Chapter 3445 Trust but Failsafe (Part 2) "It would be perfect." Cyrra nodded, handing the control crystals to her. One was for the Golems and the other for the fortress. "Not so fast. I need the right ingredients first." Menadion wrote down a short list of magical resources. The problem was the staggering amount she needed. "Fuck!" Bhaz said. "Don't worry. The Dawn and Dusk Court will cover your share, but you have to pay us back, Cyrra." "No problem." She shrugged. "If we survive, we have eternity to settle our debt." Lith's wallet bled at the idea of spending so many Crimson Thorns and Wind Lilies for someone else's spells, no matter if the magical resources didn't belong to him. The Forgemasters, instead, looked at Menadion as if she was going to fall on one knee and propose to each one of them any second now. "Lith, I might need more mana than this body possesses so be ready." Menadion started from the Fortress's crystal. The moment she took it in her hand, the layers upon layers of magical formations became visible to the naked eye. Once she confirmed there was no discrepancy between the arrays and the blueprints, Menadion activated her tier five Creation Magic spell, Second Chance. She unraveled the magical formations, removing a few circles and letting several blue spheres of energy fade into nothingness. Once she was done, she extracted the magical essence of the Wind Lilies and weaved it into pseudo cores. Menadion also added her personal cloaking runes to keep her work from being stolen and a control array that would answer solely to her energy signature. Since she shared Lith's, he was granted control over the Fortress as well. Once she was done, the arrays of the Fortress had been changed to the point the new blueprints had little in common with the old ones. Then, it was the Golems' turn and the time to use the Crimson Thorns. Much to Bahz's dismay, the Awakened Forgemasters focused solely on observing the Creation Magic spell. They didn't try to understand how the various spells were being rearranged or how to regain control of their own work. "That's it?" Barham asked as the magical runes became invisible again. "Is it already over?" "It lasted over fifteen minutes." Despite her undead state, Menadion panted heavily. "To you, it was a pretty light show but to me, it was no easy feat. If not for Lith and the mana geyser below the Fortress, I would have needed to use Invigoration so many times that it would have no effect anymore." She only had two eyes left but they were rapidly opening again as Lith gave her new mana. "These are the new blueprints." A wave of her hand manipulated the ink with water magic and drew a series of complex schematics on multiple pieces of paper. "You'll need it in case something gets damaged beyond its ability to self-repair." "Marvelous!" Barham praised. "Amazing!" Adria gasped. "Genius!" Pharo and the others passed the papers among each other while commenting on Menadion's work. "Let me guess, you have no idea what you are looking at." Cyrra scoffed. "Not a clue." The Forgemasters nodded. "But if we take our time to study this, there's no telling how much we might learn." "That's a big if." A flick of Bhaz's wrist collected the pieces of paper and brought them to his hands. "These schematics belong to the Undead Courts. We paid for them twice now and have no reason to share them with you. "Your services are no longer required. You can leave the Fortress at your earliest convenience." "How much?" The Forgemasters snarled. "We can talk about this after the crisis is resolved. Cyrra replied. "This way you have a good reason not to run your mouths and we won't risk Poopie taking a look at our defenses." 'Also, once this is over, we'll have the opportunity to recover at least part of the expenditure for this fortress.' She inwardly added. "Fine." Barham snarled. "Ruler Menadion, I'd love to invite you to-" "Is there anything else?" Lith asked, cutting the Wyvern short. "No." The Dawn King shook his head. "We'll keep you updated if anything new happens and I expect you to do the same." "Excellent." Lith and his group Warped outside to the army of Demons. Now that the Fortress was under his control, the air-sealing and space-compressing arrays offered no resistance to his spells. The Awakened Forgemasters were still sighing and whining when he arrived to the Blood Desert. *** "Why didn't you tell us that you have mastered Creation Magic, Mom?" Solus asked, impressed by Menadion's feat. "You never asked. Also, you were supposed to know. I used it during our escape from the World Tree, remember?" Ripha replied. "Sure, but changing a rune here and there is different from remaking a whole castle." Solus replied. "You would be right, if I enchanted the entire Fortress from scratch. Menadion shrugged. "Most of the work was already done. I only added three spells. The hardest part was scrambling everything so that the enchantments would become unrecognizable and still work." "Can you teach us Creation Magic, Mom?" Solus asked. "Lith and I have been stuck at tier three for a while now." "I don't know if she should, Solus," Lith replied. "I want us to master our Creation Magic, not Ripha's. We've been studying Creation Magic only for a short while and something always happened that delayed our practice." "I can and I'm willing to teach you, sweetie." Menadion said. "It's only fair since I wouldn't have understood my foundations were flawed if not for attending to Sally's lessons with you as a wandering soul. She was teaching you while unwittingly teaching me as well. "Back when I was alive, I got close enough to learning Creation Magic to Forgemaster the Workshop floor of the tower, but it's only thanks to you guys if I finally completed my life's work." "Thanks for the offer, Mom." Solus replied. "We'll keep working on Creation Magic on our own and once we run out of options we'll come to you for a nudge in the right direction." "That's an excellent idea, dear," Menadion nodded. "I can't wait to catch up on modern magic so that you can teach me Void Magic. I'll be your student so go easy on me, professor Solus." "Only if you earn it, you runt." Solus chuckled. "Jokes aside, we are stuck in Void Magic too. We can't figure out how to deal with the double elemental switch without the willpower imbued in the spell going awry." "Even better." Menadion said. "We can work on it together, if you don't mind a hand." "No offense, Ripha, but Void Magic is our creature. Lith said. "It's what got us the title of Void Magus and if someone were to help us bringing it to completion, we'd feel like frauds. Even if no one ever knew about your involvement, we would." "Is that what you think as well, Solus?" Menadion asked, obtaining a nod in reply. "Then honesty for honesty, I think you two are working on too many fronts at the same time. "Creation Magic, Void Magic, the lessons at the academies, preparing for Meln's return, and the list goes on."