Lassim, gathering his remaining mission sheet, unrolling and reading it to himself.
Mission Briefing:
Assist Elder Rlyis in constructing and replenishing constructs crucial for restoring and expanding Lightning Sect operations. These constructs will replace the essential roles of defense, maintenance, and training dummies lost or damaged by the war.
He read the remainder of the details and was satisfied with the last mission assist Elder Rlyis. She was the literal Lightning Sect construct engineer that created and managed the entire sect’s Lightning constructs. It was her and her team’s responsibility to design and enhance constructs meant for all of the Lightning Sect facilities.
Lassim felt like he could read between the lines despite the mission having no end date as it was specifically the last one in the stack. The mission’s efforts stating they would replace those lost in the battles with the Sun Sect, while also providing essential functions for new Lightning Sect expansions meant that this would certainly not be a quick in-and-out mission.
However, he was optimistic. Working with this Elder Rlyis over, potentially, the course of a week or longer, he’d have several more chances to properly see her methods up close and refine the constructs alongside her.
The mission would give him more opportunities than before for thoughtful feedback and criticism of his attempts if he managed to have any success in her technique.
Satisfied with the mission’s details, Lassim stowed the sheet back in his magic pouch, rotating his cultivation as he prepared for the journey north.
He lifted off into the sky with [Tempest Steps], following the coastline away from Clearwater Isle and toward the mainland. The terrain transitioned from narrow beaches to wooded hills, and dense forests stretched inland, with rivers that wound their way through the greenery.
As the afternoon sun had started to descend, Lassim caught glimpses of wildlife, giant pigs with flaming hairs on their backs, moving in the trees below, the quiet of the land broken only by the soft rush of wind around him.
Interestingly, he saw a group of five lightning sect individuals escorting some plain-clothed individual along the way. The group just briefly looked in his direction, saw the gold trim accents on his lightning sect martial attire, gave half-bows and continued their way without any words being said.
Lassim was curious about who they were escorting but he focused on continuing towards his destination.
After several more hours of flight, he easily spotted and recognized his destination by its eccentricity: an iron-walled compound with various lightning constructs stationed around it, some standing guard, others clearly in mid-construction and powered down.
This had to be Elder Rlyis’s outpost. It was small and quaint, just a series of three buildings: a workshop, a warehouse and what looked like a residence with multiple floors and bedrooms.
The outpost buzzed with activity and noises, and Lassim could see flashes of light occasionally illuminating the workshop’s rolled up sheet metal entrance.
Landing outside the gates, he walked through the entrance, greeted by an impressive array of metallic constructs lining the pathway. Each one had a unique design, with intricate, vein-like patterns carved into their surfaces where lightning flickered like faint pulses of energy. Some constructs were as large as trees, while others seemed more compact, with thicker limbs and fortified cores. These weren’t just the mostly energy-made, simple training dummy machines he saw for Spirit Growth and Spirit Transformation stage cultivators at the headquarters—these were special and carried a level of craft and functionality he hadn’t seen before.
Inside the workshop, a woman stood, her back to him, inspecting a small, intricate construct on the workbench in front of her.
She wore a heavily reinforced set of leather and metal armguards, each one lined with faintly glowing rune symbols. Her hair, streaked with blue threads on a purple base, was pulled back into a thick braid.
Clearing his throat, Lassim stepped forward. "I’m looking for Elder Rlyis?"
She turned, giving him a brief but discerning once-over before raising an eyebrow. "You must be the disciple they sent."
Lassim nodded. "Yes, I’m here to assist them with the constructs."
Rlyis’s gaze was sharp, but her expression remained neutral. "Well, good. I’d been expecting someone to show up eventually." She gestured to the construct on the table. "You may be someone’s personal disciple, but you’re going to work if you’re here. I don’t have time for spectators. So did they send someone with some experience or am I going to have to start from zero?"
"Uh, from the beginning I’m afraid, but I pick things up pretty fast if I get good explanations." Lassim replied.
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Rlyis nodded, seeming satisfied by his response. "We’ll begin with the basics then. I’m Rylis, the one you’re looking for and this here"—she tapped the construct on the table—"is one of the models we’re refining to send out. It’s a simple, mostly metal, thick body design; sturdy and meant to perform simple guard tasks, but I can’t mass produce them as they come with a tendency to overheat if the lightning channels aren’t aligned just right. It’s too precarious and finicky at the moment to make a bunch of them. We’d have repair requests for weeks if I don’t resolve it."
