Supreme Magus

After that, Nalrond tried to save just enough mana to keep it together, but the moment the cores started using fusion magic, exhaustion would bring him back to square one.

Next, he resorted to poisoning his cores and almost died from it. Instead of making the cores meeker, the presence of external mana gave them the means to strike directly by forcing the poison onto the other core.

The damage his life forces sustained after trying to exploit mana poisoning brought the experiments to a halt for a whole day.

After eight days and 90% completion, the group of healers was no closer to finding a solution whereas Nalrond was on the verge of a nervous breakdown.

"Fuck Mogar and its lies!" He punched a wall of the tower with all of his strength, breaking his hand in four points. "My people, all the werepeople, have wasted centuries chasing a damn pipe dream.

"I've struggled so much, spent so much effort, and for what? I've wasted years of my life and argued with some of my best friends and Lith for nothing."

"Maybe, and maybe not." Quylla took his hand and fixed the damage. "I've thought long and hard about this. We may have found no solution yet, but I'm sure Mogar doesn't lie."

"What makes you think that?" Nalrond snorted.

"Friya's vision was true and so was Lith's. Heck, based on what Faluel has recently learned about the Harmonizers, her vision and Ajatar's are true as well. Why should you be a special case?"

"Story of my life. That's why." He said with a sigh.

"No, that's the story of my life." Lith waved at himself, the tower, and Solus.

"Point taken." A small smile appeared on Nalrond's face. "Still, I don't agree with you, Quylla. If Mogar's vision is true, then the solution should be something that any of the werepeople can do on their own.

"In my vision, there wasn't a famous Forgemaster like it happened for Solus nor a Mad King. There was just an identical copy of myself. No light like in Faluel's vision nor weird effects of any kind that might lead to think there is a tool involved.

"Then how is it possible that no one has ever found the solution? That not even with a legendary tower and two Sets of Menadion we are nowhere close to understanding what the vision means?"

"That's easy to explain." Lith shrugged. "As you told us, the werepeople see their Emperor Beast half as an enemy. Something to beat into submission or get rid of instead of a part of themselves.

"They failed because their research was always aimed in the wrong direction. You are the first of your species to look for understanding and harmony, and only because you got to see how my life forces interacted.

"Whether we succeed or fail, we are condensing hundreds of years of research in a few days thanks to the tower and its tools. You should be proud of it."

"Also, there's no point being discouraged already." Friya moved closer to Nalrond, holding him in an embrace. "There's still the final 10%. Sometimes the things you are looking for end up in the most unexpected places."

"Yeah." Nalrond sighed. "Sometimes."

***

The next day and one more session later, the Eyes reached 100% completion of the scan. Now they had a perfect understanding of how, why, when, and where every single attempt had failed but no clue about how to succeed.

The stress from the disappointing news coupled with the constant self-harming was more than Nalrond could take. The moment everyone admitted they had no idea how to go forward, the Rezar went this close to losing his mind.

He disappeared in his room, refusing to open the door for an entire day and skipping every meal. Anger and despair drove him from one extreme to another in the span of minutes.

Nalrond went from trashing the furniture and setting his clothes ablaze to crying his heart out so quickly that he couldn't control himself. More importantly, he didn't want to.

His lifelong dream was falling apart in front of his eyes and he was too angry to keep being strong just to not upset others. Once the Rezar was too hungry and too depressed to keep going like that, he called Lith on the communication amulet, asking for his company.

"Just a question." Lith's eye twitched in annoyance seeing the state the room was in. He didn't pop a vein only because the enchantments of the Manor would fix the damage. "Why me? I'm not as kind as Solus and for sure I don't care about you as much as Friya."

"Because unlike them, you don't give a shit about my feelings." Nalrond handed Lith the only half-fixed chair in the room while he sat on the ruins of the bed. "There's a question that's tormenting me and I need an honest answer.

"I don't want someone to cheer me up, sugarcoat the truth, or tell me some optimistic bullshit about the rainbow after the storm. I want to know if what I'm doing is worth the effort or just madness.

"I'm fighting so hard for something that might as well kill me when I could just sit back and enjoy the rest of my life with Friya. Am I crazy for hurting myself and risking my future with the woman I love for this?"

Lith pondered the question for a while before answering.

"You know, years ago I had a friend who was facing a similar choice. Yurial was a rich pampered kid so there was no life-or-

death situation involved. Yet he too was torn between what he wanted to do and what others expected him to do."

Lith conjured a hologram of one of his rare conversations with Yurial in one of their rooms at the White Griffon academy. There were no sounds, only images to not betray those old confidences.

"In the end, he chose to pick the easy way. To have the rest of his life planned by his father, to marry a woman he didn't even like, and to live for the sake of others. Were he still alive, I don't know if by now he would have found happiness or be more miserable.

"What I know is that back then Yurial wasn't happy and he spent his days at the academy with his head filled with ifs and buts.

"Nalrond, you can give up like Yurial did at any time. If you do it, however, I'm certain that for the rest of your life there will be a small voice in the back of your head. It will never stop wondering how things could have gone had you made a different choice.

"It would ruin your happiest moments and be a constant reminder that you settled for what you had instead of striving for what you wanted. Success or failure don't matter, only knowing that you've done everything you could.

"I felt the same way every time I had to reveal a part of my secrets to the people I love. I knew that I could have kept silent and no one would have ever suspected a thing. I knew that by telling the truth I could have lost everything.