Energy-Gathering Core

"Yes, I'm a Farstrider. Alleria is too. Vereesa chose the path every Windrunner walks—just much earlier than most. Seems someone had quite an influence on her."

There was far more than curiosity in Sylvanas's eyes. Shane felt as though he might be devoured. The female elf lying on the bed turned over, pressing her ample chest beneath her, then faced Shane on her stomach and provocatively stuck out the tip of her tongue to lick her upper lip.

"Who is prettier, Vereesa or me?"

Shane's lips suddenly went dry, his throat felt like he had swallowed coals, and his heart pounded violently.

"User, is female elf Sylvanas doing yoga? No, yoga is hooliganism without the purpose of reproduction. Then, with reproduction as the purpose, is it courtship? Is user Sylvanas courting?"

"Pfft~~~" Shane burst out laughing at the outrageous remark. He understood now. If he had failed to restrain himself just now and let the female elf lead him by the nose, any slight move would have brought a storm of mockery like, "Lustful fool with delusions of grandeur, does your nerve extend across the boundless ocean from the Eastern Kingdoms to Kalimdor? You dare make a move on two Windrunners? Alleria will know tomorrow. Just wait to die." She would have thoroughly chewed him out.

"Good thing too, hahahaha."

"Tch, how boring." Seeing Shane laugh so happily, Sylvanas angrily rolled off the bed and jumped out the window.

"User, is user Sylvanas courting?" Eye of Truth asked again.

"No. Just treat it as the same kind of behavior as yoga," Shane replied with a laugh.

With no one else to disturb him, he continued his evening practice. Since advancing to the fifth circle and maintaining three sets of spell orbs above his head, he had begun another exercise at Eye of Truth's suggestion. He optimized Pyroblast to its utmost, compressing fire energy until the flames contained the greatest possible energy within a given volume. After compressing it to the critical point of equilibrium, he slowly released the energy, ensuring the violent fire energy caused no harm to its surroundings. This trained his control.

When he cast Pyroblast with compressed energy, the fireball was half the size it had been at the fourth circle, and its color shifted from orange-red in the night to golden orange. Eye of Truth estimated that each cubic centimeter contained enough energy to vaporize a ton of water. Once Pyroblast had fully formed, its surface temperature was around twelve hundred degrees Celsius.

Just as he gathered another mass of energy, someone knocked on the door. Eye of Truth detected two mages from the clan. Shane opened the door for them.

"Mage Shane, we just saw a Windrunner run out of your courtyard. Did something happen?"

In Dawnblade's eyes, the Windrunners were not elves who could coexist peacefully with them. The two families were bound to clash whenever they met. The two mages swept their eyes across the room like radar, searching for Sylvanas's "evidence of guilt," but were disappointed.

"If anything happened, don't be afraid. Dawnblade will make the Windrunners pay." The two said they would support Shane.

But to Shane, it sounded more like they were egging him on. How deep does your grudge run for you to be so eager to catch a Windrunner by the tail? Shane inwardly complained.

After bringing up the Windrunners, the two mages did not leave. They asked Shane to send the construct Taigo over in the coming days to help with the work. The construction crew had more than fifty large and small constructs, but only three large ones. If Shane helped, they could begin digging in the morning and lay the foundation the next day. They were building a mage tower for him, so naturally Shane would not begrudge such a small favor.

After the two mages departed, they used a mana-net reader in the morning to record the fluctuations of the ley lines, then began excavating where the readings were strongest. Engineers fitted the construct Taigo with chisels and shovels. As all four constructs operated at full capacity, the ground seemed to dissolve and sank at astonishing speed.

After digging twenty meters underground, the ley-line mana net was exposed, radiating a blue-white glow of "dry" arcane energy. Yet they had not reached the planned depth. Work was only completed at a depth of thirty-five meters, on the second day after construction began.

Six steel pillars a foot in diameter were driven down from the thirty-five-meter level, stopping after penetrating another ten meters. About five meters of each pillar remained exposed.

"Mage Shane, the real work is about to begin. Watch carefully," the clan mages reminded him, not forgetting that the crucial moment had arrived.

Practical experience was not easily acquired. Its value lay in distinguishing true arcane casters from mere spell turrets.

"Eye of Truth, begin recording. From now until the mage tower is complete, do not miss a single detail. Record and preserve everything."

