Lian mentally mapped out every point where the operation could fail and what he would do if it did.
Before he could finish the thought, a notification appeared on the screen.
Connection terminated.
He immediately restarted the process, but the result was worse. The server had gone offline. No response packets came back.
No ping.
"Well, I copied almost everything I could ever need. Probably more than I'll ever use."
Lian hadn't managed to download the entire bioweapons folder, but that wasn't particularly important right now.
Lian scrolled through the rune blueprints, most of the sequence 3 runes are bit hard to build and really expensive on top of that, even if he managed to build he is still at sequence 1 and would end up unable to use them.
It would be like trying to run electric car with smart phone battery.
He began reading through other Sequence 2 runes, until a stealth rune caught his attention.
Runes were mainly divided into attack, defence, stealth, scouting, storage, healing, and transport. There were other types, but these formed the core categories.
In the military, people specialised around them.
Combat units mostly used attack and defence runes, sometimes adding a few stealth ones for tactical advantage.
Infiltration units relied heavily on stealth and scouting runes, with limited offensive capability for emergencies.
Then there were medical units, like the one his brother served focuses on medical treatment surgeries etc.
Finally, logistics divisions handled supplies, equipment, and transport across the battlefield.
This division wasn't a bad thing. Specializing made the military far more organized and efficient.
But Lian wasn't planning to become a soldier.
If he wanted to walk the path of a criminal, he needed to be competent in every category. Attack, defence, stealth, scouting—everything.
A criminal didn't have the luxury of teammates covering their weaknesses. Most of the time he would be on the run, alone.
And even when others were around, trust was a dangerous gamble.
Among criminals, betrayal was as common as breathing.
As he went through the documents, something suddenly caught his eye.
"Yeah… this one. I can do it."
It was a stealth rune that the military was trying to reverse engineer.
A rune they found in a fragmented domain which they have decoded and planing to mass produce for the army, they recorded everything in detail, it was mostly complete except for few bugs.
The documentation was extensive. Every stage of the reverse-engineering process had been carefully recorded—multiple design iterations, spell versions, and detailed reports on bugs and vulnerabilities.
"Invisibility is an epic upgrade, but there are several things to consider"
Lian is trying to build military grade tech from his bedroom so there are really several things he need to consider to have the outcome in the same quality as the original.
He would have to carefully rethink the design—adjusting materials, simplifying certain components, and modifying the system to match his current limitations.
In other words, he couldn't just copy the blueprint.
He had to adapt it.
After reading through the entire documentation, Lian leaned back and summarised the information in his head.
The military had originally discovered a Sequence-4 armor rune inside a fragmented domain near the abandoned city. The rune itself was designed as a simple ring, but once activated it generated a translucent armour layer that enveloped the wielder's body.
One of the enchantments embedded in the armour granted invisibility.
Lian rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
"So that's where those exam bracelets came from…"
The initial prototypes are a full-body armour, and then the armour itself turned invisible.
If part of your body wasn't covered—your head, for example—it would still be visible.
Later versions improved on this.
This was back when they didn't fully decoded the enchantment.
The rune emits a low-intensity ether field that forms layered gradients around the user.
These layers manipulates the refractive index of air, bending incoming light around the body instead of letting it reflect.
The light then recombines behind the user, preserving the background and making them invisible.
But that only solved part of the problem.
The body still occupied physical space.
It still produced heat.
And it still interacted with sound waves.
Thermal imaging could reveal the wearer instantly. Sonar or echolocation could also detect the disturbance in the surrounding air.
They later changed the alloy composition of the armour and added a regulation system that adjusted the suit's surface temperature to perfectly match its surroundings. The spell was also modified to absorb incoming sound waves, preventing sonar or echolocation from bouncing back.
After nearly a decade of research, they finally managed to recreate the invisibility enchantment.
But the design still had few problems.
The ether consumption was extremely high, the materials were expensive and few flaws still remain.
Lian wasn't planning to copy the design directly anyway.
What he had in mind was something hybrid.
