3033 Sparring Partners (Part 1)
"By lunchtime, I hope." Valeron screamed in Kamila's ears, being older than Elysia only made him louder.
His fear of abandonment made things bad for him as well. Going from glued to Lith 24/7 to not seeing him for hours at a time terrified the baby boy. After all, it was the same thing that had happened with Jormun.
"Shush, Val. Daddy is fine." Kamila rocked the baby before turning to Elina. "With Meln's threat and the search for those guys who stole the Mouth, Lith and Solus can't delay their training any longer. They need to master the Prime Engine."
***
Blood Desert at the same time.
Practice also required secrecy. It was of paramount importance that whatever Lith and Solus learned about the tower's offensive form remained a secret.
This way, as long as they killed their current enemy, they would always have the element of surprise on their side when facing the next. It was the reason they asked Salaark for a secluded spot with a powerful mana geyser and a suitable sparring partner for the Prime Engine.
"Well, little brother, what can I say? I hate you." Sinmara, the Phoenix of Darkness, had volunteered for the task, and her brother Surtr with her.
Lith was a Divine Beast with a bright violet core so only someone with a white core like the twins or a Guardian could get him on the ropes while the tower supported him.
Yet Guardians were too powerful and Lith wanted to test the Prime Engine against someone who would actually get hurt by his spells, not just pretend to. So he had accepted Sinmara's and Surtr's offer even though there was still rust between them.
The twins wanted to make up for not helping him to rescue Phloria. As for Lith, he knew that unless he worked on their relationship, he would hold his grudge forever.
"That's a big word." The Dragon of Light jotted down his findings while his sister fought. "Envy is a better fit. You feel no real ill-will toward him. You just wish you too had a tower like that and so do I."
"No, right now hate fits the bill." Sinmara waited for her injured wings to regenerate before reverting to her human appearance. "That thing is still incomplete yet it gave me a run for my money."
The colossus in front of her was humanoid in appearance and as tall as her, reaching 40 meters (130 feet) in height. The Prime Engine looked like something in between a golem and a machine with gears at the joints and exhaust ports on its back.
The tower by itself was 30 meters (100 feet) high, but that was because there were as many floors above the ground as below. Even after rearranging itself to have arms and legs, the tower had enough mass left to grow to the size of a white-cored Divine Beast.
"What did you expect?" Surtr snorted. "It's a mage tower. It's supposed to have a power comparable to a white core and Menadion's tower was the best tower on Mogar. Even if it's incomplete, it's also up to date with modern magic.
"If you add Lith's bright violet core and Solus' bright blue, they are bound to beat you in raw power. Also, don't forget you went easy on them because this is a practice session, not a death match."
"It still hurts my pride." Sinmara grunted.
She wasn't wearing her equipment and had avoided using her millennia of battle experience to end the match quickly. Otherwise, Lith and Solus would have learned nothing and lacked the time to get accustomed to the Engine's control system.
"This is bullshit!" Lith didn't share Sinmara's view on the match. "The controls suck, the Eyes made my eyes water most of the fight, and we got pummelled."
The grey stone of the tower was full of streaks of gold-veined white marble and cracks from the Phoenix of Darkness' spells and blows. Just like Sinmara, the Prime Engine was repairing itself at a speed visible to the naked eye thanks to the power of the mana geyser below its feet.
"You are absolutely right. This is terrible!" Solus' voice oozed sarcasm and mock indignation. "How could we not steamroll a millennia-old white-cored Phoenix on our first try? I mean, it's not like we're missing the Ears and the gods know how many floors.
"My mother was such a lousy Forgemaster and the tower is a piece of crap!"
"I'm sorry. I didn't mean that." Lith sighed, taking off the Eyes first to give relief to his pounding head. "I just didn't expect the controls to be so complicated."
He took the Mouth off next, then the Hands, and lastly split Ragnar?k from the Fury. Then, he tried to stand up from the stone throne but discovered to still feel dizzy and disoriented.
"I did." Solus leaned her head back against her throne with her eyes closed, getting used to moving her real body instead of the Engine again. "Guess we know where Pharek took his inspiration for his secret lab.
"I bet that if we had the Ears, the Engine's controls would be much easier to handle."
The stone thrones connected directly to the hosts' brains to allow them to move the tower's battle form like their own bodies. The thrones also linked the pieces of Menadion Set to the tower's floors that fueled their abilities.
While sitting on the control seat of the Prime Engine, the enchantments of the various floors could be used like spells and conjured in an instant as if they were part of the power core of the artifact with which they were connected.
Also, since world energy was used instead of mana and it flowed through the tower instead of Lith's body, casting the most powerful spells of his grimoire didn't consume his energy and didn't cause mana abuse.
While in the Prime Engine, Lith and Solus could use Tower and Blade Tier spells with no burden on either their cores or bodies. At the same time, however, the sensory overload caused them a blinding headache.
The Eyes collected information about everything around them, the Mouth constantly suggested them spells and tactics that they had to approve or reject, while the Hands required them to choose which floors keep active and which depower based on the situation at hand.
The tower core made things even worse. It flooded their vision and minds with status updates about the Engine's structural integrity after every hit and prompted them to use some enchantments and avoid others to redirect the energy needed for the repairs.
"So do I." Lith sighed. "I bet that Menadion gave the Ears synaesthesia exactly to avoid the sensory overload from using too many enchantments at once. As it is, we can process information only through our eyes which burdens our brains a lot."
He had fused his mind with Solus, hoping that everything that the Void had learned during his brief use of the Ears was enough to retrieve its blueprints, but to no avail. The tower had simply produced an artifact that looked like the Ears but had none of its functions.
It was a hollow shell based on their memories.
