2005 Memory Crystals (Part 1)

The second array stored inside Solus' Mouth of Menadion acted as an external circuit that sapped the excess energy of the partial cores. The temporarily weakened fragments managed to match with the others, forming a perfect sphere.

While Solus and Lith worked on the power core, the others used Menadion's Mana Well technique to strengthen the Light Cocoon array.

With each blow of the hammer, their mana passed from the Fury into their Forge which stored and amplified the mana by mixing it with the flow of world energy that the magical metal constantly drew in.

A second strike of the hammer would recover the amplified energy and change its signature into Lith's. Once a Fury was close to being overloaded, its wielder imbued the accumulated mana inside the Cocoon, bringing the power core one step closer to completion.

The partial cores slowly fused into a single energy mass where countless strings of runes completed each other and flowed in unison, like musicians who played different instruments to form the same melody.

Once the power core became stable, the Light Cocoon array returned the stolen energy, making the sphere grow to the size of a bull. Yet it was too big even for the Vagrash's corpse to contain so they had to compress the power core until it was reduced to the size of a bowling ball.

"I don't know about you guys, but I've already used Invigoration several times." Quylla said amid pants. "Can we take a break?"

"I wish." Lith replied. "That array and my focus are the only things that keep the power core together. Even if you rest, Solus and I can't afford it. Holding so many enchantments in place drains me by the second, I can't wait hours."

"What about putting it in stasis like we did before?" Protector asked.

"It doesn't work like that." Faluel shook her head. "The partial cores were stable enough to be controlled by just willpower. If we put the power core in a stasis array, once it's dispelled the residual energy would mess with the Light Cocoon array and boom."

"Out of curiosity, how does Orion manage to craft pieces like War without Invigoration?" The Hydra asked.

"He always uses pseudo cores, not power cores for that." Phloria replied.

"When I helped him craft something with a power core, however, I noticed that he uses three arrays at a time. One to fill the vessel with world energy, one to keep the power core stable, and another of which I failed to understand the purpose."

"Couldn't you study them?" Lith clicked his tongue in disapproval.

"First, Dad never lets me get near anything but the basic Forgemastering circle. Second, I'm too busy pumping the world energy he needs to pay it attention. Third, I'm not going to steal from my father."

Her tone didn't leave space for arguing so Lith raised his hands in apology.

"Okay. Use Invigoration one more time and then we'll move onto the final phase." Solus said.

Once everyone signaled her to be ready, Solus dispelled the Light Cocoon array, redirecting the world energy that had been fueling it into the Golem. Then, she and Tista combined their Mouths to conjure a series of concentric arrays.

In its broken state, the tower couldn't handle the full power of the mana geyser. The arrays gathered the excess energy around the Forgemasters, boosting their recovery abilities.

All of those present had reached at least the bright blue core, developing vortexes in their bodies. The thick layer of world energy that the Mouths had conjured would be quickly absorbed during the rest of the Forgemastering procedure and reduce the frequency with which they would need to use Invigoration.

On top of that, Solus and Faluel used the Hands to channel part of the excess world energy into the Forges, always keeping them filled to the brim in order to accelerate their mana amplification ability.

"I'm not going to lie, I'm happy that the Master got his hands on the Mouth.' Faluel said with a tinge of envy in her voice. "If we ever fight one of his goons, I call dibs of the first Mouth we retrieve."

Even a Hydra with seven heads couldn't achieve what Solus and Tista had done with the Mouth of Menadion. 

"I make no promises. Now less yammering and more hammering." Lith said while he started to use the Mana Well technique as well.

With each strike of the Fury, the power core seeped a bit inside the Adamant coated corpse of the Vagrash. The two bundles of energy clashed, creating bumps and indentures in the power core.

Usually, Lith would have been forced to stop and fix it, but this time he could share his Twin Forge technique with seven powerful mages.

The Forgemastering method combined a mind link, the schematics of the core shared by the tower's Library, and the fact that they all had the same energy signature to create a hive mind.

It allowed the eight Awakened to assist each other and combine their strength when necessary.

The moment an imperfection appeared in the power core, Twin Forge would highlight it to the nearest person, splitting the work evenly. Each member of the group knew what they had to focus on and ignored the rest.

By working in unison, the time needed to restore the shape of the power core before dealing the next hit was reduced to barely more than one second.

On top of that, the mind link allowed them to coordinate their movements, waiting for the moment when all the copies of the Fury were almost overloaded and pouring their mana against the Forgemastering circle at the same moment.

The mystical runes covering the Golem and the mana circulatory system facilitated the process, allowing the mana from the power core and the world energy from the corpse to freely flow into each other.

It also caused an amplification effect that made the power core grow in size and power, making it harder to both fix the newly formed imperfections and to further the merging process.

Yet thanks to Twin Forge, the eight Awakened worked as one and after being amplified by the Mana Well technique, the collective might of their mana cores outclassed the power core's by a wide margin.

'The merging has reached the point of no return.' Solus warned the others as half of the power core had disappeared under the Adamant. 'Time for phase four.'

The arrays changed again. Now instead of pushing the core inside the artifact, the magical formations slowed the process. Now that the power core had bonded with the mana circulatory system, the resistance it encountered had almost disappeared.

On the other hand, however, imperfections would still continue to form until the end of the process but now the Forgemasters couldn't see the part of the power core hidden inside the Golem.

The magic Lith had imbued the construct with blinded their mystical senses and using Invigoration would have required physical contact. Too bad that stepping inside the Forgemastering circle would have dispelled its energy in the form of a massive explosion.

The only solution was to rotate the power core so as to leave exposed one half at a time and fix them both before continuing the merging process.