Josh hadn’t slept in days, thankfully he didn’t need much of it with his high endurance, however the matters that had gone on in the last couple of hours weighed heavily on him.

There were a total of nearly thirty portals that had opened up across Emerilia. For twenty of them, the Terra Alliance had been fast enough to get a command of the surrounding citadels. Two of the portals had two of the invaders holding two citadels and the alliance or people from Emerilia holding the other two. There were five with the invaders controlling three and one where the invading species had taken all of the citadels around the portal.

Nearly all of these citadels were under attack in some form or would be shortly.

The people of the Terra Alliance had come together, a few kingdoms had opted out at this time, it was expected that there would be a number that would leave as soon as things got tough. However the great majority stayed, seeing that the Alliance would make them stronger when dealing with these threats.

Soldiers had swarmed through Terra and into these citadels that lay across Emerilia now.

The various citadels fought against the forces in the areas around the portals, or fought other citadels that were quickly becoming strongholds for the invaders.

The invaders didn’t just stay in the area around the portal, a great number of them, like the Galis, a race that lived in the air, only used the citadels to rest before they sped off across Emerilia.

People that had stayed outside of the defendable cities were now in a rush to create their own defenses or move towards the overpopulated cities. Anything that wasn’t a city or town with defenses in place was being left behind.

“It’s clear that this is just starting we’ve got nearly a dozen aggressive species pouring through those portals, and we’re finding more and more creatures and sub quests from the Myths and Legends event that are undermining our strength in various cities. We’ve got to build up Terra to feed, clothe and house more people,” Lucy said.

Koza cleared his throat everyone in the room looking to him with a questioning glance.

“The Aleph have many areas that we can’t fully man, we have hired people in the past to work with us and seeing as we have this room and need more people we will open up these opportunities to more people. We are also willing to help with the design and building of more places,” Koza said.

There were relieved and agreeable murmurs from around the table.

“Thank you Koza,” Josh said, with a slight smile.

Koza simply nodded as if it was nothing.

“We have also hired a new group of dark mages that will be able to increase our ability to expand Terra and any other facilities that we make. I had other dark mages work to place down drop pads in different locations around Terra, we need resources, crops all those kinds of things to keep us going,” Lucy said.

“It looks like this is going to turn into a battle of attrition more than anything,” Dwayne said.

The other people in the room had bitter looks on their faces. If their people had to hide in cities to survive then resources were going to get a lot more scarce, the production from farms would greatly decrease. They had plans in place but they hadn’t thought that something on this scale would happen.

“The Dwarves will also open their mountains,” the Dwarf from the Dwarven War Council said.

This was more shocking than the Aleph, while the Aleph hadn’t had really anyone new go into their cities, they weren’t as well known as the Dwarves.

They rarely let people into their cities other than for the Dwarven Tournament that was held in specially made arenas and the stores and various places around the tournament had been built buy them. Few actually passed into the mountain. “We also have a list of people that we would like to meet and talk to.”

The Dwarf shared a list to them all, there were names across the paper, they were famed blacksmiths, dark mages, Earth mages, warriors and battle mages.

“What do you want them for?” Josh asked.

“The Blacksmiths we want to train them higher if at all possible and give them a place to work that allows them to push their limits. Same for the Earth and Dark Mages, we have an even deeper understanding of these two magics than the Mage’s College and Guild,” the Dwarf looked to the representatives of these institutions. Both of them nodded in agreement. “The warriors and various other mages, we have many weapons of power, now is the time to use them. If the weapons agree with them then they will be gifted a weapon of power to defend Emerilia and its people.”

There had been rumors and talk that people in the Dwarven Tournament were pulled aside and given weapons of power. A great number of people upon returning from the tournament had greatly increased in their strength. Not many were willing to declare that they were holding weapons of power. Jealousy and Greed were deadly sins. If someone that wanted these items heard that a weaker person had a weapon of power. They might kill them off to gain it.

A few had said that they had weapons of power but out of respect for the Dwarves they hadn’t said where it had come from.

Now the dwarves were confirming these rumors. All of those around the table were a little stunned at the turn of events.

Josh secretly looked to them all, there seemed to be a sense of unity, of drive in the room. That they were in this together. After the Dwarven War Council leader spoke up, some other groups started to talk about their ultimate weapons. Instead of holding onto these trump cards that they might use at a later date to get greater standing in the Alliance. They were using them now to show their dedication to see this through.

Looks like this Alliance might work out.

