"OK, I'll try."
Esdeath nodded calmly. Under Xin's watchful gaze, she raised her hand and condensed a layer of ice, testing the synchronization between her abilities and the newly equipped armor.
"No issues so far," Xin said, finally letting out a small breath of relief.
Then he asked again, more carefully, "How does it feel? Any discomfort or abnormal feedback?"
"Nothing unusual," Esdeath replied. "Everything is normal."
"Good. Then we begin the full performance test—start with flight."
From there, Esdeath, Xin, and Hephaestus proceeded to conduct a complete series of system evaluations on the newly created war armor.
Flight capability, ground mobility, reaction speed, flexibility, defensive strength, sustained endurance, firepower output, auxiliary combat systems, and overall battle stability—all of them were tested one by one under controlled conditions.
The results were better than expected.
Most systems performed exactly as designed, if not slightly above baseline projections. In particular, the defensive capability stood out the most.
Even when Hephaestus briefly released divine-level power and attacked at full strength, she was barely able to make a breakthrough in the armor's defense. The layered spatial barrier and biological shock absorption system held firm far longer than anticipated.
Of course, during this particular test, the armor was not actually worn.
Xin had no intention of letting Esdeath take unnecessary risks during destructive stress testing. Safety always came first in his evaluation process.
The only notable drawback identified during the entire testing phase was the energy supply system.
At present, only a limited number of individuals—such as Xin himself and Riveria—were capable of maintaining stable output for direct operation. In most cases, the armor still relied on external charging or auxiliary conversion systems.
To address this, Xin further optimized the energy conversion module.
After several adjustments, the conversion efficiency stabilized at roughly a four-to-one ratio. In practical terms, this meant that four units of input energy could be converted into one unit of usable magic power for the system.
With this improvement, the small reactor could continuously feed converted energy into the armor, allowing it to recharge automatically during standby mode.
Under ideal conditions, the armor could reach a full charge within a single day.
Once fully charged, it could sustain continuous combat operations for approximately five hours under normal engagement conditions.
In high-intensity, full-output combat scenarios, endurance dropped significantly—down to about one hour.
Xin was not entirely satisfied with this limitation.
He had originally hoped for near-infinite operational time.
However, reality made it clear that the current energy conversion technology had already reached its practical limit. Without either a larger reactor system or a fundamentally different energy architecture, further improvements would be difficult.
Still, this discovery led to an unexpected realization.
The true value of the energy conversion system was not in small-scale armor support.
It was in large-scale magic power conversion.
As long as sufficient electrical energy was available, the system could theoretically convert it into a continuous supply of usable magic power.
In other words—
Given enough power input, magic energy itself could be effectively treated as an unlimited resource.
This insight made Xin pause.
Because it meant the technology's real potential extended far beyond a single suit of armor.