Chapter 4142: Over 10,000 (Part 1)

Yet with each change, Menadion’s Wrath grew stronger, and Solus weaved more runes before encountering another obstruction and being forced to stop.

By dinner time, she could almost cast the Blade Spell to the last rune.

"I’m beat. Even with you keeping the elemental crystals and the eyes stable, handling the data flow of the Ears and a Blade Spell is exhausting." Solus leaned on the Sage Staff like it was a walking cane. "I’d say we stop here for today."

"Just a few more seconds." Lith took a thorough scan of the final configuration of the various components of the pseudo-Sage Staff before dispelling them. "Done. I’ll compile the data and leave it in the Library.

"If the tower finds a way to improve on our current design, tomorrow we’ll find it waiting for us."

"Gods, I can’t believe that just until a few months ago we had to come up with a crafting method for each prototype and rely on the Factory to manufacture dozens of variants until we found one that worked." Solus stored the Yggdrasill wood in the Armory, enhancing the tower’s computational abilities.

"It took us weeks just to make the same progress we’ve achieved in a single day with the Ears." Lith nodded. "With a bit of luck, tomorrow we can already move on to crafting a working prototype."

"Why a prototype and not go straight for the real deal?" Solus asked.

"Because we’ve never put together so many pseudo cores, nor do we have any idea how powerful the setup of Vorgh’s staff is." Lith replied. "I’d rather start small and see how it works than go big and be too focused on saving my life to worry about what went wrong."

"Isn’t this jinxing it?" Solus said.

"Solus, do you remember the last time we crafted a masterpiece on our first try?"

"I don’t, because that never happened." She replied.

"My point exactly." Lith shrugged. "I didn’t jinx anything. I was just stating the obvious."

***

The following day, it took Solus most of the morning to find the perfect configuration for the Sage Staff. Once she was done, the mana flowed from the power core and through her body like an extension of her mana core.

She could use the power coming from the staff to cast spells, to strengthen those conjured by her mana core, or to sustain her Blade Spell.

Lith recorded every change she made to the runes and adjusted his calculations accordingly.

"There’s not enough time to work on the crafting method." Lith said as he checked his pocket watch. "We’ll resume this later."

"Great idea." Solus nodded. "I’m going to take a bath. You clean this mess, please."

Several pieces of paper recording Solus’ impressions about the new version of the Sage Staff and her suggestions for further improvements were scattered all over the room.

Lith stored them all inside Soluspedia and discarded those regarding outdated designs or theories that had already been tested and proved wrong.

When they returned to the tower after lunch, their mana cores were full again without the need for Invigoration.

"This is always my least favorite part." Lith sighed as they worked on the elemental crystals. "It’s so much easier using those conjured by the Workshop."

"Yeah, too bad they disappear the moment you bring them outside the tower." Solus replied.

To turn a simple white crystal into an elemental one, the Crystalsmith needed to take control of the world energy stored inside the crystal and split it into its single components.

Then, the Crystalsmith had to amplify the element of his choice and add more from his own core. Altering the balance of the world energy inside the white crystal required great strength and finesse just to overcome the resistance of the other elements.

Once foreign mana was injected into the crystal, the resistance became rejection, and the slightest mistake of the Crystalsmith would undo all of his work. Lith had to keep empowering one element while weakening the others, forcing them into a new balance until the color of the elemental crystal went from muddy to clear.

’I could use Swirling Wind to make things faster and easier, but I have no idea how my Indech Wings work with Crystalsmithing, and I don’t want to waste time with more experiments.’ He thought.

Lith took care of the fire and darkness crystals since he was naturally attuned to them as a Tiamat while Solus prepared the light and earth crystals. The air and water crystals were assigned at random since neither of them had a natural affinity for those elements.

"This is my least favorite part, instead." Solus groaned as she held the white crystal that was supposed to become a Spirit Crystal.

"And we have to make one each." Lith groaned back. "The only good thing about this is that we have to do it only once."

Crafting a Spirit Crystal required replacing the world energy it contained with pure mana. Once properly stabilized, the life force stored in the Spirit Crystal allowed it to absorb world energy and turn it into mana.

It was a tiresome process that demanded releasing mana nonstop for hours. Days, if the Crystalsmith weren’t skilled enough.

Lith and Solus cheated with Spirit Dominance, using their emerald eye and hair streaks to remove Mogar’s energy signature from the world energy and replace it with their life force.

In just a few minutes, the crystals were filled with mana that offered no resistance to them.

What they had saved in time, however, they had spent in sheer mental focus. They had to find and destroy every shred of Mogar’s consciousness from the crystal, or as it absorbed fresh world energy, it would slowly revert to a white crystal.

If that were to happen, the fine-tuned balance of the power core of the artifact bonded with the failed crystal would crumble with explosive consequences. Best case scenario, the artifact would explode before Lith and Solus could dismantle it with Creation Magic and retrieve the materials.

Worst case scenario, the artifact would explode during a fight to the death, and the loss of the materials would be the least of their problems.

"Thank Mom for the Eyes of Menadion." Solus scanned the Spirit Crystals until the Eyes confirmed there was no trace of Mogar’s energy signature left.

"Thanks, Ripha." Lith said.

"Don’t mention it." She chuckled.

"You keep the elemental crystals stable, Solus." Lith said. "Two Balor eyes and their crystal counterparts must be Bonded at the same time, or the staff will explode. This is going to be tricky."

First, Lith used the Harmony spell to filter the light element surrounding the silver eye and the darkness element from the black eye, neutralizing their powers.

Once they became stable, Lith conjured the Forgemastering spell, Bonding, for the silver and black crystal and the Necromancy spell, Lingering Soul, on the Yggdrasil staff.

Tendrils of blue energy connected the elemental crystals with the wood while a drop of Lith’s blood gave the staff the vitality it needed to come briefly back to life. The wood fibers seeped inside the eyes, replacing the blood in their vessels with lymph.

As soon as Harmony faded, the two Balor eyes started to absorb the light and darkness elements, injecting them at the center of the staff where they met and clashed with each other.

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