"Thank you very much, Friya." Lith left the cooking to Nalrond and proceed to examine his prize.
None of the crystals was as big or pure as that he had taken from the orc shaman, but they were all the best crystals that money could buy and each one of them was worth hundreds of gold coins.
"Those babies are just perfect. Solus, put them to grow in the mines. As soon as we are done with the Forgemastering lessons, we'll use them to craft a new and improved armor.
"I can't wait to put to use the Adamant Forge Zolgrish gave me and all those precious ingredients we received from the Dryad years ago. That plus all the practice with Origin Flames should allow us to craft a masterpiece." Lith said.
"Do you really have an Adamant Forge?" Phloria said. That day, shocking news kept coming one after another.
"What are Origin Flames and what do they have to do with Forgemastering?" Quylla asked.
Solus Warped the Ernas sisters with her in the mines, located on the second underground floor of the tower, to plant the crystals while explaining the situation to them.
The moment the gemstones touched the walls, their lower half was swallowed by the stone while the still visible part grew small roots along the lines of the nearby bricks. The world energy flowing through the tower started to refine the crystals, and their luminescence increased by several folds as if they had never been dug out Mogar.
"This thing is huge!" Friya said while looking at the Adamant Forge, a solid metal block one meter (33') long and half a meter (16,4') high and wide.
"Not only that. Zolgrish made it so that it can shapeshift at will. This way, we can know exactly how much metal we have and if it's enough for the piece we are working on." Solus had it shapeshift into two suits of armor with a blade and a shield, leaving even some spare metal.
"If Lith's flames can further refine the Adamant and his Forgemastering succeeds, calling the final product a masterpiece will be an understatement." For the first time since she had learned about Solus's existence, Phloria let go of her conflicting feelings for Lith and focused only at the marvels at hand.
"Gods, I wish I was born a hybrid as well." Phloria's love for magic surpassed everything but that for her family. "Do you think I could watch while you perform the enchantment?"
"Maybe. You have to ask Lith. You know how he likes his secrets." Solus said a split second before her eyes turned pitch-black. "Lunch is ready. You can ask him now if you want."
The sight of Solus's golden eyes changing colors made Phloria come back down out of the clouds and ruined her mood. She liked Solus, but Phloria had trouble discerning the nature of their own relationship.
'Is she going to be my friend, my rival, or just the member of a love triangle I was never aware of? Gods, and here I thought my life was messed up before.' She thought.
Meanwhile, on the upper levels, Lith and Nalrond were exchanging tips about cooking and magic.
"During the last few days, I understood a few things." Nalrond said. "Unlike my tribe who became complacent over the centuries, fake mages have never stopped improving.
"They can't use Spirit Magic, yet they've found countless ways to work around their limitations and produce the same effects."
"Indeed. Even I used their teachings as a crutch until now. Without the Forgemastering ink, I would've never managed to craft my rings." Lith inwardly griped at the idea of having consumed for them all the purified Orichalcum he had bought from Xedros.
'On the one hand, if I waited to make them, now I would be able to craft a much better version. On the other hand, I would be dead. I guess I'll take it as experience.' Lith thought.
"My point exactly. I don't have the time to attend an academy, so I wanted to ask you if you can teach me fake magic." Nalrond said. "I realized how lacking I am in the elements other than light and fire.
"Learning fake magic can help me to find a way to train my cores and maybe a way to access to Spirit Magic, if not even Awaken."
"Sure, but why the sudden interest in Awakening?" Lith asked.
"I've given a lot of thought about why even though Werepeople don't belong to the Fallen races they have never made any progress in fixing their dual nature. I believe the reason is that as long as our cores slumber, they'll never be able to become one.
"Think about what Faluel showed us today. Friya's core is static, unable to change or evolve past its natural boundaries whereas yours not only is alive, but it's also affecting your body development." Nalrond said.
"Yes, but remember that Awakened or not, all hybrids have to get rid of one of their natures. What if by Awakening your cores you have to choose between your bodies, or even worse, the conflict kills you?" Lith said.
"Yours are good points, but I can't let fear stop me. I can't live with Protector forever. When the time comes and I decide to settle down, I don't want my children to feel like I do every single day. Like there's no place on Mogar where I belong." Nalrond said.
The girls' arrival stopped their discussion. The Rezar didn't know nor trusted them enough to share with them his worries for the future. He didn't actually trust Lith that much, but between their common hybrid nature and all the time they spent together, Lith was the closest thing to a cousin Nalrond had.
They spent lunch talking about how to reach a violet core and the time after that sharing all the runes they respectively knew. In theory, Lith could already achieve the violet level, he simply had no idea how.
As for the runes, now that he knew that a pseudo core was nothing but runes shaped with Spirit Magic that determined its properties and complexity, there were countless things that Lith wanted to experiment with.
During the years, he had always wanted to craft original pieces, but he had always lacked the means to do it. At least until that day.
"Man, I'm so envious of the Awakened." Quylla said while looking at Lith shaping pseudo cores between his hands, checking their properties and stability.
"Just to find the proper combination of runes I need to craft a piece first and then study it with Forgemastering spells whereas you can create a pseudo core on the fly. This way, you don't waste precious metal and save a lot of time."
"True, but that stands only for pseudo cores that don't require ingredients. Also, not even I can check how different pseudo cores react with magical metals unless I Forgemaster something.
"By the way, none of you but Friya seemed surprised when Faluel showed us the differences between the crafting methods." Lith said.
"I can't share with you Dad's secrets but there's no point lying about our knowledge." Phloria said. "With our wands, we can see pseudo cores and we can even study them."
