"That's annoying, but once one knows the basics, the rest comes easy. I can still work my way up to a proper energy field." The Lich said.

"You mean we can." Feela and Faluel stood between Inxialot and his prey as one. "Lith is one of us, undead."

"Yes, whatever. I don't care who does it as long as those runes get preserved and shared with the Awakened community. I can give you a couple of centuries, child. After that, either I get my ring or you and I will have a problem." Inxialot said.

'Guess what, you moron. 200 years from now I'll either be dead or powerful enough to not care about your kin anymore.' Lith thought.

"Seriously, though, where did you find it?" Feela said. She cared for Lith more by the second, but her curiosity burned as strong as Inxialot's.

Lith told them about the fungal creature he had met in Kulah and the present it had given him.

"Damned be the Odi!" Lotho roared. "My brethren must have lost all hope and their mind to part from such treasure."

"More likely they thought it to be still a common item. They were cut off from the rest of the world and had no idea that what once was just a parlor trick is now so valuable. Also, I doubt they would have kept an Odi artifact anyway." Leegaain said.

"Look at the bright side. If you find your fungal brethren, they are likely to know everything about this energy field you talk about." Lith said, eager to ease the pressure of the gazes fixated on his hand.

"Genius!" Inxialot clapped his hands. "I'll immediately start looking for them. We're done here, right?"

"Yes, we are. However, -" The King of Liches disappeared, leaving Lotho talking to himself. "- Searching the entirety of Mogar for a single being is not an easy task. Gods if I hate Liches."

"Will you really share it?" Despite her age, the Behemoth was giving Lith the lovely smile of a kid in front of his Christmas presents.

"I'll give it a thought, but first I need to understand what an energy field is and what benefits I'd receive from the Council in exchange for such knowledge." Lith politely but firmly replied.

"Now I really need some rest and to speak with my mentor, if you please."

"I told you not to show off your damn crafts until your apprenticeship started, kid." Faluel said the moment they were back in the safety of her lair. "I've already got a dozen orders for a blade like yours and even more for that ring."

"According to your plan, there should've been some kind of riddle, not a fight." Lith replied.

"If I lost, Solus would have been trapped inside her ring for years, Raagu would have used Phloria's Awakening to keep me on a tight leash, and I would've been nothing more than a dignified slave."

"Point taken." Faluel sighed. "Still, why didn't you show me that ring earlier? We could have still found a way to let you use it undetected."

"Because I thought it was crap. The runes are decrepit and they don't do anything different from the others I studied from Huryole's booklet." Lith threw the gravity field ring to Faluel, who promptly examined it with Invigoration and her Forgemastering spells.

"By the Great Mother, what a piece of crap! Runes carved with mana crystal's powder instead of being infused with mana, a messed-up mana circulatory system, and I could shape a better pseudo core with my feet." She blurted out.

"My point exactly. It's so bad that I didn't even bother crafting a new one but I used first magic to replicate its effects on my own through my weapon." Lith said.

"The bad news is that most Odi runes are lost to time. There are almost no books about them and the still existing few tomes belong to historians since they have no practical value." Faluel said.

"The good news is that we only need to decipher a few runes to be able to reverse engineer the whole thing and start working on upgrading the gravity to an energy field."

"How long would it take?" Lith asked.

"Well, unless we find the right runes in a book, I'd say a few decades to figure out the modern runes with a trial-and-error procedure. After that, a few more decades for the energy field. Two centuries tops." Faluel replied.

"Three hundred years in total?" Lith couldn't believe his ears.

"More or less, if you, me, and Solus work together the whole time. Kid, research takes time and dedication. Why do you think Inxialot left you off the hook that easily? He is probably already working on a project that will take him at least 200 years to complete.

"He's a Lich. They can afford to work alone because time is meaningless to them." Faluel said.

"What if I share it? After all, is what Royal Forgemasters would do."

"It would take much less time." Faluel said. "If the Council pools its resources and we Forgemasters start to exchange our respective findings, the entire process should take about two years.

"The problem is that we'll lose the exclusive and there's no guarantee that others will really cooperate instead of just leeching from those who share. Be them humans, beasts, plants, or undead, Awakened are greedy creatures."

"No wonder you're losing the magical research race to fake mages." Lith sighed. "We'll continue this conversation at another moment. I'm dead tired and I promised Kamila to take her out on a date."

"Have fun while you can, my apprentice, because once I start teaching you, we'll take no breaks until Invigoration stops working." Despite Faluel's girl next door looks and radiant smile, her words sounded awfully like a threat.

***

Jiera Continent, ex-city of Hervor, now reduced to a bunch of ruins.

After putting her resources to the test in Othre, Thrud Griffon had moved to the neighboring continent, like she always did after completing a rejuvenation cycle. She had spent centuries to create an alias that allowed her to live in the luxury she deserved and with access to the resources she needed.

Jiera was outside Tyris's influence and the local Guardian had no affection for any of her friends. It made Jiera the perfect place to lay low while Thrud enjoyed the fruits of her labors and honed her skills.

Unfortunately, after the release of the plague, all of her hard work was lost. Even a magical blight was powerless against her enhanced physique and that of her minions, but the plague had destroyed society as she knew it.

"Damn it all!" Thrud wanted to smash the crystal bottle she was drinking from in a fit of rage, but finding another would be nigh-impossible. "I can't go back to Garlen with the tight security all three Great Countries have established, but staying in this dead place is driving me crazy!"

It wasn't just a figure of speech. With the fall of human civilization, the continent had fallen into the hands of Emperor Beasts, who were able to identify Thrud from her smell and chase her away if she refused to leave.

She was a very powerful mage, even more thanks to the replicas of the Griffon Kingdom's strongest artifacts, but there were hundreds of Emperor Beasts living together. Some were as old as she was and nearly as powerful.