Chapter 2919 Not Normal (Part 3) Nalrond had spent years expanding on the research of his people, trying to undo what the human mages had done to them with Forbidden Magic. Now that he was finally close to the solution, he couldn't bear the thought of waiting one second longer, let alone weeks. 'It doesn't matter.' He closed his eyes and massaged his temples in an attempt to contain the resentment he felt burning at him from the inside. 'I need time to recover. If Friya sees me like this, she'll think that I've gone crazy and she'll never support my decision. 'I need to play my cards right if I don't want to-' It was then that the thought that Friya might not only not approve of his decision, but also break up with him pierced through the haze of his obsession. With the excuse that he needed more data, Nalrond had kept delaying the conversation which had allowed him to not think about how it might end. Now that he had no excuse left, he went pale as he realized the consequences of his decision might entail. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦 'If she accepts and the procedure fails, I'll break her heart and miss all the years we would have spent together. If she breaks up with me and I die, at least I won't have to hear everyone telling me I told you so. 'Yet what if she breaks up with me and the procedure succeeds? What then? I would become a new species, sure, but I would also be alone. Unless I find someone else who's willing to accept me, my newborn race will die with me and all of my sacrifices will be for nothing.' On the one hand, Nalrond wanted to go on with the procedure, no matter the consequences. His people had struggled for millennia with their condition and he had worked to find a solution for decades before meeting Friya. Throwing his heritage in the gutter for one woman was beyond stupid. On the other hand, without Friya his success would have been hollow. Only if she supported his decision and the procedure succeeded would he get a happy ending but even in his exhausted state it wasn't hard to realize how abysmal the odds were. "Are you alright?" Lith asked after a few seconds of awkward silence. "Yes. I mean, no. I mean, I need your advice." Nalrond said. 'Lith made his relationship with Kamila work and with the help of his tower, the procedure's chances of success should skyrocket. If there's someone who can help me convince Friya that's him.' He actually thought. "With pleasure. What's this about?" Lith said. "Not here and not now." Nalrond shook his head. "It's not a discussion I feel comfortable having on the amulet and I'm in dire need of sleep right now. Give me a couple of days to rest and put my thoughts in order or I doubt I'll make any sense. "Please, keep your schedule clear because even though it's not a life-or-death situation it's a pressing matter to me." After Lith agreed, the Rezar inquired about the expedition on Jiera and once he was sure there was no impending threat on Friya, Quylla, and Orion, he bid Lith goodbye. "That was weird." Kamila said. "Big time." Solus nodded. "Do any of you have an idea of what he might want to talk about?" "It's Nalrond so it can be only one of three things." Lith shrugged. "There's something new about his life forces, he wants suggestions about how to propose to Friya, or he just wants me to Forgemaster him a betrothal present." "Point taken." Solus nodded. "Probably Jirni has pressured him to make his move since Friya is getting old. I mean, according to Mogar's standard." She rushed to add, the topic sensitive for her and Kamila. Any woman past 25 who was still unmarried was considered a spinster and Friya was already 23. It was one of the reasons Kamila had thought that she would never have a family before meeting Lith. They discussed the oddity of Nalrond's condition but there was no real reason to worry about it so they soon split up and went to take care of their respective business. Lith spent the rest of the afternoon working on the blueprints for the new models of DoLorean that the Royals had commissioned him, Kamila alternated between practicing Accumulation and magic, while Solus spent her time inside the Prime Engine. 'If there's something I've learned from our fight with the Eternal Fortress is that the passive boost that the tower gives us and the arrays are not enough to even survive against an opponent of that caliber.' She thought. 'We couldn't use the Firing Range because it would have betrayed the position of the tower and blown my cover, but even if we were alone and there was no witness, it wouldn't have been enough. 'The whole tower wouldn't have been enough.' She clenched her hands so hard that they turned white. 'I need to find a place where to put the Prime Engine's prowess to the test and see if there's any way to use it covertly.' Lith and Solus had already gone to the same isolated areas of the Blood Desert where in the past they had practiced their Blade Spells to test the Prime Engine in secret. The problem was that they had never fought a real opponent with it and there was only so much they could learn from shooting at dunes and firing at the sky. To make matters worse, even in its incomplete state, the tower's battle form was a stone golem over 25 meters (82') tall. The mass necessary to form limbs and reinforce the body came from the underground floors that even though were usually hidden from sight comprised half of the tower. 'How can we explain we built something like that and where are we supposed to have found the necessary materials?' Solus inwardly griped. 'Even worse, even assuming we find a perfectly plausible explanation, there's no way to justify the fact that we can only use it in the presence of a mana geyser. 'If we pull the Prime Engine out without having an airtight cover story, the Royals and everyone else involved in the War of the Griffons are going to think that we have kept the blueprints of the Golden Griffon and used it to craft a scaled down academy of our own. 'Which is partially true since my mother created the academies and the tower so she the two projects are bound to be similar. Yet this makes our situation worse. There's no point winning a battle if it costs us the trust we have built with our allies. 'I need to ask for Lith's help and if we can't think of anything, we'll have to go to Grandma for advice.' She checked all the Forgemastering catalogs at their disposal but she failed to find an artifact that the Prime Engine could imitate to hide its true nature. As for the babies, they entertained themselves with the many hard-light interactive toys in the tower or slept. Whenever they were hungry or needed to be changed, the tower would alert one of the parents and they would take care of it.