***

“Get those cannons mounted!” A Beast Kin yelled over the roar of battle. There were people from all races running around, Dwarves with their artillery cannons were mounting them to the top of the inner citadel, getting mages to assist them in taking them to the roof of the central tower.

The walls had mages and warriors on them, unleashing their attacks on the writhing mass of Green looking caterpillars.

These creatures were from the Erach race. Their nickname in the Jukal Empire was world devourers. These creatures had eaten everything that was on their home planet, from plant matter to other creatures and then once they had eaten everything on their planet, many went into a hibernation and underwent a metamorphosis to absorb sunlight and various energies to support themselves.

They were about as large as a baseball and a foot long. They spat out a numbing and stunning agent and they could burrow through the hardest of materials with enough time. They were currently coating the walls of the citadel that the Terra Alliance held, eating their way through as the defenders tried to lay down as many area of effect spells as possible.

There were hundreds of thousands of the creatures that had come through the portal like a flood, but they had been so focused on eating everything around the portal that the Alliance had been able to make a decent foothold in the surrounding citadels.

With all of the stored energy within them, the more mature Erach were able to unleash a green beam of light that could burrow through shields, barriers, and materials that lay in their path.

However this energy once burned up would take days or weeks to regenerate Also by killing these creatures with explosion spells their power would actually erupt, destroying a large area. Otherwise the soul capturing runes across the walls would light up, capturing this potent power. With the death of every Erach their power was unleashed on the world.

This in turn was drawn in by the hastily made runes, powering the few vault soul gems that the people of the alliance held.

There weren’t many soul gem constructs made by the Pandora Box team. Their resources and time requirements for the constructs weren’t small. However it was clear that they couldn’t let the Erach spread across Emerilia. The soul gem constructs at every citadels was growing faster and faster with all of this power being drawn into them.

Artillery spells howled overhead, raining death onto the Erach or creating spells that trapped the creatures for other spells to wipe them out.

It was chaos looking out upon the green caterpillars that were charging towards the citadels. They fed off of a person’s energy, eating plants was good, but eating a level two hundred person? There was nothing that could compare to this treat.

Bob was watching this and countless other battles even as he was within the moonbase working on his own altar of rebirth. The other projects were all automated, he had even set up the asteroid mining facilities, shipping drills that had been used to create Terra through the portals and to the Ice Planet and the Asteroids. There were factories and repair bots that would help to create the bases on both of those planets as well as Jeeves who was managing it all and moving resources between all the various locations to keep them running at optimal conditions.

“How did it come to this?” Bob asked himself, he had hoped to keep humanity alive, maybe to sneak them away and allow them another chance. With Emerilia becoming the entertainment of the Jukal Empire it had become impossible. Now he had put all his hopes and dreams into Party Zero and the people that he had come to know in order to overthrow the Jukal Empire. There was just no other option. However with this goal in mind all of these hardships had come up, from the event to the opening of portals across Emerilia.

This wasn’t a game it was a genocide.

Just as it looked like the citadel besieged by the Erach would fall a rain of fiery arrows came from the skies, killing thousands of the tightly packed Erach.

Runes along the walls were changed, the stone and metal moving into the new formations.

The Erach let out pained shrieks as the walls became cursed and acidic, burning and weakening the Erach.

Party Zero had arrived just in time.

Gurren and Lox flew out of the inner citadel, rushing to the walls, helping the defenders that had come face to face with the Erach that had made it inside the citadel.

With all of this killing the power to the soul gem construct increased as it grew out of the inner citadel and spread to the walls.

Induca formed a massive fire wall that covered the worst fifty meter long stretch of the outer wall while Anna called down a storm spell that formed multiple tornadoes that covered a hundred meter square area, moving across the battlefield, pulling Erach from the ground and cutting them apart with the sharp blades of air.

The other mages within the citadel unleashed their spells, the Erach’s attack was held off and actually pushed back under this combined pressure.

It gave the Dwarven Artillery enough time to get into place, their own guns bellowing as they unleashed area of effect spells that would clear a fifty meter area of Erach.

Bob was powerless in this battle, but he felt a bit of hope after seeing the Terra Alliance working together to save Emerilia.

***

Dave, Malsour and Steve were all at the first southern citadel around Goblin’s Mountain. They were in the central castle underneath the main tower that extended into the sky.

None of them were talking as they worked, the rest of Party Zero was off acting as a reactive force, they would rush through teleport pads and Ono’s laying down massive damage to give the defenders or the attackers trying to take citadels some relief and hopefully allow them to hold on or enter the citadels to capture them.

