Chapter 957: Success?

Ludwig looked up.

"I spent half an hour making that."

"Yes."

"After a week of failing."

"I remember. I was here."

Ludwig turned toward the communication crystal.

"Anything to add?"

Van Dijk regarded the bead, then him.

"Do you want applause?"

"At this point, I’d accept a convincing nod."

"You’ll survive the disappointment."

Ludwig put the crystal down beside Kaiser’s. His was larger, uneven, and apparently unworthy of basic encouragement, but it remained on the table. Neither of them could complain it into disappearing.

Kaiser had already returned his attention to the next part of the experiment.

"Now we introduce Authority."

Ludwig’s hand paused above the bead.

"Already? I’ve made one."

"And you understand how you made it. Wrath is your strongest and most recognizable Authority. We will begin there."

"You want me to put Wrath into the Mana while it condenses."

"Correct. The result will be heavily diluted, assuming it works at all. Mana will still form most of the structure."

Ludwig glanced toward the Gluttony sample. Whatever they produced would be far from that little marble, but he understood what Kaiser wanted to establish.

"If the Authority survives the process, we prove we can carry it into a physical structure deliberately."

"Exactly."

He formed another sphere. The process came more easily now that he knew which sensations to follow and which instincts to ignore. Once the rotation steadied, Ludwig reached toward the Wrathful Heart and drew out a trace of its Authority.

Heat moved beneath his skin. Red energy traveled into his arms, carrying a familiar violence that made the patient movement between his hands seem suddenly inadequate.

He introduced as little as he could manage. The sphere immediately bubbled along its outer edge.

Ludwig tightened his control as a swelling appeared on one side, only for another to form opposite it. The steady current broke into conflicting surges.

"Stop forcing it."

"I’m trying to keep it out of my face."

Wrath resolved the disagreement before Van Dijk could answer. The sphere burst, throwing red Mana directly at Ludwig and scattering what remained across the table.

He stood still while smoke drifted from his hair. Kaiser studied his face with an attention Ludwig would have preferred he devote to the experiment before it exploded.

"Did that answer the question?"

"Not sufficiently. Again."

The second attempt survived for three seconds after Wrath entered it. The third lasted five, encouraging Kaiser enough that he leaned closer for the fourth. That one burst almost immediately, and Ludwig took some satisfaction in seeing the lich straighten again.

He lowered his hands and wiped soot from his cheek. The new smear across his fingers suggested he had probably made his face worse.

"Wrath doesn’t appear particularly interested in becoming a bead."

Van Dijk looked toward Kaiser through the projection.

"Perhaps beginning with the Authority defined by uncontrolled aggression was poorly considered."

"I needed data."

"You have some now. Most of it is on his face."

Ludwig held up his stained fingers.

"What did we learn that I couldn’t have told you before we started?"

"Wrath is volatile under these conditions."

"It’s volatile under most conditions. That has been a fairly consistent feature."

"Now we have experimental confirmation."

Kaiser’s satisfaction suggested he considered the distinction worth the trouble. Ludwig suspected the fact that it had been someone else’s face helped considerably.

"Use Sloth."

He hesitated before reaching for the remnant still accessible to him. Its presence felt entirely different from Wrath. The heat and urgency faded beneath a heaviness that seemed unwilling to participate in anything at all.

Ludwig formed another sphere, established the current, and introduced a trace of Sloth. The rotation slowed immediately.

He adjusted the flow, trying to preserve the movement without forcing it. The Mana slowed further. Within moments, the current had nearly stopped, leaving the sphere suspended between his hands until its structure loosened and dissipated.

Kaiser rubbed his chin while Ludwig waited for an explanation of why that had been useful.

"We should have anticipated that."

"We did call it Sloth before putting it into something that needed to keep moving."

"Knowing a name is not the same as observing its effect."

"No, one of those takes considerably less time."

Kaiser ignored that and gestured for him to try again.

"Pride next."

Ludwig looked at him.

"It’s going to refuse because I’m telling it what to do."

"Possibly."

"And we still need to find out."

"We are mapping limitations. You cannot build a reliable method out of assumptions, even when they happen to be correct."

