The princess had enough energy to immediately reach Rank 1, or so she claimed. To Lucas, this was a treasure and a curse at the same time. Part of him immediately wanted to kill her and claim the energy for himself, while his other half was stuck in deep thought.
'KILL her now! We can reach Rank 1 directly with that amount of energy, what are you waiting for?!'
'If she can't absorb it, why would we be any different? Plus, having the death of a princess of the country you're going to isn't a good idea.'
'C'mon! We can easily kill her through different means that won't give away our identity!'
'Hold on, first, let's check what it actually is, if we can absorb it, then we can discuss possible homicide.'
Lucas placed his hands on the soft and somewhat warm abdomen of Freya, right above where the core should be located. She reflexively pulled her gut in, to avoid his touch, his hands were cold. Giving Freya a few goosebumps on her arms. It almost felt ticklish. Noticing her discomfort, he increased the heat on his hands through a few magicules. To Freya, this felt extremely soothing, especially after feeling something so cold.
From Lucas' perspective she seemed to slow down her breath only to let it rise a bit, 'I guess it must be embarrassing to show her belly to a man.'
Usually, willpower was used for sensing the surroundings or when you're working on something very detailed and fragile. But by guiding the willpower through your limbs, you could in theory sense the insides of whatever object you were touching. As long as the waves of willpower entered it, you could scan it.
Lucas didn't have extremely good control over his willpower, he was only able to spread it far and wide. Luckily, it didn't matter that much, he could simply brute force it by sending a lot of it.
Inspecting the insides of Freya, more precisely, where her core was located he found the glowing ball. The amount of energy was enormous, more than what Lucas had ever seen before. It was so much that it was easy to tell that the core was being overwhelmed by the amount.
'It would be similar to forcing an entire buffet down the throat of a newly born child without any teeth.'
'Yeah, yeah, can we kill her already? Look at the amount! LOOK AT IT! We can easily grow so fast!'
Yet part of Lucas was already too focused to hear anything else. Guiding his mental force into the layers didn't affect it, though it did give him an even clearer view of how the layers worked. There were 3 levels in total.
'One for awakening, and the second for the runes? What's the third one for?'
"You said that the energy was purely to create the first circle right, not a mental sphere?"
"That's correct, the goal was to create all the runes necessary, but stop right before advancing. That way we had enough time to form my mental sphere. Then I wouldn't have any issues reaching Rank 1."
"Why not do everything at once?"
"Because if the runes are done and I immediately advance without creating a mental sphere, I'll die. A mage needs his sphere or the mind explodes from all the information, and you can't create a sphere with just energy. Otherwise the world would only have mages."
'I disagree, just the amount of energy necessary would be impossible to get. She's been handed everything on a platter it seems.'
'Yes, probably, who cares though? You won't listen to me anyway, you know? Killing her would be the best for both...'
Lucas then simply assumed that there were 2 layers necessary to get all the runes in place, he knew how long it took to get halfway, so it would make sense that it would take a lot of energy. There were small tendrils coming from one layer to the next, signifying that they all had a connection with each other.
'That's probably to make sure that they activate one after another, if I break these connections, will that energy just go haywire?'
'Yes, that will kill her and get rid of the energy, so please, for the love of the goddess, don't!'
'You believe in the goddess?'
'What, hell no! Are you kidding me?!'
The layers were connected with each other and the core, but the core didn't absorb anything, it was asleep, but contrary to the normal theory, it hadn't fused with her flesh. The ball of energy was keeping it away from her body, even if it was only slightly.
'If the core starts to absorb the energy it would awaken, but there is too much, cutting the last layer away, would only make the energy go crazy and destroy the surrounding tissue.'
'Would there be a way to move that energy out of the body? Then we can absorb it and she stays alive, happy?'
And an idea formed in his mind, he started to get excited, but quickly forced himself back to an apathetic state.
'We need to stay calm, any mistake could endanger her life, perhaps even mine.'
'Oh, now you'll listen huh?'
What he hadn't figured out yet was how to let her core absorb the other energy.
'These layers must've been made part by part and not in one go, so how can we awaken the core forcefully? Should we use Venion's technique?'
Lucas knew perfectly well how you could forcefully awaken a core, but he wouldn't want her to experience the same pain as he did. There had to be something different.
'Didn't Venion awaken Robert without any pain? He said he fell asleep and woke up with an active core.'
Putting her to sleep wasn't the hardest part, but he couldn't figure out if that would work. If the core was to absorb part of that energy, he needed to see if it worked with small amounts first. Testing it on his own core was difficult since his intentions were clear and obvious, the core would immediately absorb it, but the same couldn't be said about hers.
"Alright Freya, I've looked at your core and I want to ask something. Do you know whether or not your core has fused with your body yet?"
"Euhm, last time I talked to my advisor about it he said that my core was still separate and that there was still hope. But that was already quite some time ago, so I'm afraid that by now they will have fused."
"Well, then I guess you'll be happy to know that your core is still in the same state. Can you sense it?"
"No, not really, how would I do that?"
'I guess you first need access to magicules before you can sense it, even we could only sense it after Venion forced his magic into us.'
'So, didn't we use magic that didn't need a mental sphere and was based on pure intentions alone? Let her do that.'
'Oh, you're a genius!'
'Yeah sure, only when it fits you.'
"Freya, listen to me. I think I may have found a way to help your core. The core and spells can be influenced by our emotions and intentions. I want you to focus all of your mind on thinking about accepting the magicules that I'm about to send to your core. Don't focus on sensing your core, just accepting what I'm giving."
With a nod from Freya, Lucas could begin to experiment. His first few attempts didn't reveal much, the magicules reached the core and were absorbed into the layers. He needed to somehow avoid the layers that were holding the core back from fusing, but that would only work if he created a gap somewhere.
'Which could begin the fusing process, we'll have to be fast.'
After some tests, he found a way to quickly send it some energy and close up the necessary gap for the passage created. When he finally got to the core, it was like a closed mouth, he could sense that it normally would've been capable of going inside, but now it was closed up.
'Could it be because my willpower is still inside the magicules? Does she need to accept it herself without my guidance? Even so, the layers are just too much for her to handle in one go, it would destroy the core.'
"Freya, I have an idea, but it might turn out to be a complete failure.", Lucas retracted his hands so that she could sit back up. "What do you have in mind?", she always wanted to become someone with magical powers, but fate had disapproved of her. On the other hand, she didn't have anything left, everyone that strongly supported her was dead or missing, and the other nobles wouldn't mind switching sides in a heartbeat when they heard that. Since she disappeared for a while now as well, things didn't look too good for her. The nobles could interpret her disappearance as her passing, so she didn't even know if there was any place to return to.
Those kinds of thoughts were haunting her mind since the beginning of their journey. She had already made up her mind, though there were some doubts left. She didn't know how she would be received when she came back home, although she was a positive person at heart, she knew that going back alone would only bring her trouble. She was naive and couldn't tell what would happen, but all the people she loved wouldn't be there anymore, so why return in the first place?
"I don't mind, please, just make it work.", it felt more like a plea or a cry for help than a request. Lucas could feel the weight of her decision leaning on his back, if he failed now, it would mean she would have a painful death, but if he succeeded, he would probably see the happiest smile from her. Was it worth the risk? Lucas couldn't tell, though he didn't have any intention of stopping now, 'We just have to try to, no, we need to succeed, it's as simple as that.'
Fighting against fate was a dangerous thing, but when you came out of it victorious, the rewards would be bountiful.