Silas took a deep breath and mentally activated his essence extraction skill.
System Message: [Make contact with the object]
Silas picked up one of the cores and held it in his palm. [Extracting]. Silas watched as the color drained out of the core until it looked dark and empty.
'Where did the essence go?' Silas thought.
'Check the machine,' his mother prompted.
Silas looked down at himself, then at Rathgar who had witnessed the essence drain from the core and was staring at Silas in awe. Rathgar was probably wondering where the essence went.
"Professor, can you turn around for me? I have to do something private," Silas said.
"Umm, sure lad. But why?" Rathgar said.
"I have a few more tricks up my sleeve that I don't know if I should reveal to you. For your own safety," Silas replied.
"Lad, you can trust me. I'm not going to report anything to higher ups. Artificer-apprentice confidentiality," Rathgar said.
"But what if someone forces you to tell them?" Silas said.
"I don't know. I suppose I would have to tell them in that case," Rathgar said.
In that moment, Silas remembered something. "Actually, there is something we can do, but I would need your consent first."
"What is it, lad?" Rathgar asked.
"I can form blood pacts. They make it so neither party can reveal each other's secrets," Silas said.
"I've never heard of a spell like that," Rathgar said.
"I think it's part of my affinities," Silas said.
"Ok. Well, I'll agree to it, lad, but don't make me regret this," Rathgar said.
"I won't, Professor. I promise," Silas said.
"Good. So what do we do? And I told you to call me Rathgar," Rathgar said.
"Yes, sir, Rathgar. We just hold hands. Now, there will be some minor pain when our blood mixes," Silas warned. Silas extended his hand.
"That's fine, lad. I'm no stranger to pain," Rathgar said as he took Silas's hand into his scarred one.
System Message: [Blood Pact successful!]
Silas pulled his hand back, and there was blood on his palm. It pooled together and was sucked back into his skin. Rathgar noticed the blood on his own hand and wiped it on his apron.
"Now that that's over with, what were you going to do? Did you suck the essence into your body?" Rathgar asked.
"Yes, so I need to get it out of this machine I have in my body," Silas said without flinching. He was getting more and more used to explaining his situation to people. He wasn't quite as nervous or embarrassed this time.
Silas unbuttoned his shirt, revealing the machine in his chest. Rathgar looked surprised at this, and he didn't seem like the kind of person who was surprised easily.
"By the Forge Mother's anvil, lad! What is that contraption?" Rathgar exclaimed.
"It's a machine my mother made for me. It helps me overcome my condition I mentioned in the interrogation," Silas replied.
Rathgar leaned in to take a closer look. "This is magitech years beyond anything I've ever seen. You said your mother made this for you? I would very much like to speak to her," he said.
"I wish I could as well. She was taken by the authorities several years ago. I've been told she is being held prisoner by the grand council," Silas said.
"Who is your mother, lad?" Rathgar asked.
"Evelyn Blackwood. Before she was married to my father, her name was Evelyn Winterbourne," Silas said.
"Your mother is Evelyn Winterbourne? The famous Evelyn Winterbourne? The scientist who broke the treaty with Earth?" Rathgar asked.
"I think. What this about her breaking a treaty?" Silas asked
"There was a treaty made with Earth hundreds of years ago, that if they ever found the means to travel to Eldoria, they wouldn't. Your mother broke that treaty by coming here," Rathgar said.
"That was hundreds of years ago. How was she supposed to know that?" Silas asked.
"Wouldn't Earth's government pass the treaty down from generation to generation?" Rathgar asked.
"Not according to my mother. According to her, no one over there even knows Eldoria exists," Silas said.
"If it was an accident, she shouldn't be imprisoned," Rathgar said.
"I agree. But they've had her for six years, and my father and I haven't heard anything about her release or even her sentence in the first place," Silas said.
"That's not right," Rathgar said.
"I know, but what am I supposed to do about it? Break her out?" Silas said.
"Yes. If something is broken, fix it. That's artificer code 101," Rathgar said.