"Understood. Full memory recording initiated."

Shane's vision and thoughts changed slightly. Everything his eyes saw was clearly imprinted in his mind.

The two clan mages took out four basketball-sized spheres of light from their magic pouches. Several black metal bands restrained their surfaces.

"High-density energy objects detected. Unactivated spell detected. Analyzing... High-energy interference detected. Estimated time: 1,160 seconds." This was the first time Eye of Truth's detection function had been delayed by so much. Shane gained some sense of just how advanced the technology was.

Before Eye of Truth could finish its analysis, the two mages tossed the four spheres into the pit. They fell as though floating, slowly drifting down before automatically attaching themselves to the exposed ley-line mana net at the bottom.

"What are those?"

"They are four nodes used to absorb ley-line energy. Don't ask us exactly what they are, because we don't know either. They belong exclusively to the Council." The two clan mages shook their heads and shrugged helplessly.

Afterward, the two clan mages directed the constructs to pour grout into the foundation pit. The thick white fluid continued until it submerged the steel pillars, then the pouring stopped. The two mages solemnly carried out a box.

"Mage Shane, you need to activate the core."

It was another creation exclusive to the Council: a blue-white regular icositetrahedron as tall as Shane's waist. Every face was covered in densely packed magic patterns as tiny as ants. When Shane placed his hand on it, the regular icositetrahedron rearranged its surfaces like a Rubik's Cube, recording the fluctuations of his mana.

"Analysis complete." At that moment, Eye of Truth finished analyzing the four spheres. "Material comparison indicates they are non-natural energy aggregates. Insufficient conditions for reverse deduction. Formation environment unknown. Manufacturing method unknown. Unactivated spell function: absorption and guidance."

"Eye of Truth, immediately begin analyzing the regular icositetrahedron," Shane ordered in his mind.

"Understood. Analyzing... High-energy aggregate detected. High-energy interference detected. Estimated time: 9,530 seconds."

He had long memorized the core's blueprint, but its materials were an enormous problem. Shane recalled that Silvermoon City and Dalaran both represented the highest achievements of magic in Azeroth. Dalaran had floating-city technology—how could Silvermoon City possibly lack something of substance?

"The core and nodes were created by the Council using the Sunwell's environment. That is all we know. To use it, touch it with your mana, then choose whether to stop or activate it," a clan mage explained.

"Mage Shane, use a spell to push the core into the foundation now."

"Alright." Shane cast Levitation and pushed the core with his hand. It was very light and immediately flew into the pit. He quickly used Mage Hand to adjust its landing position, allowing it to settle smoothly at the center.

The core landed in the white slurry, partially submerged. Four tentacles extended from its underside and pierced the still-unhardened slurry. They were connecting to the four nodes. Through its scan, Eye of Truth projected a cross-sectional image into Shane's mind.

The tentacles connected to the four nodes. In his telepathic senses, he "heard" the sound of a beating heart—ding-dong, ding-dong. The core came alive. Ley-line energy flowed from the nodes into the core, and every magic pattern on its surface shone bright white. The core installation was complete.

Once the white slurry had completely cooled, the foundation was finished and construction on the energy layer began. First came the main structure, then the arcane energy conduits were embedded. Shane participated as well.

By the time the energy layer's main structure was nearly complete, the core analysis had finished, but materials science still provided no answers. Arcane secrets were not so easily unraveled.

Construction progressed rapidly. After all, constructs replaced human labor for much of the workload. The engineers and the two clan mages split into two teams and worked day and night without rest. The mage tower rose steadily like bamboo shoots after rain.

The real practical work began: embedding high-grade arcane energy conduits into the walls and floors, while also inscribing defensive arrays at every key node. The conduits were delicate things. Since they had to withstand enormous energy, even the slightest mistake was unacceptable. Installing them was both technical work and physical labor, testing a mage's hand-eye coordination, spell control, and mental will.

"Perhaps we should compete and see who finishes the fastest."

"Agreed, but how about we add a wager?"

"Let's bet our next Sunwell energy allocation."

"Fine."

The two clan mages were about to gamble. Shane listened but said nothing.

I may have exceptional awareness, but I have crippled hands. He recalled hearing those words after a raid wipe in his previous life. When Shane's progress surpassed that of the two clan mages, the sentence surfaced in his mind.