A full-body armour would be heavy and restrict his movement and flexibility, which wasn't ideal for someone who might need to run, climb, or move quickly unnoticed between enemies.
But removing the armour entirely wasn't an option either. Without it, the invisibility field would require far more ether to maintain. At his current Sequence-1 middle stage, he wouldn't be able to sustain it for even five minutes.
What Lian had in mind was a hybrid design—armour segments interlinked together to cover only the vital areas of the body.
Instead of the rigid metal plating the military preferred, Lian designed the armor using interlocking hexagonal plates. The idea came from materials used in his previous world—stacked carbon-fiber impact distribution layers used in advanced bulletproof gear.
The hexagonal structure reduced weight while still dispersing impact force, and more importantly, it allowed the armour to flex with body movement instead of locking the wearer into stiff motions.
the armour had gloves, a long vest that extended to just above his knees, a helmet that looks like bike helmet since he got it for cheap online. which are the core and the rest of the non vital area is covered by a translucent layer and is linked with the armour making the whole body invisible.
Lian took one of the armor gloves and connected it to a calibration machine in the campus lab.
Most standard runes were built from five core components.
Control Chip – This was the brain of the rune. It contained memory where you write the spell and enchantments.
Ether Lines – The conductive pathways that connected every component, allowing ether to flow through the system.
Transformer Core – Responsible for energy modulation and conversion. Basically responsible for converting raw ether into programmed output. Like you put raw ether in and it gives out flames or ice or whatever. In this case creating the field that refracts light to make me invisible.
Field Generator – This one generates a field so you can pull out things from sub space or make changes in environment. Like if you want to create fire ball in your hand you need to create a ether field first in that field the fire generates.
Subspace Module – These are optional unless your runes use sub space like Lin ling water rune. The water wall and water bullets needs water, you you store that water in sub space then summon it by creating a field.
Thinking about it, Lian realized something interesting.
Despite how magical runes looked, none of them actually violated the laws of physics. Like you can not create matter out of thin air.. Every rune either converted energy, manipulated existing matter, or retrieved stored material from subspace.
Even the control system was simpler than people imagined.
Runes didn't respond to consciousness or thoughts. The outcome was determined entirely by how ether flowed through the rune's structure.
It sounded complicated at first, but the logic behind it was surprisingly simple.
Lian liked to think of it like a puppet.
A puppet only had four strings attached to its limbs. The mechanism itself was extremely simple. Yet by pulling those strings in the right way, a puppeteer could make it walk, sit, run, or wave.
Runes worked the same way.
The components were simple.
What mattered was how you controlled the flow.
In a sense, using a rune was no different from operating a video game controller—simple inputs producing complex actions.
Lian connected the glove to the lab machine where he had installed his control chip and transformer core. Once everything was linked, he opened the interface and began writing the spell into the chip.
It made him think of coding.
People in this world called it a spell, but to him it looked more like programming. The structure even resembled something like C++—or at least what he vaguely remembered it looking like.
To be honest, he had never been that good at coding back in his previous life.
"I mostly used AI to write everything" he muttered.
He barely remembered the syntax.
Man, I really wish this world had AI…
Things would have been so much easier.
I really miss Neuro.
After finishing the code, Lian attached several wires that would function as ether lines, linking the chip, transformer core, and the glove.
Then he started the test.
The result appeared almost immediately.
"It failed," he murmured.
But after looking closer, he corrected himself.
"Not a complete failure."
The glove on his hand hadn't turned fully invisible. Instead, his hand became translucent, almost like glass. From a distance it would be hard to see, but if someone looked carefully, the outline of his hand was still visible.
This might work in dark areas, but with too much light it doesn't refract everything fully.
Lian packed his equipment. The lab was quiet as he left and began walking back toward the dorm.
As he passed through the corridor, he overheard a group of Class A students talking nearby.
They were discussing the upcoming midterm exams.
Lian froze for a second.
"Oh… crap. Those are next week."
But unlike last semester, he wasn't completely unprepared this time.
In fact, he already had a few plans ready on how to cheat.
A small grin spread across his face.
"Just like the good old days," Lian chuckled to himself.