Chapter 2959 Yurial’s Lesson (Part 1)
Then, Nalrond opened one wound at a time. First on his human body and then an identical one on his Rezar half. He used darkness fusion to numb the pain enough to not lose his concentration but not so much that he wouldn't notice cutting too deep in.
He hated every second of it, needing sheer determination to go against the instinct engraved inside every fiber of his body. Worst of all, was looking at the worry and pain Friya's eyes.
She turned around more than once, needing time to compose herself and resume watching.
"Okay. This is enough." Nalrond panted, exhausted from the pain and blood loss. "Look carefully."
He activated his tier Body Sculpting diagnostic spell, Watcher, to follow the process for the umpteenth time in the hope of noticing something he had missed in his previous attempts.
Nalrond started to shapeshift, stopping the process midway to let his halves come into contact.
With his life forces weakened, the wall built with Forbidden Magic to keep them apart had also become thinner. The barrier drew its strength from the life forces and right now it lacked the power to keep the bridge from forming.
As soon as the first crack in the wall opened, the life forces went from dead calm to raging. Whenever they touched, they would merge for a split second before bouncing back in a shower of sparks.
The conflict further weakened the life forces and the wall, but while the latter crumbled the former grew more violent by consuming what little energy they had left to exploit the opponent's weakness and put it down.
'I hope you have collected some useful data because I can't keep this up for much longer.' Nalrond said.
'Then don't. Let's stop it here.' Faluel said.
While Nalrond forcibly cut the contact between the life forces, he also healed the mirrored wounds one set at a time. It would take him a while if he was alone since he couldn't risk losing consciousness until the wall was fully restored.
With the others feeding him vitality, however, he could quickly close enough wounds to stabilize his life forces and make sure that the wall drained them faster than they could recover.
He would go for a complete healing only after his life forces quieted down and the wall was thick enough to keep them from perceiving one another again.
The ensuing conflict resulted in the sparks and the bouncing back that the Watcher spell reported.
"What in the gods' name is that?" Nalrond knew the answer to his question but he needed to hear it from someone else to make sure he had not gone insane.
"Even if the energy signature is the same, fusion magic still works." Solus replied. "And since, as you said, your life forces are very different, it takes but a small alteration to make the fusion process fail."
"Why did this never happen to Lith or Tista?" The Rezar asked in helpless frustration.
"Because we've only ever had one core." Lith replied. "When our life forces were ready to merge, the mana flowing through them brought them together because they both 'belonged' to it.
"Your mana cores, instead, recognize neither the other life force or each other."
"That's why no member of the werepeople ever managed to find a cure!" Nalrond said. "With no access to a specific artifact or Invigoration, even a true mage has no way to visualize their mana flow.
"Even worse, there are plenty of spells that can alter a life force but none for mana cores. They are not physical organs and the only way to interact with them is with pure mana.
"Too bad that since I'm no Awakened, I have no Spirit Magic and if someone else uses it on me, I'd just get mana poisoning!"
Faluel and the others nodded, letting the Rezar vent his frustration since they had nothing useful to add.
"Calm down." Friya caressed his shoulder. "This was just the first try. The Eyes has collected only 10% of the available information. There's still the remaining 90%."
Nalrond sighed and went to bed. He needed to be at his full strength or the following scan would last even less.
One week later, the Eyes had reached an 80% completion. Now the how, why, and when the fusion failed were much clearer. Alas, such knowledge gave Nalrond and the others no clue about how to overcome them.
Consuming before the procedure so much mana that Nalrond reached mana abuse levels made him lose his focus and his head ached so much that he couldn't bring the life forces together. The process would not even start.
