Chapter 4226: Final Preparations (Part 1)

"One last thing." Kalla said. "Do you mind spreading yourself thin? Go as far as you can until the pain becomes unbearable."

"That’s a weirdly specific request, but I understand what you’re after." Loma did as bidden, allowing Kalla to collect ample data about how the energy link between the spore worked over increasing distance and the distortions it suffered once it exceeded its natural limits.

"With a bit of luck, I might be able to add an enchantment to briefly extend the connection between my physical body and phylactery." Kalla said. "It will probably be just as painful as it is for a Horde, but a bit of suffering beats being dead by a landslide."

"On that we agree." Loma sighed in relief when she finally allowed the Horde to revert to their original size. "Is there anything else you need?"

"Yes." The Wight nodded. "I need you to leave. I can’t start my research with you here, and I’ve already lost too much time because I had to help you find the fungus folk."

"Mom!" Nyka managed to blush despite her undead state. "That’s rude!"

"I mean, no, we’re done here. Thank you for your assistance, Loma. It should prove invaluable in my research." Kalla rushed to say.

"No, thank you, Lady Kalla." The orange Horde would have held a grudge if Lith hadn’t warned them thoroughly about the Wight’s ’quirky’ personality. "Soon there will be eight Hordes again.

"I hope we can count on your help in the future, when another fungus folk is born."

"Of course, it will be a priceless opportunity to put my ability to the test." Kalla nodded. "Also, with a bit of luck, that won’t happen for a long time."

"What do you mean, with a bit of luck?" Loma snarled, popping a spore. "Never mind. I’d better go. Goodbye, Lith. Goodbye, Solus."

He disappeared in a Warp Steps without saying goodbye to the Wight, but she didn’t even notice.

"Are they gone?" Kalla performed an in-depth scan of the adjacent rooms with the Eyes.

"Yes. I can’t feel Loma anymore." Solus nodded.

"I’m not talking about the Horde, but all the meddlers who don’t know about the you-know-what." Kalla replied.

"Jirni, Orion, Garrik, and Ryla are still in the Mansion, but they can’t hear us." Lith said.

"Then to the Lith-cave tower!" Kalla Warped everyone to the Mansion’s keep, finding it empty.

"Starforge." Solus corrected her. "And it’s still hidden underground. I couldn’t afford Loma stumbling into it while you performed your experiments."

A wave of her hand brought the tower to the surface, and another brought everyone to the Infirmary. Lith instructed Starforge to compare the readings they had just acquired from Loma with those of Silverwing and Baba Yaga.

"Nice thinking, Solus." Lith couldn’t have been prouder of her. "Scanning your old friends whenever they came to visit you."

"Thanks." Solus swallowed hard, feeling more than one gaze piercing her back.

’By my mom, Acala was right. For someone who treasures her secrets above all, I do have a penchant for poking and prodding into the secrets of others.’ She actually thought.

The cross-analysis revealed that white cores and Hordes shared many similarities, with their energy profiles overlapping at 21%.

"This proves that the rumors about the Hordes are not just a hoax." Lith pondered. "Just like a white core, their energy is evenly spread across their spores, and they are somehow capable of sharing and amplifying that energy from a distance."

"It’s how Malyshka can split herself into three and can heal from any wound, even if her entire upper body is destroyed." Solus nodded. "The question is how?"

"Wait, are you serious?" Quylla stopped staring at the data and turned to Solus. "When did that happen? How can an opponent capable of maiming the legendary Baba Yaga sneak inside the Mansion, unleash such a powerful spell, yet no one noticed?"

"Yes, it happened, but no one attacked Lady Yaga." Lith shrugged. "She just failed to control all the tier three Zero spells she conjured with her mind. Another time, she tried and failed to come up with the runes for a tier one Cinder spell."

"Is Mirror magic that dangerous?" Friya’s eyes went wide in shock.

"So much that we didn’t involve anyone in our experiments." Solus replied. "Lith and I only work on the theory, and Malyshka then puts our hypotheses into practice.

"Sadly, except for that time when Lith’s rage guided him, we haven’t achieved much aside from witnessing the extent of a white core’s regenerative abilities."

"Based on what I can read here, there are two main differences between a Horde and a white core." Menadion pondered. "A Horde is comprised of energy and matter in equal measure.

"Their dual nature allows the Horde’s consciousness to be shared among their thousands of spores, even though each one has its own body and mana core. The two halves are stable, but they are unable to survive on their own.

"The hive mind collapses without a sufficient number of host spores, just like all the spores that are left too far away from the hive die rather than developing another.

"A white core, instead, is entirely made of energy that can be converted into matter at will and vice versa. Like a Horde, a white core can regenerate their body even if only a fraction of it is left, but unlike them, they need no nourishment.

"A white core simply absorbs the surrounding world energy, converts it into their mana, and then turns the mana into anything they need to restore their physical form."

"Yeah, but the question is, how do we go from here to there?" Quylla pointed at Loma’s scan and then at Silverwing’s.

"That’s up to us to find out." Lith shrugged. "Remember that the Infirmary works the same way as the Eyes. It tells you what something is or does, but it gives you no clue about how it works or how it came to be.

"After all, if it were that simple, I doubt there would be so few white cores on Mogar."

"As I see it, Hordes are just one step ahead compared to violet-cored Awakened." Quylla used her breathing technique, Guiding Light, on herself. "We are also comprised of matter and energy and can’t convert one into another.

"Yet while every single spore of a Horde has its own mana core, we only have a few auxiliary cores and one mana core. Should we strive to turn our auxiliary cores into mana cores?"

"That’s impossible." Nalrond shook his head. "If that were true, my people would have been capable of Awakening and reaching the white core more easily than any other race.

"Werepeople are the living proof that a single body can’t accept more than one core. The Hordes are just like I was. One core for each body, but they can Awaken because they kept them apart."

"Now that I think about it, Phaso said that once a Horde reaches the white core, their spores merge into a single body and they become unable to split even again." Solus said.

"Well, if you fuse together the spores and the cores, a Horde becomes almost identical to a white core." Menadion pondered.

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