Betamax’s quarry gun simply would not operate under its original parameters. It was meant to function by using specific sonic frequencies to explode given elements while leaving others untouched. Its settings could be adjusted so that it would clear an area of most rock and dirt, reducing them to clouds of dust while revealing metallic elements without harming them. At its highest setting, it could have dug a mining tunnel large enough for the men of iron to march down in a matter of hours.

Starscream was able to reconfigure its oscillatory functions to the point where it performed a kind of general matter agitation, generating extreme temperatures in a fixed position. This was exactly what they needed to soften and mold titan steel. The only problem was that the temperatures required to do so were far higher than those necessary to reduce stone to a superheated liquid.

There was no material they had access to that could contain molten titan steel. Working the super material called for a vacuum or magnetic bubble, and Sunwhisper spent many hours of experimentation developing an analog via cultivator techniques.

Impurities Rejection and Impurities Attraction together could be engaged in such a way as to create a stable field strong enough for a sample piece of titan steel to float in midair. At that point, the quarry gun, powered by a mana battery, could create an environment hot enough to melt it.

Problems abounded. Sunwhisper had to be able to do delicate work at a distance safe enough not to be burned. The wrong application of his techniques would result in permanent damage, and possible death, for anyone in the vicinity.

With Starscream, he spent several days experimenting with metal filings and lesser materials until they were sure he had the control necessary to create a functional magnetic bottle. The mana cost of these experiments was not insignificant, and they quickly cleared the area of harvestable beast and plant cores. Channeling directly from ambient sources was a relatively slow process resulting in lengthy breaks.

All this to give Karasu and Ogumo a set of knives.

Ogumo needed the pads of his feet to allow him to climb otherwise unclimbable surfaces, but in the end, they were able to create a pair of spiked greaves for his forelegs to give him a weapon other than his fangs. Karasu’s talons were similarly encased.

With enough mana and technique, a cultivator could make any object a weapon more formidable than what could be forged through traditional methods. A sword, however, would always be more dangerous than a broom infused with a comparable amount of spiritual potency. Similarly, a sword of iron would always be inferior to a sword of steel as long as the two were both infused in the same manner, even though a sword of iron could be made stronger than any uninfused steel blade with the proper application of mana.

If Sunwhisper’s spear had not been of titanosteel, it would have sundered the moment it was used to resist the blows of Wen Lambo’s mana forged blade, Eight Mines Clutch or no Eight Mines Clutch. By the same token, if it had not been enhanced by his techniques, it would have been sundered just as easily.

Alien technology, enhanced by the local magical system. was greater than either would have been on its own. As for the weapons they forged for his sacred beasts, they could be infused with mana just as his own spear could be, rendering them a threat even to cultivators of the third star or above.

The extension cord proved to be a relatively simple project, as they had been able to salvage a few of the spinal nerve clusters of Sunwhisper’s fathers and reinforce them with webbing. When it was finished, Starscream’s tail had become a twenty foot whip,effectively rendering him independent of Sunwhisper as long as they remained in the same room.

Their days took on a comfortable routine, as Sunwhisper and Starsream sought to experiment and expand their capabilities through the applications of natural science to cultivator techniques, and Janna and the sacred beasts fulfilled the more mundane requirements of gathering food and material and maintaining a watch on the lair.

It was a surprise to everyone when an old woman appeared in the chamber that housed their primary mana battery, sitting on a flat stone and petting the purple lobster that sat contentedly in her lap.

"Quite the laboratory you have," she said.

Sunwhisper very nearly lost his hold on the magnetic bottle he had been using to mold a few ounces of superheated plating, and Starscream immediately deactivated their modified quarry gun to halt the matter agitation processes.

The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement.

The woman was a mound of wrinkles in a gray silk scarf and the robes of an aristocrat. Despite materializing in a cave on the top of a mountain where small-scale industrial processes were quickly coating the walls in a thin layer of charred carbon, she didn’t have a speck of dirt on her, Her lobster was equally glossy and clean.

