He placed the Magic Jewel, which served as the core, into the cursed corpse.
With that, all preparations were complete.
The next step was to inject cursed energy and activate the cursed corpse.
This step was the most important.
Activating a cursed corpse was not simple.
If the cursed corpse was like a program, and the technique served as the framework, then the activation process was like the code that starts the program.
Its complexity went without saying.
Especially for cursed corpses with special functions.
For example, the training doll bear used when Yuji Itadori trained emotional control.
If cursed energy wasn't continuously supplied, it would attack.
If cursed energy was injected, it would fall asleep peacefully.
These kinds of cursed corpses had their behavior rules pre-programmed.
"Wait…"
"My magic power has already fused with cursed energy."
"And black mud is produced from my magic power."
"What if I fill the cursed corpse with black mud?"
Thinking of this, Cao Ye immediately acted.
Black mud—like liquid corruption—flowed out.
Under Cao Ye's control, it seeped into the cursed corpse and fused with the Magic Jewel core.
Cao Ye could clearly feel it.
His control over the core had deepened.
Before, control relied solely on the technique.
Now, with black mud filling the interior, the control became much smoother.
Not only that—
The black mud also smoothed out some imperfections that Cao Ye couldn't solve before.
The entire cursed corpse became a perfectly integrated whole.
"Puppet Manipulation."
Cao Ye activated his technique.
The cursed corpse that had previously been lifeless was enveloped in magical energy.
Its rigid body began to move slightly.
Then—
The gemstone eyes gained pupils.
Thud.
The cursed corpse moved.
Cao Ye smiled.
The technique had worked.
"Cursed Corpse… Charmander!"
Standing before Cao Ye was a small orange dinosaur-like creature.
A round head.
Sharp claws.
And a long tail with a burning flame at the end.
Its identity was obvious.
"Charmander! Use Flamethrower!"
To faithfully recreate the original Charmander, Cao Ye had designed a fire-breathing ability.
Once connected to the magic core, it could breathe fire by consuming magic power.
ROAR!
BOOM!
A burst of flames exploded.
The smile on Cao Ye's face instantly froze.
The fire did appear.
But instead of shooting forward—
It exploded inside the mouth.
Half of Charmander's head was blown apart.
"…Looks like Fire Magic Stones won't work."
"I'll need something else to replace them."
Cao Ye sighed while looking at the disastrous result.
It was disappointing, but at least it was a valuable experiment.
Although the cursed corpse exploded, the core remained intact.
Only the head was damaged.
That was easy to fix.
Using spare materials, Cao Ye repaired the cursed corpse.
Then he activated Charmander again.
This time, he removed the flamethrower function.
Only claw attacks and biting remained.
After all, its claws and teeth were made from Dungeon monster materials.
Hellhound fangs
Lizardman claws
Among upper-floor materials, these were already quite sharp.
"Charmander, use Scratch!"
SMASH!
Charmander executed the command perfectly.
A chair was instantly smashed to pieces.
"Charmander, use Bite!"
CRACK!
Charmander bit down and tore off a corner of the table.
Cao Ye was so excited he forgot something important.
This was a room at the top of Babel Tower.
Even a single table or chair here was extremely expensive.
With those two attacks, he had destroyed a chair and ruined a table.
If someone saw this, they would probably curse him out.
Destroying such expensive furniture so casually was outrageous.
Cao Ye continued testing other functions.
The results were decent.
But many flaws appeared.
After all, this was his first time creating and controlling a cursed corpse.
Many issues had been revealed.
One major problem was rigidity.
It didn't seem serious now.
But in real combat, it would be dangerous.
Even if Cao Ye controlled the puppet, it lacked the natural agility of a living creature.
In the Dungeon—
Monsters might dismantle the cursed corpse before it even landed a hit.
Elsewhere – Hephaestus Familia
Meanwhile, at another location in Orario.
After finishing weapon testing, Tsubaki returned to the Hephaestus Familia base.
She told her goddess what happened today.
The Smithing Goddess, Hephaestus, listened carefully.
"What?"
"You saved someone from the Freya Familia today?"
"Yes."
"He looked like a newcomer."
"Probably only Level 1."
"A Freya Familia rookie entering the Dungeon alone?"
As a partner of the Freya Familia, Hephaestus was familiar with their brutal internal competition system.
She personally disliked that method of growth.
In her opinion, that kind of training was unreasonable.
But it was Freya Familia's internal matter.
She couldn't interfere.
Still—
A Freya Familia rookie who didn't participate in the competition sounded strange.
It reminded her of the boy who had been "abducted and kept" by Freya on the street earlier.
Suddenly—
Hephaestus froze.
"What was the name of the person you saved?"
"Uh…"
"I think it was Cao Ye."
"Cao is the surname. Ye is the name."
"He's a strange guy."
"Cao Ye?!"
Hephaestus was shocked.
That name was already very famous among the gods of Orario.
The boy whom Freya forcibly took and kept on the street.
Many male gods had expressed their jealousy.
After all—
That was Freya, the Goddess of Beauty.
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