"How? I don't even know where she is," Silas said.
"Probably somewhere in the capital. If the grand council has her, the capital is where she would be," Rathgar said.
"Ok. How do I get there? It's not like I have a horse," Silas said.
"The school field trip. Every year, there is a field trip to the capital. They show the students what it's like to work as a mage knight in the city to get them excited. And when training is over, they ship most of them off to the front lines. Only the nobles get the cushy city jobs," Rathgar explained.
"When is that?" Silas asked.
"Sometime in the spring," Rathgar said.
"Nice. That gives me time to train and get ready," Silas mused.
"Normally, I wouldn't suggest defying the military or the grand council, but if you can't tell my secrets, I figure there's no harm in it," Rathgar said.
"Same," Silas said.
"When the time comes, I'll give you all the help I can provide. Short of participating in the break out myself," Rathgar said.
"Thank you, Rathgar. You have no idea what that means to me," Silas said.
"Oh, I think I do, lad. If the government had taken my mother, there'd be nothing I wouldn't do to get her back," Rathgar said.
There was a brief silence before Silas said, "I forgot what I was doing."
"You were doing something with that machine in your chest," Rathgar reminded him.
"Oh yeah." Silas looked down at the machine. A vertical, thin oval hole opened up in the machine, and a test tube with a small bit of blue-white liquid in it came out.
Silas pulled the test tube out its holder and displayed it to Rathgar. "This must be the essence I extracted from the mana core."
"Looks like it, lad. Do that with the rest of them and we'll be in business," Rathgar said.
Silas put the test tube back in the holder, and it went back into the machine. He grabbed a handful of the marble-sized tigerfish cores and activated his 'essence extraction' skill again.
The same thing happened. The blue pulled out of the cores, and they were left empty and lifeless. "What do I do with the leftovers?" Silas asked.
"Put them in the trash. With the essence drained out of them, they're useless," Rathgar said.
Silas did as he was told. He continued to drain handfuls of cores until there were none left.
"Good," Rathgar said. "Now pour the essence into this beaker." He indicated a beaker on the table near them.
Silas looked down at the machine again and a test tube full of blue-white essence came out. He poured it into the beaker which only filled a small portion of the beaker.
Putting the test tube back, he expected the hole to close up, but the test tube came out again with more essence. This time it wasn't full.
Pouring that into the beaker, he had filled it up about a quarter of the way.
"This is great," Rathgar said. "We'll be able to do a lot with this."
"Good," Silas replied. "So why did we have to extract the essence? I thought the cores were forged directly into the weapon. That's what Tiffany said."
"That used to be the case, yes, but with the introduction of essence extraction, we can do so much more," Rathgar said.
"You see, essence extraction as a process didn't exist until about six years ago, when all the new magitech research came out. Before that, we just forged the mana cores directly into the armor or weapon."
"With cores, you can only use one kind in a piece of equipment, because when you pour your mana into the cores, the different beast cores try to fight each other, destroying the equipment."
"With essence, you can add to a piece of equipment over time. Equipment can absorb multiple essences. The other thing that's great about essences is that you don't have to build around a physical object like a core."
"You can design something however you want to design it without having to take that into consideration," Rathgar explained.
Silas nodded as he listened.
'Hold on Silas. There's something you should do.' Part of his mother's soul said.
'What's that?' Silas said.
'Drink a small portion of the essence. Whenever you absorb the essence of a new magical beast, you will get stronger.' Evelyn said.
'Ok,' Silas said.
"Hold on," Silas said out loud to Rathgar. "I'm supposed to drink a some of it."
"Why? That would make you very sick," Rathgar said.
"The system told me to. The machine in my chest talks to me sometimes," Silas explained.
"Knock yourself out then," Rathgar said, lifting the beaker and handing it to Silas.
Silas took the beaker and put it to his lips. He poured a very small amount into his mouth and swallowed. It tasted terrible. He wanted to throw up to get it out of him.
Then the system said something he didn't like.
[System Notification: Physical changes initiating]