Ludwig summoned the brief manifestation of Pride. Its presence settled with an immediate certainty, complete in itself and apparently satisfied to remain that way.

He tried drawing a trace toward the waiting Mana. Nothing followed his guidance. Increasing his control produced no better result, and the Authority remained exactly as it was.

Wrath had torn the process apart, while Sloth had stopped it. Pride appeared to have rejected the suggestion that it needed to participate in the first place.

Kaiser watched Ludwig make another attempt before nodding.

"That is worth recording."

Ludwig dismissed the manifestation.

"Put my prediction beside it."

"It was a prediction, not a result."

"Then put it in smaller writing. I’d like some evidence that I contributed before you make me try something else."

Kaiser’s attention had already shifted toward his eyes. Ludwig knew which Authority remained before the lich spoke.

"One left."

Purple light appeared within Ludwig’s vision as the Eyes of Envy awakened. He braced himself for another form of resistance, already wondering whether this attempt would leave him cleaning the table or his face.

Instead, the Authority moved easily. A lavender current traveled down his arms with so little resistance that he nearly interrupted it to check what he had done differently.

Kaiser leaned forward.

"Keep going. Form the sphere."

Ludwig gathered Mana between his palms and established the rotation. He waited until the current settled, then guided Envy toward its edge.

The Authority joined it without disturbing the flow. Purple spread through the pale Mana, following the same motion as though it had found something worth copying. Ludwig made a small adjustment, and Envy followed that too.

He introduced another trace. The color deepened while the sphere drew inward, its structure tightening more readily than it had with Mana alone.

For the first time, an Authority seemed to be helping.

"Don’t rush."

"I’m trying to work out why this one is being polite."

"Work that out afterward. Your flow is increasing."

Ludwig eased it back. Envy had joined the current so readily that he had begun feeding more without waiting for the structure to settle. He corrected the rhythm and allowed the rotating Mana to carry the Authority inward.

The sphere became smaller, its purple light strengthening as the currents folded together. Ludwig kept his attention on the pressure against his control. Neither teacher spoke now, and their silence made him considerably more aware of how carefully they were watching.

A faint bubbling developed along the outer structure. He stopped adding Envy immediately, resisting the urge to correct the disturbance with more Mana. The current steadied on its own.

Ludwig allowed it to finish. The light gathered into a small, brilliant point, then vanished.

Something struck the table and began rolling. Kaiser caught it before Ludwig could lower his hands.

"I was rather hoping to see that myself."

The lich did not answer. Between his fingers rested a tiny purple crystal, its color far stronger than the near transparency of their earlier attempts. Lavender light shifted within it whenever Kaiser turned his hand.

Van Dijk leaned closer to the communication crystal. Kaiser held the object toward the projection, and both examined it without speaking.

Ludwig looked from one to the other. Their earlier failures had produced immediate opinions, most of them accompanied by instructions to try again. He was beginning to find the silence less reassuring.

"Well? Should I be pleased, or should we put it somewhere that isn’t beside my face?"

Kaiser smiled without looking away from the crystal.

"Stable physical Mana structure. Detectable Authority within it."

Ludwig’s gaze returned to the little object.

"So it worked."

"Partially. The Authority remains heavily diluted."

"We knew it would be."

"Yes, but it remained stable after condensation."

Van Dijk nodded slowly. His attention stayed fixed on the purple light even as Kaiser turned the crystal again.

"And Envy accepted the transition. We have a starting point we can reproduce."

Ludwig held out his hand, and this time Kaiser let him take it. The crystal rested against his fingers with an ordinary weight that felt strange after the effort involved in creating it. He could still see the lavender movement inside.

A month earlier, they had possessed one inexplicable marble removed from a starving pig. Everything they knew about it had come from examining someone else’s finished work and failing to understand how it had been done.

This was smaller, weaker, and mostly Mana. Ludwig had watched it form, however, and knew which steps had allowed the Authority to remain inside. There was something satisfying about holding a result they had produced deliberately, especially after spending so long being confused by the other one.

He returned it to Kaiser. The lich studied it once more before closing his fingers carefully around it, his smile widening with thoughts Ludwig was not yet sure he wanted to hear.

"Good. The first step is complete."