It was madness with the dozens of battlefields changing constantly. The alliance had lost some citadels and gained others, some were simply watching to see what the enemy would do, or were stuck in a chaotic battle for survival.

The Pandora Box crew didn’t pay attention to the outside world, a number of crafts people standing around them, ready and waiting to get whatever they needed.

Dave once again went into the mirror of communication.

He quickly shared out his problem to what was his class of coders. However right now it was a coding think tank. There were nearly three hundred people here, from all across Emerilia. Some were part of the alliance, others worked in Grahslagg industries and others were simply helping out. Among those helping out there were hidden figures of people from the Deq’ual system.

Dave would simply go in, share a problem he was getting stuck on and leave once again, or pass out a simulation to run. He’d also drop off Malsour and Steve’s questions and work.

This sped up the process of working on the citadels’ new systems immensely.

They never stopped working, always turning from one roadblock to another question that they could solve.

Malsour turned from their work and looked to the forty or so Blood Kin that were off to the side and back to Dave. They might need blood in order to display their power, but they weren’t bad people.

With a large supply of blood crystals coming in, they were stronger than ever, allowing them to become a small but incredibly powerful building force.

“It’s time,” Dave nodded seeing the question in Malsour’s eyes.

Malsour stood up, clearing his throat and moving to the Blood Kin.

“Alright, listen up because time is of the essence, we’re going to form the basis of the new system that will be running through this citadel. Here are the plans,” Malsour said as a person ran up with a bag to the Blood Kin, the haughty Blood Kin glanced over the plans, their normally indifferent faces turning alarmed at the plans while one of them took the bag, opening the top.

“These,” the one that had taken the bag said looking into the bag.

“There should be a few hundred Blood Essence crystals in there. I have someone that is working on making something more mana potent than these simple crystals. Now get them in you and let’s get to work!” Malsour said.

The Blood Kin pulled on their masks and their hoods, blood essence crystals were distributed out to them all as they moved out into the citadel.

They quickly moved to the various cardinal points.

The citadel that they were in was no longer a simple level one citadel. As it had been under the Terra Alliances control for so long it had actually progressed to a level three citadel and was about a week away from making it to level four.

Level two had taken the simple outer wall and inner citadel with a large town in the middle of it and expanded everything.

The wall had expanded outwards, becoming taller and thicker, the inner citadel had risen up as well, its walls becoming thicker and adding two new floors so that it looked out over the outer walls. Four small towers at the cardinal points had grown from the inner citadel and reached upwards. In the center, the main tower had doubled in size and also grown four more stories. A second outer wall had risen around the first, increasing the depth of the defenses.

With the third change the second outer wall became as thick and strong as the first wall in the second stage and moved outwards. From it, eight small towers had appeared at eight cardinal points.

The biggest change was the original castle and walls. The walls became thicker as the ground rose up, creating a hill underneath the walls and the castle.

Now instead of being flat, the different layers of defense were stacked. The inner castle didn’t grow outwards but instead in places the stone was covered in sections of metal to defend against possible attack and shore up weak positions.

The Towers became more refined and actually held their own mana barriers instead of just the mana barriers created by the soul gem construct.

Soul gem constructs were still growing, the area was so large and power was at a premium that the Alliance hadn’t wanted to spend much of it on the citadel to begin with.

Now they needed something to help turn these battles.

Pandora’s Box had been secretly supplementing the power needed for the project, running their reactors to charge vault soul gems.

Bob was over looking the soul gem factories while he worked on his own projects. There simply weren’t enough vault soul gems to keep everything powered continuously. They had to be dumped into the soul gem construct and whisked back to a recharge point.

Still the growth had been immense.

Within the inner castle there were multiple storage crates that had been dropped off by the automated carts for the next part of what was needed for the citadel.

Malsour stayed in a hidden room within the center of the citadel, trying to clear his mind of all distractions.

He changed into his dragon form as much as possible, power surging through him as he sensed the ground underneath him, overlaying the ground with the plan that Pandora’s box and their coding helpers had come up with.

“This is going to be difficult,” Malsour said to himself, feeling the Blood Kin reach the various positions across the citadel and its defenses.

They all took a few moments to get into a comfortable position, consume their blood essences and submerge themselves into the ground under their feet.

“Open the resource chests,” Malsour said across the support party chat.

