Chapter 192: Artificial arm [2]

Planner tilted his head slightly without looking up. "What about them."

"Are they still in position."

"Your elder brother is handling his responsibilities. Your elder sister is doing the same. Your younger sister is still gathering information among the humans." Planner set down the instrument. "Unless you believe your siblings are incapable of performing their duties without you personally supervising them I see no reason for you to rush back."

"I make sure they don’t do anything stupid."

"An admirable distinction."

Zeus gave him a flat look that Planner ignored entirely. "Your brother and sister are perfectly capable. Your younger sister is doing what she’s supposed to do. If anything your absence might improve their performance."

"You’re suggesting I’m a distraction."

"You have remarkable talent, but your lack of patience holds you back."

Zeus stared at him.

Then he laughed. Genuinely. He didn’t bother trying to stop it. This was why he tolerated Planner. Every other person around him watched their words carefully. They tracked his expressions and measured his reactions and tried to predict what he wanted to hear. Planner simply spoke. He addressed Zeus like an inconvenient colleague who happened to possess the ability to kill him and somehow that made him more tolerable than almost everyone else in Korvath.

Zeus shifted his gaze across the room.

A small sphere rested inside a metallic apparatus on Planner’s table. Its surface was covered in intricate markings and a faint red glow pulsed beneath its transparent outer layer. The mana around it fluctuated in patterns that should have been unstable. The sphere itself remained perfectly still.

Zeus straightened. "What are you working on."

Planner followed his gaze. "Ah." He sounded almost pleased. "Good timing."

He raised one hand. The sphere lifted from the apparatus and floated several inches above the table. Planner studied it as the red light brightened.

"Excellent. The Fulgarion Core is fully charged."

Zeus’s expression changed. He sat forward. "The Fulgarion Core." He stared at the glowing sphere. "So the experiment worked."

"More or less."

"More or less? Would you prefer being a little straightforward then being a gambler?"

"It’s good."

"Then it worked."

Zeus was quiet. Even after everything he had witnessed over the years, he still didn’t fully understand what the five Cores actually were. He had heard pieces of explanations. He had seen experimental results. But he had never received a complete answer and Zeus disliked being kept ignorant of something that might determine the outcome of a war.

"Planner."

"Hmm."

"I still don’t understand exactly how obtaining these Cores gives us an overwhelming advantage over humanity. You’ve convinced our people that it does. I’d like to actually understand why."

Planner didn’t answer immediately. He lowered the sphere back into its apparatus and the red glow dimmed and the mana fluctuations around it subsided. Only then did he turn toward Zeus.

"What do you think makes an artifact powerful."

Zeus considered it. "Its capacity to produce mana. The magnitude of its effects or the authority it gives its wielder."

"Reasonable. All incomplete."

Planner walked to a clear section of the room. With a small movement of his fingers mana gathered in the air between them. Five interlocking circles appeared and rotated slowly. Each one contained a different pattern of symbols. Lines of light connected them into a diagram that hovered without any visible support.

He raised one finger. "Most artifacts are powerful because of what they can do. A sword cuts. A staff amplifies. A shield protects. That is their function and their power comes from performing that function exceptionally well."

He tapped the first circle. "The five Cores are different."

The circle brightened.

"They represent the highest expressions of particular domains. Not just an abundance of power within those domains. An authority over the very things that define them."

Zeus’s gaze sharpened.

"Take the Fulgarion Core." The first circle flared with golden-red light. Flames spiraled around its edges interwoven with branching bolts of lightning. "It embodies the superior expressions of fire and lightning. The Sun’s burning authority and thunder’s destructive force. It doesn’t simply give its user stronger fire or faster lightning. In the hands of someone capable of controlling it those powers can reach a level that ordinary practitioners could never reproduce regardless of how much they trained or how large their mana capacity was."

The flames dissolved. The lightning faded.

Planner moved to the second circle. "And then there’s the Helion Core."

The circle filled with shifting silhouettes. Wolves. Dragons. Birds with burning wings. Creatures Zeus couldn’t identify even from their outlines. Each appeared for a second before being replaced by another.

"The Helion Core embodies the superiority of beasts. The enormous variety that exists throughout the world." Planner watched the silhouettes cycle through. "But simply obtaining the Cores isn’t enough. Its wielder must possess the strength and control necessary to command what it contains. Otherwise the power overwhelms the wielder instead and... you know what happens when power overtakes the user."

Planner moved to the third circle. "This is where things become interesting."

The symbols inside it began rotating. Unlike the previous two this circle didn’t show a creature or natural element. The space within its boundaries seemed to stretch and inside it distant points of light appeared like stars viewed from very far away.

"The remaining three Cores possess their own domains and authorities. They are scattered across the world and separated from one another for reasons that are not entirely understood."

Zeus raised an eyebrow. "Not entirely understood."

Planner’s fingers paused.

For the first time in the conversation his answer came a fraction of a second late. "Yes." His voice stayed calm. "Even I don’t possess every answer."

Zeus watched him carefully. It was a small admission. Planner was not the kind of man who admitted ignorance without a reason.

Before Zeus could press further Planner continued. "The important point is that these Cores were never meant to be understood as ordinary weapons. Each possesses a form of authority that surpasses the conventional limits of its domain."