Miles walked before the workstation which was at least tens of times better than his. Evelyn’s workstation was fully automatic and could be controlled by an AI too. There were virtual display screens helping to control the temperature of the fire automatically. Unlike the manual stove hed had in the home, Evelyn’s was easy to use.

“Coin, connect to the workstation and keep her prying eyes from here.” Miles silently said.

“On it.” Coin answered and the workstation turned on.

“She is out.” Coin answered and Miles was ready to work. ‘She’, Coin mentioned, was his mother, also known as Mama Hill.

“How long can you keep Mother AI out before she realizes something is amiss.” Evelyn’s workstation was where miracles happened on a day-to-day basis. Miles knew Mother AI would be watching so he asked Coin if he could keep her out. Only after getting Coin’s approval did he come up with the plan.

“You can try once. Welp, as soon you fuck up and station explodes her eyes will be here, so be sure to hide whatever you want to when something like that happens.” Coin answered.

“It should be fine then.” Miles nodded and fished out two orbs. He got them recently to try merging, and they were only low-tier, weakest orbs one could find. Firstly, because he didn’t want to waste his more precious orbs. Secondly, the explosion of lower-tier orbs would be less destructive.

Low-tier Orb weapons would be treasures for him a year ago, but now, he had the capital to waste them in experiments. He remembered the dagger Val gifted him. Although it was more an ornamental dagger, because he didn’t have any other weapons, he could only use it to hunt. Luckily not long after his luck turned for the better and he acquired a few useful orbs. He was still keeping that orb though. He would always keep it.

Miles looked at the one green and one purple orb both shaped like a dagger. He searched elemental daggers for a week. After all, he wasn’t sure how the merging was working. So he, with Coin, decided to try the same item with different elements first, then he would try different items with the same element, and different items with different elements...

There were many other tests to be done. For example, different tiers, different elements, different items…

He placed both orbs in separate boilers and started the fire with Coin’s help. He didn’t know the exact temperature so he went with the same he used for low-tier cores. After keeping them in the fire for more than five minutes, a sheen started to appear on, now quaking, orbs. Miles was ready to bolt away as soon as something was wrong, but he still had to place elemental mineral pieces. A nugget of elemental mineral, a tad bigger than he would use for cores, one green one purple placed on orbs, and sheen increased tens of times.

‘I hope this works, if not I don’t have any other clues.’ Miles thought. The text wasn’t explaining the process in detail, and Miles had to make educated guesses. He learned the forging from the one of the best, and the knowledge Evelyn stored in his mind was best of the best.

He theorized that orbs and cores should have similarities and have a common ground when melted. Of course, there was much filtering to do before starting the experiments. For example; Miles had only recently learned that a higher tier orb required energy to use. He already knew that in the process of melting, a hunter with the same elemental abilities as the core had to be present. And the person had to be at least Form-Rank. What he didn’t know was, all these were energy related. Energy was one of the key components in melting cores. Low-tier hunters couldn’t help in the process of melting high-tier orbs because of low energy quantities too.

Then, there should be something else required to melt the orbs. Miles wouldn’t believe that the science team researching orbs neglected a simple procedure he came up with as soon as he read the expertise his mother bestowed on him. Scientists must have tried to merge the orbs before too, with a similar method. But they had failed. Why? Energy and heat weren’t the only things required to merge the orbs. Scientists failed to find the final key required in this process.

So despite this, why did Miles still want to do the experiment? Because the keyword to all of this was resonance. To melt a monster core resonance was a must! Not any elemental energy user could melt a core. If the tier of the orb was higher than the user, the core would not melt because resonance in the elemental path would not be sufficient.

And if the energy user was much stronger, the user had to lower the energy output to achieve the balance of the resonance. What did that tell? How could the balance of the resonance be achieved while merging two different orbs? How could two different people have same wavelength while having different abilities and energy?

That was the only thing stopping Evelyn and others from successfully merging. Two individuals with different energy outputs couldn’t achieve resonance while working on two different orbs. Since no person could use two elements, resonance would be unachievable. There was only one exception to this. No energy, and only Elemental Minerals. Same output and perfect balance. Elemental Minerals created in nature. They formed with natural energy in the atmosphere, only having different elements. But the resonance was still there.

Of course everyone could do the same with elemental minerals, but no one would waste heavenly minerals for experiments. Especially all the elemental minerals humanity found to the date were in the size of a fist, earned through tear and blood.

“That is it. If it seems like it is exploding, stop the workstation immediately.” Miles said. Coin would be safe even if the workstation exploded, so he would observe even if it failed. To Miles's relief, quaking orbs calmed and stood silently, but shone on them was ever-increasing.

After half an hour, two orbs lost their forms and looked like two miniature suns. Miles lifted the first boiler carefully with his armor on and brought it over the other. “Careful, careful.” He silently chanted.

“Stop chanting. Your hands are shaking because you are speaking.” Coin reprimanded.

“Stop reprimanding me! You are making me nervous.” Miles rebuked back.

“Stop shouting, you will alarm the guards.” Coin also answered back.

“Alright, alright. Calm down. What is the worst that can happen?” Miles asked and calmed down.

“Um, death?” Coin answered with schadenfreude.

“You dumbass, getting crippled is much worse than that,” Miles answered smugly.

“Says who?” Coin wasn’t gonna take it.

“You are just a mindless wristwatch, so shut up!” Miles shouted once again, but at this time his hands were above the other boiler. He was moving so slowly, afraid of making the orb blow up. Coin also held his ‘breath.’

When the boiler was above the other, Miles tilted the boiler slowly, so it could roll down. Not with a force though, so his movement was smaller than a snail.

“Be faster, it is getting cooler.” Coin reminded. If the orbs were to get cold again, no one could predict what would happen.

“Alright.” Miles tilted the boiler more and then the orb rolled over to another one and fell on it with a small impact. As soon as they were in contact, both orbs started to shake violently.

“Run!” Coin reminded.

“You don’t have to tell me twice.” Miles started to run away from the station with record speed to hide behind an alloy safe. He already picked a place in case of an explosion and his eyes were on this safe ever since he started to experiment. He stretched out his neck to look at the station. The explosion he was waiting for never occurred.

“What is the situation?” Miles asked.

“You are going to regret that you missed it.” Coin said.

“What the hell?” Miles asked.

“They merged perfectly. It was beautiful.” Coin answered, mesmerized.