Around the citadel resource chests were tipped, mounds of resources falling out of them as automatons and people started to let the resources out.

“Begin,” Malsour said as he gained control over these resources.

The material piles seemed to melt, disappearing from sight. However they were being pulled on by the Blood Kin and Malsour into the ground.

Malsour pulled down tons of resources, as they moved through the ground, he formed them into various threads, they encompassed the foundations of the citadel and spread out over the surrounding area. The Blood Kin were also making their own metal plates.

These metal plates came together to form a single sheet underneath the citadel. From this, metal supports twisted down from the edge of the metal sheet, creating a cone that pointed down into the ground.

As the Blood Kin made these different strands, working together, so that their magic was impossible to tell apart, Malsour went in, forming a massive magical coded formation on the underside of the massive metal sheet. Thick, coded lines moved from the formation to the supports, following them downwards.

From these supports it seemed as if metallic roots sprouted from them. They spread out through the surrounding dirt and rock.

A thick column from the center of the steel plate started to form, covered in the geometric lines of magical code that was being formed on this ten meter wide pillar that extended all the way down to where the other one hundred or so supports met up in a point.

Time lost meaning as this work went on, the Blood Kin would constantly consume their blood essence crystals.

They had an high opinion of themselves but all of them were in awe of the power and control that Malsour showed with his work, increasing their own depth of knowledge and abilities in manipulating dark mana.

The main supports were finally finished as the roots continued to spread out through the rock that lay within the supporting pillars and around them.

To someone that knew the human body it might look like the circulatory system. The main pillars were the arteries while the roots were the capillaries that stretched out to reach into the surrounding material, becoming thinner and thinner as it reached out to all of the ground around.

Malsour was breathing heavily, his body covered in sweat and his head woozy from the power expenditure. It had taken nearly nine days for them to work together and bring this about. To the Blood Kin and Malsour it felt like it had been as short as hours but as long as years.

Malsour turned his attention to the metal plate. The roots had not simply grown down but they had also spread up and into the citadel, its towers and surrounding walls.

The soul gem construct that was covering the citadel welcomed these roots and actually spread them down towards the metal plate.

If only we could hook up a fusion reactor to the citadel we could change this all in a matter of days instead of weeks.

Malsour sighed to himself.

Malsour finally opened his eyes, his face pale as he coughed slightly his entire body feeling weak as he was wracked with that coughing. He got some water from his bag of holding, quickly drinking it to relieve his parched throat, he was hungry and tired as hell but instead of resting he slowly got to his feet, his half-draconic form disappearing as he returned to his human state, he drank stamina potions, they didn’t have much effect as he’d been using them nearly constantly for a week and a half straight. He didn’t even touch the mana regeneration potions, they had little effect on him now.

He had used them so many times in a row that they barely helped to regenerate his mana any more.

What he needed was rest to recover his mana and get back to his peak condition.

With his senses he looked out over the city. While he and the Blood Kin had been making changes underground and through the city walls, Dave and Steve had been making a lot of changes to the soul gem construct that was spread out over the massive defensive works.

Dave looked up from where he had been working, it didn’t look like he had taken a break either.

“Looks like you’re just in time for the fourth change,” Dave said.

“I hope that the metal plate is enough,” Malsour said.

“Just reached one hundred percent,” Steve said, the ground shook as a faint glow of power spread out over the citadel and its defensive walls.

The citadel shook as stone changed to metal in places, condensing and giving greater support. It grew higher with the curtain wall gaining strength, casting balconies and archery positions appeared, positions for ballistae and trebuchets formed on the roof of the citadel.

The Towers didn’t move but instead gained more metal reinforcement. The outer wall became eight meters thick and twenty high, the ground behind it also rose. The eight towers dotted around it also grew in size and prominence, overlooking those pristine smooth grey walls.

The secondary inner walls started to gain metal sections in places as the ground inside also reached higher with the inner castle on top.

The defenses looked much like a birthday cake instead of being on top of a hill now. Instead of the gentle elevations, the defenses were laid out with painstaking detail, altering the world around it to give greater defensive abilities.

This was a castle with defensive walls no more, this was a true citadel.

On the roof of the central tower a large magical formation could be seen forming in the air before it slammed down into the stone and metal of the rooftop.

A blast of magical power rippled outwards as magical formations appeared on the roofs of the already large towers around the main castle. As they finished, four smaller pulses spread outwards. On the eight towers that were around the outer wall more magical formations appeared.

