From sorting through piles and piles of books, to slowly transcribing some into permanent memories, Akevorax sat there and pondered on the mass of information. It went beyond just manuals to create Rune tools of great power. Some books spent tens of pages focused on just the commonly used alloys for such tools, others weren’t afraid to use an entire chapter to explain how a changed bonding method drastically impacted the tool’s performance.

He didn’t even know where to start.

But with time ticking down, he had to pick somewhere, and that choice went right back to the object on a workbench right behind him. The two-part device with something missing in the middle, which he now understood in significant depth.

This one lacked any special name and was instead called an ‘energy propagator’. Such equipment already existed on the eight worlds, but this specific version allowed it to easily absorb, store, and release whatever powers the user required. And while it definitely worked against some powers at tier 9 and 10, it probably failed against Exeters. A cursory readthrough showed all parts relied on the universe’s laws.

In comparison, most propagators across the eight worlds either failed to hold more esoteric elements or just outright only worked on a singular type at once. Ways to capture substances with great runes were known though.

And, as expected, Alkuthuzen’s missing third was none other than the storage part of the device. Like a battery, even if he developed a substance which held several conflicting elements at once, a way to securely hold it at all times also came into play. As well as secure entry and exit points for all that power flow, whilst ensuring random great runes in anything captured couldn’t affect the device…

It could be seen why he failed to complete this for so long. But another way to look at this was effectively an easy bomb with tier 9 power.

Another problem from this plan could still be seen though, as he turned to glance at Adret for a moment. Given the original mission was to save her… How did he stop all of this escape route from accidentally killing her?

That even reminded him of the whole reason this all happened, and triggered him to ask, “Why exactly did you go to the lunar realm of all places?” Alkuthuzen seemed to pick up that he directed the question towards her immediately, and kept quiet as more potions bubbled away. But after some time of his silence, what few senses remained of her environment showed Alkovorax staring at her.

Leading the quiet, placid dragon to open her eyes but keep them pinned to the floor. Unable to look at him directly, she just said, “Where else could I have gone?”

“There are more places across the third world than just the Dragonlands, surely you know that?”

“Places where I’d have to hunt and kill just to survive? Where I have nothing but my own thoughts as company? And even then, I’d never be safe.” Her constant attrition to reality reminded Akevorax of what exactly annoyed him in the first place.

He didn’t give up though, telling her brutally, “If that’s not the future you like, do something. Change that miserable future.”

“You make it sound easy…”

“Because it is. Only one thing has held you back these past 6 years, something everyone around you has known the whole time! That miserable life is only still there because you still refuse!” His tone worsened, not annoyed by the emotions she felt but rather the words she said.

That complete and utter rejection of change, a detestable and revolting attitude which got her in this mess anyway. A mithril tier dragon could hide in so many reaches of the world that few could possibly kill them, yet she childishly ran back to her one place of comfort when cast out from the clan.

Cast out purely so something impeded her into change! Even he understood why her mother did so…

“Because I can’t! I can’t give up the only thing I have! What if I regretted it after? How can I be sure of that? I just want things to go back to how they were. To stay as they always were!” Her outburst immediately surprised him, and even Alkuthuzen raised his eyes at the sight. While a dragon undergoing a panic attack was rare, he’d seen such a thing several times by now.

What almost never happened was someone with an intact moon lashing out like this.

When her eyes finally crossed Akevorax’s in that state of anger, what he saw was not just rage or hatred, but overflowing fear and worry. The mere idea of this loss left her scared, and while he understood that part, he had to accept it from another angle.

One he missed for a long time as well… Shaking his head momentarily, he stared at her blankly before saying, “The moment you accepted this bloodline, you knew that this event was set to happen. You chose to live like this, to be fearful of change and struggle emotionally. You chose it knowing that one day you would escape it and remove that side of the lunar influence. Or should I believe you wanted to live this way before taking the path?” Obviously, she couldn’t answer it.

The idea of lying repulsed her and he spoke the complete truth. Which left just one option.

To stay quiet.

“Children are just so annoying to deal with… Well, it gives this place some life for a little while at least,” came the dragon at their side, still focused on potion creation for the most part. He didn’t speak with ill will, but a clear exhaustion presented in his voice. And he continued by further saying, “I’ve seen quite a few dragons with your pathway, and there are only two results. Either they died young, or shattered their moons. But perhaps it will please you to know not a single one ever regretted the decision; probably because it meant they didn’t die,” he ended the statement with a short laugh.

“But– But how did they accept it? How did they go through with it?”

“Hard to be sure since I am only myself, but they all looked content with the change. So perhaps start by having the desire to become something. How did a clan lord birth a husk of a dragon?” His head snapped to face Adret for a moment, but it only revealed pure apathy with a derisive snort. It left her in complete silence as another significantly older dragon believed her useless, while Alkevorax couldn’t find any retort to that.

Turning back to the potions at hand, Alkuthuzen finally felt like he’d heard enough of a commotion and said, “Now stop distracting me. Talk through your Minds or however you want, just don’t bother my work.”

While the pairs’ mouths could still move, neither risked the arrays beneath fully restricting them once more as done to Adret earlier. To continue the discussion, Akevorax barely managed to force a line of soul power over and communicate through it.

While vastly inefficient to use any raw magical power in this way, the two saw no alternatives without some minimal activations of their powers. He considered a psychic link as well, but the ease of which Alkuthuzen might read into such messages frustrated the dragon. If he wanted to talk about any escape routes, then secrecy was paramount.