"Thank you," Sunwhisper said, carefully lowering a small globe of molten metal into an emergency bolthole, an exercise that in itself required a superhuman level of concentration and spatial awareness. It would ruin the sample and the hole, but at least it was safe. "I did not realize that we had an audience."

"Don’t mind me," the old woman said. "I didn’t mean to disturb you."

(What the crap? Where’s your girlfriend? What do we even have henchmen if not for this exact situation?)

The old woman had evidently gotten past Janna and the spider and the crow, a feat that was hardly a revelation given the fact that she had only been noticed by Starscream and Sunwhisper after speaking to them directly.

"I’m afraid I don’t recognize you," Sunwhisper said. “Do we know each other?"

"You don’t know me," the old woman said, "but I have been following you for some time. Why don’t you call in your friends, and we can all have a chat. I have a few things I would like to say to all of you, and I don’t want to repeat myself."

A quick application of Echo of the Inner Heart provided Sunwhisper with reasonable confidence that this stranger did not intend them harm, though he had a sense that there were layers to her that he could not read. He maintained his emotional link to Ogomu, but it was a one way form of communication, so after they had deactivated the more dangerous aspects of their laboratory, Sunwhisper and Starscream went with the old woman toward the entrance of the cavern to collect the others.

"What is your name?" He asked.

"Yuyu," she paused, "does that mean anything to you?"

"It doesn’t." Sunwhisper admitted, eyeing the lobster as it scuttled along the floor beside its companion. Was this grandmother a four-star cultivator, or like him, did she merely consult with sacred beasts?

The lighting system had expanded beyond the battery chamber to include the room with a pond. Pale fish rose and dove, oblivious to the radiant dreamcatchers above. Janna was meditating beside the water, but she jumped to her feet as soon as she realized there was a stranger in their midst.

"Sit, sit," the old woman said. "There is no need for alarm." The crow and the spider were assembled soon after, neither of them having had any idea that their sanctum had been breached. Ogumo flashed his newly forged claws, shuffling from side to side, agitated and uncomfortable with his own lack of awareness.

Karasu stared at the old woman with violet eyes, growing more confused the longer she gazed. The old woman smiled at her.

"You have a nice little home here," she said, "but I’m afraid it cannot last."

(Can we just kill her now? There’s no way this isn’t just a preamble to a fight scene.)

{She could have attacked us before we were ever aware of her presence. I think we should be prepared to give her the benefit of the doubt.}

(I’d say it’s your funeral, but it’s our funeral, so uh…official protest.}

"You said your name was Yuyu," Sunwhisper said. "Should that have meant something to us?"

Janna blanched. She had heard that name before. She hadn’t known the previous Azai representative, but she knew the name Makoto Yuyu. By all accounts, she was a young woman, or at least appeared to be. Could this be the same person?

"Maybe not," Yuyu said, "I wasn’t sure."

"Where do you come from?" Sunwhisper asked. " Do you have a clan?"

Yuyu ignored his questions. "What is your name, young man? I’m afraid I did not catch it."

(This chick is playing games. We can just pop into golden god mode right now.)

"I feel as if you know me already," he said.

She laughed, a joyless, involuntary sound. "I have been observing you, it is true. But I do now know you, and the names I have for you, I think they are not true names. Janna Jin, she is easy enough to recognize. But you, you are someone else. And what you are doing in this cave, that is only more questions. Give me a name, young master. That is all I ask."

Sunwhisper was having trouble reading the old woman, and all he sensed from her lobster was satisfaction. In spite of its distinctive anatomy, it reminded him of nothing so much as a cat with a mouse in its paws. Even his new technique was giving him mixed signals. She didn’t seem to have any violent intentions, but he felt as if something was preventing him from getting a clear view of her..

On instinct, he gave her the truth.

"My name is Sunwhisper."

She seemed to consider this.

"Tell me, Sunwhisper, what does the name Makoto Shishio mean to you?"