As these finished, a magical pulse went out but as it touched upon the inner magical formations they lit up the formations once again, a phantom image appearing above the outer towers, then the inner towers and finally the central tower.

Mana poured out of these formations in a stream, creating a cone around the citadel, this cone of mana was a mana barrier.

“You ready with that power coding?” Dave asked.

Malsour sent his senses downwards through the structures below his feet.

“Yeah,” Malsour said.

“Good.” Dave stood up, the central area under the tower was still massive with the first two floors open for anyone to look at, above, large lights illuminated the space in the center of the floor with the Ono in it.

“Could you bury the construct and mana well?” Dave asked as he moved towards one of the towers that were a part of the inner citadel.

“Can do,” Malsour looked to the soul gem pillar that was holding the mana well, power descending through the thick coded lines that surrounded the mana well.

A hole appeared under the mana well that disappeared underground. The floor sealed up as the soul gem around expanded over where the mana well had been. He watched the mana well and the core of the soul gem construct descend until it was right above the massive metal plate under the Citadel, above the metal pillar that stretched down to the base of the support cone.

Threads spread out from the soul gem construct, across the metal plate and reaching up and into the citadel, connecting to the soul gem that pervaded the structure above the ground.

The threads came up and connected to the soul gem constructs that had spread well over the towers that were around the inner castle.

Malsour was tired but he wanted to see what Dave did next. This was the culmination of all their work over the last couple of weeks.

Dave made it into a tower, around the inner castle, instead of going upwards he went downwards, Steve and Malsour following him. They went to an inconspicuous looking doorway, Dave opened it up, they finding themselves in a closet.

“I’m not as powerful as you, but I can do this,” Dave said, Dark mana surged around him as the floor beneath them started to drop down and then moved on a slant.

They reached a point directly underneath the center of the tower in the citadel and above the center of the metal plate where the soul gem construct and mana well were.

Dave pushed his hands outwards, the open area that they were in expanded into a horseshoe.

“Looks a bit enterprise-y,” Steve commented looking at the different consoles that formed the horseshoe.

“Enterprise has the open side of the horseshoe pointed at the screens, we’ve got the closed end,” Dave said.

“By Fire can we stop talking about your damn television and just see if this all works?” Malsour asked.

“Someone’s grumpy,” Steve said, his eyes flashed for a moment. “I’m connecting to the soul gem construct and sending a thread back up to us to connect into the consoles.”

“Good,” Dave commanded the ground to create chairs, areas where consoles would be, smoothing out the floor and walls.

He threw out mage lights, illuminating the space fully so that not only people with a mastery of night vision could see.

A sprout of soul gem cracked through the floor, forming into a console at the rear of the command room which was raised a bit higher to see the other consoles. It was clear that the commander of this room would sit here.

The soul gem construct finished forming the console, spreading across the room, creating the floors and reaching out to where the other consoles would be before stopping.

“We’re going to need a hell of a lot more power. That’s all I can do right now without more juice,” Steve said.

Dave closed his eyes checking his senses.

He opened a nearby chat, encompassing all of the modified Citadel.

“Do not step outside the walls of the Citadel, or come within five kilometers of the Citadel, if you are leaving please do so through the Ono, tell everyone that enters these rules. If not you or they could die,” Dave said.

“Nice, really uplifting, you should do speeches for your day job,” Steve said.

“Ass,” Dave said unable to fully suppress a smile that rose to his lips.

“Well, I hope this new power system of yours works,” Malsour said.

“You and me both,” Dave said, pressing different controls on the console as well as using his own interface to change settings and prime a program.

Runic lines across the city walls and the supports, pillar and the roots that came off of them running deep into the ground all lit up.

At first nothing happened, and then Dave started to feel that the area around the Citadel was cooling.

In his senses he could feel all of the heat energy around the city being pulled inwards by the various runes, converted into mana and poured into the soul gem construct that started to slowly grow more.

The temperature outside started to drop, faster and faster, going from a hot sunny day to feeling like they were in autumn.

“Okay so the heat exchangers are working,” Malsour said, using his own senses and feeds to the Aleph automatons to see what was going on outside of the city.

“I just hope the cold exchangers do as well,” Steve said.

The soul gem construct that weaved through this massive structure both underground and above it grew faster and faster, strengthening its ties to the different parts of the Citadel and connecting to more and more of the supports, the more supports they attached themselves to the faster power was pulled into the city as it wasn’t lost in transferring it through the supports’ runes.

