Chapter 4286: Lodestar (Part 2)

"Since you are talking about me, know that I resent this!" The Hydra appeared out of thin air. "You should have called me. I deserve to be part of the opening tour of the new floors of the tower, and so does my mother!"

"Tell them, sweetie!" Fyrwal arrived a split second later. "Sorry for the intrusion, but Fanny listened to everything through her mind link with Friya. We are both offended for being left out of this."

"I know, and I’m sorry, but I wanted this to be a family tour." Solus bowed to the Hydras in apology. "If I called Faluel, I also would have to call Malyshka, Dawn, Loka, Zoreth..."

"And it would have been a crowd, not a family event." Faluel sighed. "Sorry for the outburst. I’ll take my leave, then."

"Please, stay." Lith raised his hand to stop her. "This is just like when you taught us Domination. There is no point in keeping you out if you’ll learn everything from Friya anyway."

"Don’t mind if I do." Faluel nodded. "I agree with everything Lith said, Ripha. You made the Lodestar into a perfect learning tool rather than a substitute for a mage’s brain."

"Thanks." Menadion nodded. "For your information, I didn’t invite people like Fyrwal to the opening because she already knows how the new floors work. She used them in her time as my apprentice."

"Mom?" Faluel glared at her mother.

"She’s right." Fyrwal shrugged. "I never talked to you about the missing floors of the tower for the same reason Ripha doesn’t. There is no reason to make you drool for something that you couldn’t see or use anyway."

"Sadly, it makes sense." Faluel replied. "How long does charging the Lodestar take?"

"About one hour." Menadion said.

"A one-for-one rate?" The Hydra was flabbergasted.

"Yeah, and during both hours, the tower is barely operational." Menadion nodded. "Last resort, remember? Also, it made it impossible for one of my apprentices to use the Lodestar behind my back.

"Anyone inside the tower knew whenever the floor was being used because everything else suddenly stopped working. Any shady business was immediately reported to me, and several mad mages were stopped before they could abuse the Lodestar."

"I hate it when someone else is right." Faluel grumbled.

"There’s nothing else here. Let’s move on to the upper floors." Solus said, taking point.

The crystal mines and the Crucible hadn’t changed much. The two floors had gotten bigger, and their efficiency had improved, but turning silver into Adamant and red crystals into violet would still take years.

Davross and white crystals would take even longer.

The same had happened to all the underground floors, with the exception of the Cannon Vault. It could still store only seven spells, but now it took the single units less time to recharge.

The floor improved the most after the breakthrough was the Factory, which could now craft anything that Lith and Solus had a blueprint for and required the power of a single violet-cored Awakened.

The second new underground floor was located above the Workshop, but beneath the Forge.

"A fair warning." Solus sighed heavily. "You are going to hate this floor’s guts, Lith."

"Is it fluorescent pink?" He asked, receiving a shake of the head in reply. "You lost me, Solus. Unless this thing is about cheesy romance stories, I don’t see why I should hate it."

"Remember your words, because I will." Solus opened the door, revealing dozens of display cabinets lined up against the walls of the room.

It reminded everyone of the Armory, but instead of real artifacts, the cases stored wooden props shaped after the enchanted items that Lith and Solus had ever examined or crafted.

The ceiling, instead, was covered by what looked like an orrery that filled the room with golden light.

"Wait a second, those are runes, not stars." Lith pointed out. "We have discovered some of them, and a few are my personal creation."

"Correct." Menadion replied. "Those are all the runes you and Solus have ever learned or discovered, and this is the Runescape."

Lith didn’t know what the name meant, but he felt his guts twisting in a knot.

"Here, the tower sifts through the runes to find those most suited for the craft at hand and can also find the runes most attuned with a client in need of a Blade Weapon." Solus said, and she could have sworn to hear him curse.

"The Runescape is connected to the Ears of Menadion. Together, they can try all possible combinations and configurations of runes before starting the Runesmithing preparatory phase.

"If none of those currently available work but come close enough, the Runescape can even perform limited research by itself. It alters and combines the runes in its database to find new ones that might be a perfect match."

Solus paused for a bit until Lith’s rage subsided before dealing the final blow.

"Once it has completed its task, the Runescape can also perform the Runesmithing phase, saving us the time and effort needed to check and move the rune patterns according to our client’s mana flow when they weave spells with true magic and body casting."

Lith signaled for a time-out and Warped far away from the tower before displaying his mastery of Tyris’ universal language in the form of a long streak of swear words.

"Wow!" Faluel said while everyone waited for Lith’s return. "If only you had your breakthrough a few days earlier, we would have skipped all that long, boring procedure to find the perfect rune sequences for Gungnir."

"Yeah." Solus sighed. "We could have also tried to find the runes on our own and then confronted our results with the Runescape’s. It would have allowed us to put our abilities to the test and check where there is still space for improvement."

"I have no idea what your two are talking about, but I understand why Lith is angry." Raaz said. "My boy can rarely catch a break."

"I’m back." Lith had his usual cool and level voice again. "What’s next?"

"The first of the two new upper floors. Follow me." Menadion said.

They walked past the Dream House (AN: the living quarters on the ground floor), and the Library.

"The next room is nothing fancy, but it will be of great help to you in the future." She said as she opened the door. "I called this the Fusion Reactor, and for once, Solus had no problem with it, so she and Lith are keeping the name."

A huge metal vase-shaped contraption stood in the middle of the room and took up most of the space. Its head and base were connected to the ceiling and floor through several thick metal cables that disappeared in the golden-veined white marble.

Its surface was studded with white crystals of different sizes, but it was clear it wasn’t by design. The incomplete state of the tower also affected the Fusion Reactor, preventing it from reaching full power.

Inside the metal case was a large crystal tank of the same shape, visible through a circular opening in the middle.

"That’s the biggest mana crystal I’ve ever seen." Faluel whistled in approval.

"Except it’s not a mana crystal." Fyrwal shook her head. "Solus?"

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