Chapter 4148  Staff Meeting (Part 1)

The Elemental Storage shaped the pseudo cores out of the purest elemental energy without exposing a single rune and kept them stable as they assembled into the power core.

"Damn, I can't see a thing." Fyrwal said, her Life Vision blinded by the Storage's raw power.

"That's the idea." Solus nodded. "Mom?"

"On it." Ripha conjured the first Forgemastering circle and filled it with the world energy coming from the mana geyser.

The air inside started to crackle, and the amplification process began. The Sage Staff and the power core orbited around each other like twin stars, dancing in the air until the power core tripled its original size.

Each pseudo core carried the full might of Lith's power core, something that it would have been impossible to handle for the nine Forgemasters if not for the Vital Storm boosting their abilities.

"On my mark." Lith said. "Mark!"

The Forgemastering process as a whole was long and complicated, so Lith and Solus had broken it down into short, straightforward steps and divided it among nine people according to their skill level.

Menadion switched the Forgemastering circle every time that the procedure entered a different phase, easing the burden on the mages and weakening the resistance that the power core offered to their mana.

She also used a mind link to signal everyone when and where an imperfection in their assigned section of the power core was about to appear. The bumps and indentures formed with the same pattern as in the test run, but this time they were fixed as soon as they appeared.

There was no permanent distortion in the mana flow, and the power core lost its perfect spherical form only for a heartbeat at a time. The hammer blows fell in a frenzy, painting the Forge with a violet light that rarely abated.

At some point, the kids even forgot that the stone walls of the tower were supposed to be grey. Even though they understood little of what they watched, the display of pure might and elemental fury captivated them to the point they failed to notice the passage of time.

It took hours to make the power core disappear beneath the Sage Staff's wood, but when the hammers stopped their song, it seemed to the kids that only seconds had passed.

This time, as the power core settled where the auxiliary core of the World Tree was supposed to be, the Yggdrasill wood shone with such a strong inner light that it turned bright orange.

The Balor's eyes and elemental crystals emitted pillars of elemental light instead of just shining. For a moment, it seemed like the Yggdrasill wood's thin frame wasn't enough to contain the power core and was about to blow.

The moment passed, and the Sage Staff returned to normal. If not for the heat haze surrounding it, one might have thought they had just imagined everything.

"Good gods!" Quylla said from the peanut gallery. "That was one heck of a light show."

"Can we come down now, Big Brother?" Aran asked, but Lith couldn't hear him.

"You need to push this button, dear." Salaark pointed at the intercom-like grill on the wall.

"Sure thing." Lith replied after Aran repeated his request.

"And I'm imprinting this!" Solus grabbed the Sage Staff the moment Fire Vision told her it was no longer dangerous and injected it with her mana. "Let's see how it works."

She spun and swirled the staff, having the seven crystals on its crown bolt into the air. Runes filled the empty spaces along and within the magic circle, forming several arrays in quick succession.

"Farm!" Solus said when she tried and failed to move the elemental crystals after they had formed an array. "The position of a magical formation is fixed anyway. No Elemental Flow for us. I can move the crystals only after dispelling the runes."

"It's still a work of art." Lith shrugged.

"It's also too similar to Vorgh's staff. There is no way people are going to miss the resemblance." Friya pointed out. "Aren't you afraid of what the Royals might think when they see the Sage Staff changing so drastically right after my wedding?

"What if they suspect you of stealing state secrets?"

"Who, me?" Lith replied with the most mock-offended tone he was capable of. "First, I've met Vorgh a few times in the past, and my skills as a Forgemaster have never taken a sudden leap forward just because of that.

"Second, why would they suspect me when they have Ripha?" Lith pointed at her. "I just invited Vorgh to the demonstration of my Indech abilities. I never asked him to put on such an outstanding performance.

"It's not my fault if Ripha Menadion, genius Forgemaster and founder of the Royal Forgemaster order, was so impressed by the staff developed from her teachings and decided to craft something similar for her only living heir."

"Wow." Quylla said in amazement. "I've known you for years, and I still can't believe how quickly you can spin these kinds of stories off the top of your head. I can almost hear Vorgh getting blamed for the Sage Staff."

"He should have been more careful." Menadion laughed. "Everybody knows I'm just that good."

"Poor Vorgh, though. This could put a dent in his career." Solus almost felt guilty for the Major General. "We'll try to keep the new Staff a secret for as long as we can, but no promises!"

Then, she felt the steady flow of mana coming from her brand-new weapon, and the guilt was gone.

"Great job, everyone." Lith said. "Except that for Fyrwal, Faluel, and Quylla, dinner is on me."

"Hey!" Quylla said while everyone laughed at her expense. "That's not funny!"

"Cookies!" The Sage Staff roared with a voice akin to the popping of dried wood thrown in the fireplace. "Me want cookies for dinner! Ice cream too!"

"It talks?" Fyrwal was flabbergasted, staring at the six blinking eyes that looked at the tower and its occupants with curiosity.

"Who cares about that?" Solus whined. "What really matters is that I got a talking weapon and the first thing it spoke about is food! You can play shocked all you want, but I know that you'll never let me hear the end of this."

"She does have a point." Lith nodded. "Grandma, how is this possible?"

"Congratulations on achieving such a rare feat, Featherling." The Guardian appeared out of thin air as if she had been there all along and had just walked through an invisible curtain. "Very few can give personality to a weapon.

"To do that, the Forgemaster must be incredibly skilled and pour their heart and soul into their masterpiece."

"Yeah, right." Solus grunted. "What about the food part?"

"Well, that's on you, Featherling." Salaark chuckled. "You crafted the seven pseudo cores. You chose the spells, shaped them with your mana, and then let the Yggdrasill triple whatever spark of yourself you poured into them."

"Less talking, more yumming!" The Sage Staff's voice became softer, resembling the rustling of leaves. "Me hungry! Mom hungry!"

"I'm not…" Solus' words died in her throat as the six eyes became misted with tears. "I mean, sure. I am your mother. Just don't say it around. Bad people want to hurt me."