The metal supports were good with the runes but the soul gem construct was many times more powerful, as they gathered power faster, they were also a better material to code. As they seeped into the metal runes, they had the effect of making them much more powerful, making the temperature around the Citadel drop faster and faster.

“Welcome to a winter wilderness,” Dave said, sensing that the ground around the Citadel was actually freezing over.

“Readying the cold exchanger,” Steve said.

The ground temperature around the Citadel reached minus five centigrade before the power they were getting was diminishing returns.

“Switch,” Dave said.

“Cold exchangers are active,” Steve said. This was one of the projects that had been giving the three of them and the other coders a headache for a while. Turning heat into power was pretty easy, and spells could be made from mana to create something cold. So if there were runes that could convert heat into mana then there had to be runes that could convert cold into mana. At least that was their running theory and hope. If they could have two of these systems that collected this ambient cold or hot energy, as long as they were in atmosphere or a place that could be heated and cooled then they could get power.

The runic lines for the heat exchangers dimmed as runic lines for the cold exchangers spun up. The heat exchangers didn’t turn off but seemed to dial down.

The ground around the Citadel started to melt rapidly.

A notification appeared next to Dave’s screen as power started to seep into the city.

Dave, Malsour and Steve let out excited cheers.

“It works! I fucking works!” Dave yelled high fiving Malsour and hitting Steve’s hand.

“Fuck, that’s hard!” Dave yelled his hand numb from high fiving Steve.

“Sorry, got a little too into it,” Steve laughed.

“This, this is huge, with this we can power this Citadel for a long time, it takes it off of relying on just the vault soul gems,” Malsour said his face filled with joy.

“It’s going to take a hell of a long time to get this system to try and power up all of the Citadel’s soul gem constructs that are running all over the place, but at least we can do it!” Dave said, joy on his face, they hadn’t had a proper meal in a week, they were tired and needed to have a long shower but now that fatigue seemed to fall away in the face of their excitement.

This wasn’t going to another planet or seeing the beauty of the universe laid out before them. Those things inspired and made one’s heart beat with passion. This was created for one reason, to survive, their laughs of having their crazy idea coming together, of the hope and worries that had plagued them coming to a realization that they would work, that their idea as audacious as it might be could work!

Dave opened up his notifications finding three screens waiting for him.

Quest Completed: Librarian Level 6

Use research to prove a theory (2/2)

Rewards: Unlock Level 7 Quest

+10 to all stats

600,000 Experience

Class: Librarian

Status:

Level 6

Effects:

+60 to all stats

Read 5% faster

Understand 10% more of the information that you read

Quest: Librarian Level 7

Use research to prove a theory (2/3)

Rewards: Unlock Level 8 Quest

Increase to stats

Dave quickly opened his character sheet to check it.

Character Sheet

Name:

David Grahslagg

Gender:

Male

Level:

240

Class:

Dwarven Master Smith, Friend of the Grey God, Bleeder, Librarian, Aleph Engineer, Weapons Master, Champion Slayer, Skill Creator, Mine Manager, Master of Space and Time, Master of Gravitational Anomalies

Race:

Human/Dwarf

Alignment:

Chaotic Neutral

Unspent points: 0

Health:

49,100

Regen:

24.42 /s

Mana:

15,930

Regen:

58.95 /s

Stamina:

5,420

Regen:

51.40 /s

Vitality:

501

Endurance:

1,221

Intelligence:

1,603

Willpower:

1,179

Strength:

552

Agility:

1,028

“Balancing out the cold and heat exchangers,” Steve said his eyes distracted for a moment.

Dave and Malsour held their breath in anticipation, if the two exchangers could be balanced out then they would be getting power from both as they pulled in the cold and heat energy around them. by creating a balance they would get a continuous stream of incoming energy that was higher than just one or the other exchanger working.

“We’ve just hit balance,” Steve said with a smile to the two others, Malsour checked the power numbers, they weren’t as high as the mana well, and nowhere close to a fusion plant, but it was more energy than they were getting before. As the soul gem construct filled in the runes along the supports, then the rate of power they would gain would only increase, allowing them to get three or four times the energy from their exchangers compared to the mana well.

“As soon as we get all of the different components of the exchangers covered in soul gem construct I want to halt all progress and focus on holding energy and creating vault soul gems,” Dave said.

“The resources we used to make this Citadel weren’t light we can only make one or two others,” Malsour said. Their plan worked but having just one working citadel would only provide limited help.

“It’s time I went back to Earth,” Dave said.