There were multiple ways to communicate purely through souls, outside of optimised spells, but Akevorax picked the easiest and quickest method as soul power wasn’t much of a scarce resource these days. This method literally just stored words inside packets of soul power and shoved them along a communication line, a method guaranteed to work so long as the other side’s Soul withstood the impact. Adret with a Formed Soul didn’t struggle with this.

He told her, “While I could continue arguing, there are more pressing matters. I’ve bought the schematics and explanations for how most of the experiments in this room should work, can you help figuring out some way out? Or do I have to figure this out on my own?”

“I can help,” her reply came almost immediately after but was weak and somewhat blurred compared to his clear soul power.

He forgot once more that not everyone had his degree of control. Certainly not Adret who excelled at psychic prowess, but she could communicate nonetheless. Akevorax almost began a slow transfer of knowledge over this line, but held back at the final moments.

Thinking deeply, he asked the Nexus, ‘Could you provide a copy of the information to Adret too?’

[Purchase copy of ‘All purchased knowledge in Alkuthuzen’s base’ 0.01 Authority Points?]

That worked too.

But before it transferred over, he informed her, “The Nexus will provide you with a copy of all the information for these experiments. Do not show any pain, he will suspect it, distress should be fine though.” She seemed to understand it well enough and Akevorax paid the miniscule fee instantly offset by the assimilation of any Legendary rank bloodline.

Anything non-dragon that is… He exhausted the Nexus’ payments for such bloodlines long ago.

Hundreds of books piled up inside Adret’s Mind Palace, rapidly filling an entire room with thick tomes and thin statistical reports. Some easily hidden pain ran through her head. Nothing as horrible as she’d heard of when it came to these information transfers. And even if she detested combat, the wounds she’d taken in unavoidable cases completely exceeded such a light pain. In the end, she sat there for almost an hour straight just reading and transcribing notes over, much like Akevorax did not long ago.

He didn’t blame her. This was common practise for Mind Palace owners, even Mala made sure to copy all important information into her library.

Books written by the owner acted like photographic memory. Or perhaps it even exceeded that as the information could be drawn on, at will, without any need to find or ‘remember’ it. Comprehension still came after this though, as memorisation did not automatically grant complete understanding of every topic, and that’s where the two sat after all of this.

…

“I don’t understand. That invoked spatial circuitry should collapse when infused with any dual mixture from the kyros blaster. Why won’t it work?” It took some time to draw Adret from her previous thoughts, but beside the fuzziness of these messages, he found communication went extremely smoothly.

“I looked through the blaster already, it’s only designed for single-element emission. He hasn’t been able to substitute the parts which allow for a dual mixture,” Akevorax replied regretfully. He didn’t blame her for not realising, it was only because of his own runic knowledge that this flaw even appeared.

Externally, the blaster, which actually appeared as a sort of spherical droid that followed the user around, was a complete and well-crafted device near completion. Its defences clearly fell short of the actual technical manual, but the parts all matched up… But not the energy transfer mechanisms. With that failure, it was back to the drawing board once more.

For the fourth time in the past eight hours.

It turned out, two children weren’t going to so easily overcome the missing parts which led Alkuthuzen to a dead end.

They weren’t guaranteed to fail either. Creating a cost-effective bomb may be extremely hard and require incredible alchemical knowledge… But when the price point went out a window, it became a lot easier to just waste mountains of cash for a big explosion.

And they found another combination just an hour later.

Akevorax introduced it immediately, “That psychic phase-transitioned bodysuit should result in a cascading effect when the… Mental Necro-plane is placed within? But the interaction doesn’t mention any warning for that.”

“You haven’t learnt any psychic Draconis spells yet, have you?” Unexpectedly, Adret replied with something which almost sounded snarky, but he soon realised that to be his imagination. She didn’t really possess the capability to speak like that, from what he’d seen so far at least.

That didn’t stop him from internally rolling his eyes, a last second decision as he remembered to not move his physical eyes. Then held down the sarcasm as he asked, “And you have?”

“Actually, yes. It’s just if I try to use it my palace is damaged and I collapse from mana loss…”

“My mistake then. What was your point though?” He didn’t hold the matter against her, instead, rather impressed she managed to understand a dimension well enough to cast even a one-word Draconis spell. That didn’t change the fact they wanted to not die.

“Psychic forces only undergo cascade failures outside of mind-stabilisers, that’s a long topic but pretty much all the psychic tools here utilise stabilisers.”

Sure she replied, but for the first time he found himself at a real loss at what exactly that meant. Obviously he could accept it as a direct fact, but the matter stood that he preferred to know how that worked. Akevorax decided to just figure it out later if he survived this ordeal… Their options lowered constantly but also rose in a means to balance out. What he meant was that their shared knowledge allowed the other to pick up on potential problems that they might have tunnel visioned alone.

Being able to see Adret in this light once more, it frustrated him that someone with immense potential was clinging to an unsavoury pleasant safety with all her might. He viewed that behaviour as an utter waste.

Whether a faux-marriage connected them or not, his feelings never changed in that regard.

“One more thing… Is it really okay if we blow everything up?” She asked the question with a touch of fear, but that just excited him more in ample anticipation for their next discussion.

“The lab, the sub-realm, hell, blow up the dimensional fabrics! Just make sure it does enough damage to injure him.”

“Then I think there’s a way to do that. Can you check the parts to see if they work like I’ve remembered?” A list of items and their interaction appeared soon after, and while it excited him at first, it very quickly turned out to be another dud.

But with thousands of combinations, and endlessly more if they partially dismantled certain objects… All they needed was one sure-fire way to blow Alkuthuzen sky high before escaping.

When Adret acted as herself, she was actually rather tolerable.