Lith and Solus had no such problem since they had the same energy signature, but for any other mage, it was the only way they had to craft powerful artifacts with the help of one or more colleagues.
It was also how the fake mages of the Kingdom had enchanted the six great Academies and how Inxialot's Adamant sphere had been capable of empowering the golems back in Urgamakka.
The sphere itself was a teaching tool, showing to whoever was smart enough to understand its workings how to properly arrange different pseudo cores and how to align their common runes.
Lith had decided to start off with ten pseudo cores while Solus would add five more, but he soon noticed that they needed a change of plans. The strain from keeping the world energy in the circle and outside the staff already took too much of her focus.
Any more and she would not be capable of participating in the Forgemastering process.
'Either you needed to rest more after treating the crystals or we need to find a new way to handle the Forgemastering circle. Something similar happened when we enchanted the Davross, but it was nothing like this.
'I wonder if it's because of the altered crystals or of the Yggdrasill wood. Either way, this is just an experiment. We have already learned a lot, ten pseudo cores are enough.' He said via their mind link.
'Thanks.' Solus replied while conjuring the Hands of Menadion to get a better grip on the world energy. 'Damn, I hate to use raw strength rather than finesse. It feels like I'm kicking down a door because I'm too dumb to find the handle.
'Luckily, I had Friya and Tista wear the Eyes while we work so that once we are done, I can understand what we are doing wrong.'
The magical gemstones of the Hands allowed her to regain full control over the Forgemastering circle, stopping the Yggdrasil branch from leeching any more world energy.
Meanwhile, Lith used fake magic, true magic, and body casting at the same time to conjure the ten pseudo cores as quickly as he could. Weaving so many powerful enchantments and keeping them unstable on purpose took a great toll on him.
On top of that, he couldn't start crafting the power core until all of its pieces were ready and properly aligned. Using three casting methods at once was exhausting, but weaving the pseudo cores slowly would require even more energy.
Also, as soon as he completed the power core, it would remain stable long enough for Lith to regain his strength with Abyssal Gaze before injecting it inside the Yggdrasill branch.
Witch each pseudo core that Lith weaved, the burden on his focus grew as the unstable rune patters tried to deform in order to fill the gaps. Keeping them from collapsing ate his mana by the second, making him haste even more.
Once all ten pseudo cores were ready, he had them turn into a series of concentric spheres, each one slightly smaller than the next and bigger than the previous, aligning them so that the common runes filled the gaps.
The moment he was done, the pseudo cores naturally merged into a power core, needing Lith's guiding hand solely to nudge them from time to time. The different spells started to work in harmony, akin to several musicians that had played each a different tune before becoming part of an orchestra.
The final result was bigger than the sum of its single parts, creating a radiant sphere of white energy.
'I can't believe this!' Lith thought while using his breathing technique. 'Back when I crafted the DoLorean it took three people to make a power core from three complex pseudo cores. Yet now I made one from ten pseudo cores and all by myself.'
'It's all thanks to your violet core.' Solus said with a tinge of envy. 'The stronger you get, the more you can tap into the tower's true potential. Without the auxiliary cores, the amount of energy that you are handling now would have blown up your body.
'The tower amplifies your powers, allowing you to go past your physical and magical limits, but only up to the point its regenerative abilities can keep up with the damage that the excess energy inflicts upon you.'
'Are you ready for the final step?' Lith hit the now charged Forge with his hammer, retrieving the accumulated power and starting a new cycle.
'Ready when you are.' Solus replied while doing the same.
Lith pushed the power core toward the Yggdrasill branch, distant enough so that the two energy masses wouldn't reject each other, but close enough to trigger the Yggdrasill wood's amplification process.
Any magical material with its own mana flow would enhance the enchantments it was imbued with. On paper it was great, but reality begged to differ. The same effect would also strengthen the repulsion between the material and the power core, making the Forgemastering process more difficult.
Forcing a mass of mana inside an inanimate object usually encountered a great resistance that deformed the pseudo core.
The Forgemaster had to constantly fix all the imperfections that arose as the pseudo core slowly seeped inside the vessel and the slightest flaw in the final product would make it a useless failure.
When Lith had first worked on Adamant, he had learned that he could only create a core with 50% of his true power. Yet the use of crystals and the amplification effect of the metal would bring the core to 150%.
If Lith used any more mana, the Adamant would bring the pseudo core's energy mass beyond what he could handle even with Solus's help.
Now, however, after reaching the violet and practicing Menadion's Forgemastering technique that Salaark had passed onto them, Lith and Solus could use up to 80% of his power.
By combining their strength and thanks to the Davross' amplification effect, the resulting pseudo core would reach a mana capacity almost twice as Lith's.
"By the Great Mother!" All of those present said in unison.
The world energy flowing from the Yggdrasill branch into the power core made it grow in size as they expected, but instead of being rejected, the power core was being slowly sucked inside the staff.
'What the heck is happening? This has never happened with the Davross.' Lith said while needing sheer willpower to stop the process and fix the bumps and indentures that appeared on the power core's surface as the altered crystals and the Evil Eyes drained its energy.
'Maybe it's because the Davross is inorganic, or maybe it's because we never used altered crystals before. Questions can wait until we are done. Now focus on the problem at hand before it blows up in our face.' Solus replied.
She could see with mana sense that just like Bonding the crystals with the staff had rejuvenated its natural mana circulatory system, the power core was moving on its own towards the point where once the life essence of the World Tree resided.
It was as if the wood still remembered being alive and it was using the Forgemastering process to heal itself.. Instead of rejecting the power core, the branch was guiding it to the center of the branch so that it would replace its missing mana core.
