The new Magic Guided Reactor, compared to the original Emerald Bird αAE model Magic Guided Reactor, besides the significant improvement in magic power output, has two additional main interfaces and three auxiliary interfaces, bringing the total number of interfaces to eleven.

This number of interfaces naturally ranks at the top among Magic Guided Reactors of this level, which is a consistent feature of the Artisan Magic Furnace: numerous interfaces and high mana value. However, this feature is not necessarily an advantage for the Artisan Magic Furnace; it can even be a flaw—because the additional interfaces are often only needed for the Alchemist's magic storage and recharge interfaces, rather than those necessary for ordinary war profession Magic Guided Reactors.

On the contrary, these extra interfaces actually make this type of Magic Guided Reactor inferior in terms of overload performance and high-temperature working state compared to other types of Magic Guided Reactors. Of course, for the general Alchemist, this flaw might still be tolerable, as Alchemists don't use the overload state that often, let alone put the Magic Guided Reactor under a long-term high-temperature working state.

But for Combat Artisans with combat demands, these flaws are somewhat crippling, especially when involving high-intensity combat, where the performance of Artisan Magic Guided Reactors is notably inferior to Magic Guided Reactors used by other war professions.

Not to mention that Artisan Magic Guided Reactors have too few main interfaces, severely limiting the range of equipment options for Combat Artisans. Most Combat Artisans, besides a pair of control gloves, have only a portable Alchemy Engine in combat mode.

And for Combat Artisans below Level 15, they don't even have interfaces for equipping a portable Alchemy Engine.

Let alone armor, weapons, etc.—

Take Fang Hong, for example, who has been active on the battlefield long wearing merely an Alchemist's Coat without any armor. The Magic Guided Reactor lacks the interface for a shield plugin, which, according to Invoker jargon, is almost equivalent to 'running naked.'

And in fact, until reaching Level 25, most Combat Artisans, except those outfitting the 'Central Nerve' series Magic Guided Reactors, have to get used to 'running naked.'

It is only the 'Central Nerve' series Magic Guided Reactors of the Imperial Workshop, specifically optimized for Combat Artisans, that balance the number of main and auxiliary interfaces and magic storage interfaces, allowing Combat Artisans to use armor and weapons at lower levels.

Of course, the price is also quite steep.

Fang Hong, in fact, borrowed this idea when modifying his Magic Guided Reactor.

Of course, he originally wanted to directly copy the 'Central Nerve' design, but quickly realized he was overambitious—how could the works of the Imperial Workshop, the crystallization of countless masters' efforts, be easily mimicked by a novice like him? Even with simplified requirements, it was difficult to be perfect, and the cost of materials soared repeatedly. Eventually, he had to reluctantly sacrifice some capacities of the Magic Guided Reactor to forcibly meet the design requirements.

Thus, forcibly modifying a mature design with his level of Magic Guided Engineering inevitably affected the overall structure of the Magic Guided Reactor—and drastically reduced the mana value capacity, which was originally the greatest advantage of the Artisan Magic Guided Reactor—but it was all worth it.

Because the modified design at last allowed the Magic Guided Reactor to achieve a level almost equal to other Magic Guided Reactors in the overload state category, and it even expanded to have one more main interface.

This means he can equip an additional piece of armor or other Magic Guided Equipment besides the reinforced gloves and portable Alchemy Engine—even because their Adventure Group has Mr. Greyrock's platform, they can save the portable Alchemy Engine's interface and install it directly on the 'ship.'

Fang Hong had long decided on the armor route he should take.

Generally speaking, Combat Artisans have two typical armor choices: light armor or medium armor.

Light armor minimizes metal or leather's magic repulsion, going for the shield approach. Medium armor covers close-range protection while leaning towards the evasion and agility school. And there's a derivative middle route between the two—Mithril Armor, using metals like mithril with good magical affinity, balancing agility, protection, and shielding.

Of course, that's the choice of the wealthy; Fang Hong's only mithril is just that mask, so it's out of consideration. Additionally, due to the Rocket Fist, flying around in battles, he is unsuitable for a stable shield approach, hence his choice can only be medium armor.

His Magic Guided Engineering and the knowledge he mastered differ too significantly from the armor crafting direction, so self-making armor is basically out of consideration. Thus, he bought a needed medium armor back in Golande. It was a power breastplate that could be worn under a coat. The breastplate itself provides two hundred points of protection value, but connected to a Magic Guided Reactor, its surface's power field adds another four hundred points of protection.

The biggest difference between armor protection and shields is that armor protection values also depend on the material itself and damage reduction from alchemical arrays; the flaw is that conventional means don't regenerate armor protection on the battlefield, requiring post-battle repair.

But Fang Hong is different. Due to his manipulation abilities far exceeding ordinary artisans, besides the combat construct, he can also hang a 'engineering machine,' enabling remote armor repair—albeit slowly, but better than nothing.

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