Taking a breath she continued, "What I do is called [Channeling Circuits], a technique I developed to create efficient, self-sustaining energy flows using lightning runes in a dense array that manage the programs of the constructs, thus allowing them to work indefinitely with minimal oversight." She paused for a moment to study Lassim’s deadpan reaction.
"It’s a lot to take in, but you, however, only need to understand just the basics of powering them off and on for now. If you can do just that much, it’ll allow me to use my own mana reserves to focus on the runes and arrays. You can’t imagine how annoying it is to completely charge then empty a Spirit Ascension stage construct over and over just to test a single array line."
Lassim then watched as Rlyis gave a demonstration, summoned a thin stream of lightning to her fingertips, letting it flow into the grooves she’d carved into the metal of the construct.
The lightning energy traveled in delicate lines and into runes that were pre-carved, illuminating the construct with a steady, even glow. The process was mesmerizing; the lightning moved seamlessly, each branch balanced within the narrow channels she’d etched, beginning to power up the construct as it hummed to life.
He took a step closer, examining her work and watching closely as Rlyis demonstrated, noting the way she kept her energy flow consistent, carefully modulating each stream of lightning to move fluidly through the channels.
After a few minutes, Rylis pushed hard onto the construct’s shoulder plate which popped open to reveal a control display for the construct. She moved her fingers along a few of the runes and with a twirl of her finger, caused a rune to turn upside down.
This caused the mana in the system of the construct to immediately reverse and flow out of where she had inserted it. Yet, instead of attempting to absorb any of it, she stepped back, folding her arms as she watched it disperse into the air. "Now, let’s see if you can replicate that—start with this and just focus on keeping your energy stable and within the lines."
She handed him a metallic piece—a small, unfinished construct core. The surface was marked with faint grooves, indicating where the channels needed to be established.
Lassim held the piece, reaching inward to draw out from his mana reserves of lightning mana. He focused, visualizing the energy as Rlyis had shown, and began to guide it through the channels.
His lightning pulsed steadily at first, moving along the grooves, but as he sped up the flow to complete the circuit, he could feel his mana forcing the grooves apart. His energy was powerful—almost too powerful for the delicate circuits he was working with.
Rlyis hurriedly called out, "Not so fast! You’re pushing too much into it!"
As he tried to moderate it, he realized that his mana, naturally more chaotic and intense, was difficult to contain within the narrow channels and the device suddenly exploded.
"Constructs need consistency, not brute force. If the energy isn’t willing to flow, you’ll have to coax it, not force it." She instructed. "Try again," She said as she handed him another core.
Lassim tried once more and adjusted his flow, scaling back the intensity, but he quickly found that it was easier said than done. His lightning didn’t have the same weakness that Rlyis’s did—it surged with a natural, almost untamed quality that resisted confinement as if making the statement that these puny rune lines couldn’t hold it back.
He focused, trying to draw out only what he needed, but as he attempted to stabilize it, the energy surged forward, spilling over the edges of the channels and creating cracks that ran the entire length and width of the core. A faint hiss of smoke rose from the core as the metal began to overheat, the energy pooling in uneven bursts.
Rlyis raised an eyebrow. "Interesting," she murmured. "Your mana is so powerful, but it’s not adapting to the structure’s limits. Why is your mana so pure and dense? It’s ridiculous!"
Lassim grimaced, trying to rein in the energy, but he already knew why it was proving a challenge. The divine nature of his mana might mean that his chances at an affinity with her technique or in the building of lightning constructs was probably quite low.
Rlyis crossed her arms, studying him thoughtfully. "I can see why the sect sent you here. You’re working with energy that is just on another level. That’s going to be a problem if you’re trying to channel it through constructs."
Seeing the distress building on Lassim’s expression she quickly added, "Ah, don’t lose hope. You’re only going to struggle with low tier constructs like the cores you destroyed. Both were merely Spirit Growth stage. I have a strong feeling you’ll find the higher tier constructs at the Spirit Ascension and possibly even Spirit Transcendence stage to be well within your comfortable limits."
A figure entered the workshop at that moment—a tall, but average built man with the shiniest platinum silver hair Lassim had ever seen. He wore a set of odd silver armor that had colorful purple accents fashioned to the polished metal with unique enchantments, in the shape of the Lightning Sect’s rune, flickering across the surface. He exuded a sharpness like that of a drawn blade being pressed against Lassim’s throat, which instantly brought a familiarity and nostalgia of a certain former headmaster.
Rlyis introduced him with a nod, "This is Eno, my metal element collaborator and partner. He’s with the sect on contract, assisting in refining the structures and materials we work with."