Lith’s second attempt was to use the Builder only as an exoskeleton so that by pouring more mana into the Matter, it would increase its density.
Keeping the Matter formless, akin to water filling the vessel shaped by the Builder mana, relieved the stress the previous method inflicted upon his mind and allowed him to focus on making the exoskeleton as hard as he could.
Lith then threw his marble against the nearest wall, watching it bounce and roll on the floor instead of shattering.
“I did it! Nalrond, I did it!” All his joy and enthusiasm couldn’t get past the Hush dome, no matter how the Rezar wished for a break.
“Shut up. I’m still working.” Faluel’s voice had an edge from the first time since they met her.
The Hydra was a good friend of Scarlett the Scorpicore, one of the three known Light Masters in the entirety of the Kingdom. Yet the two beasts didn’t exchange their secrets and Faluel had never seen a Light Master in action.
Nonetheless, being beaten to the punch by a youth and one of her apprentices at that, irked her beyond belief.
Solus ignored Lith’s words and focused solely on the problem at hand.
‘When we deflected Nalrond’s heat ray, we conjured ice to neutralize the fire element and used the Skinwalker armor to take the hit. The ray packed both heat and kinetic energy, but only the latter came from the light element.
‘A construct is akin to a tool. It can be used over and over. A ray is akin to a bullet, instead, and can only be used once. Probably because it shatters on impact.
‘The question is if heat rays are the equivalent of tiers from one to three, then doesn’t that mean we’re actually trying to reproduce with first magic a tier four if not a tier five spell? If the bulled is comparable to Plague Arrow, how do I turn it into Death Call?’ She thought.
Plague Arrow was one of the simplest and most useful darkness spells Lith had created as a child that consisted of a mass of highly condensed darkness element. Death Call, instead, created four shadow limbs that Lith could shape and move at will.
‘Light is but the other side of darkness so the same principles should apply.’ Instead of creating a skeleton inside her construct, Solus used the Builder mana to form a network of channels inside the Matter, akin to a bloodstream.
Something that wasn’t fixed nor hard, just dense enough to not shatter and evenly spread through the hard-light construct. That way, it would convey her will over time and allow her to reshape her creations as she saw fit according to the circumstances.
“I think I did it as well.” Solus’s construct not only didn’t shatter once thrown, but it also returned to her hand and then shapeshifted into a small coin.
“How did you do that?” Lith tried and failed to do the same.
“Answer his question and I’ll kick both your asses.” Faluel said the moment Solus opened her mouth. “Nalrond, come here! Girls, take five.” Her voice roared through the lair and made most of her disciples fall to the ground.
“Please, stop. My life force is about to break.” Quylla’s mouth tasted like dirt and the mud covering her body was drenched in sweat.
Nalrond tried to speak, but his lungs burned too much. He sat down to catch his breath and fainted on Faluel’s desk with a thud.
“Weaklings. They slacked off for years and then complain for barely six hours of exercise.” The Hydra took a deep breath of Invigoration, keeping the mana for herself and giving the vitality to Nalrond instead.
“Please, no! Let me go home or you’ll live with the shame of forcing a grown man to cry.” Nalrond said the moment he woke up, afraid that the nightmare was about to resume.
“Relax, we’re done for today. I can’t use Invigoration anymore and your life forces are really about to break. Just tell us which one of us did it right and why.” Faluel returned to her human form as all the golems left their victims free before turning themselves off.
Nalrond nodded and took Lith’s marble between his forefinger and his thumb.
“Close, but no cigar. This is no construct, just the base for an elemental ray. I’m too tired to explain, so I’ll show it to you.” The Rezar clenched it between his fingers until the hard exterior cracked.
Without a skeleton, the Matter faded in the air so fast that Lith didn’t manage to save a speck of energy.
“You need to put something on the inside, or once given shape, the construct can’t shapeshift nor conserve its mana.”
Then, he did the same to Solus’s marble, shattering it. Solus managed to reform it a couple of times before losing her grip on the accumulated mana.
“Excellent result for a first try. The internal control layer wasn’t evenly distributed, so each time I destroyed your construct, it leaked mana. Work on that. Faluel?” He said.
“Yes?” She wore a warm smile.
“Where’s your construct?”
“Do you mean this?” She created a golden pearl that quickly shapeshifted into a small lotus flower.
“It’s just perfect!” Nalrond was flabbergasted. He had never seen someone succeed so fast. The flower and its petals would bend under the pressure instead of being crushed. “How did you do it?”
“I cheated, more or less. I focused this whole time on controlling the spells but failed to make one. After putting my seven heads to work together on what I discovered and make sense of your earlier comments about Lith’s and Solus’s constructs, figuring the rest was easy.” She said.
“Easy my ass!” Lith and Nalrond said in unison.
Lith had still no idea what he had done wrong and Nalrond had needed more than one lesson to get to Faluel’s same point even after seeing Light Mastery practiced on a daily basis back in his village.
“Told you guys. Experience tramples all, even talent.” Despite her bright attitude, Faluel looked very tired.
Learning an unknown branch of magic while fighting two opponents of Phloria’s caliber and constantly using Invigoration to refill four people with vitality for six hours had taken a great toll even on someone that powerful.
When the girls finally joined them, their pitiful state moved even Lith. Tista and Phloria were still black and blue from their last sparring sessions. They had dirt all over their hair filled, they wheezed like bellows rather than breathing, and the light in their eyes was dim as if they could faint at any moment.
Quylla’s clothes were drenched in so much sweat that not even the Skinwalker armor’s self-cleaning properties couldn’t keep up, making it stuck to her body along with her hair.
Her eyes filled with desperation and homesickness made her look like a puppy abandoned under heavy rain.
“I have good news, guys. No lessons tomorrow.” Faluel said.
The physical training group would have danced with joy if only their bodies allowed them to. They expressed their approval by closing their eyes and clenching their fists.
“As I already explained Nalrond, my teaching method doesn’t rely on detailed instructions. I’ll give you the basics for each discipline and then it’s up to you to develop it on your own.
