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But he trusted her, and she’d been studying the staff for a month, and taking advantage of the comm lotuses back in Evergold to communicate with some of the finest historians her Empire had to offer, so it wasn’t like this was being done on a whim. They’d even given it a name: the Luwen Staff, named after the site of an ancient city that predated the Thunderbird Clan’s conquest.

The city’s remains were discovered in the Sunlit Empire close to the border with the Ilian Empire, and despite uncovering the ruins of buildings that could house ten thousand people, it was believed that Sunlit archaeologists had only uncovered a small part of the ancient city.

It was with the greatest caution that Leon began to disassemble the Luwen Staff. He kept himself fully armored and maintained a constant vigil, his magic senses filling the fortified room he stood in so that even the more minute change in magic being emanated from the staff could be seen.

The staff could be separated into three equal-sized pieces, and as Leon was removing one of the pieces, the glowing staff began to emit stranger power. Given what he knew the staff could do, Leon’s immediate instinct was to stop and put the piece back, but he forced himself to keep going. The power the staff was emitting soon proved itself fairly benign, even if it filled the room with startling alacrity. Soon enough, Leon’s natural curiosity began to get the better of him, and he quickly separated the two remaining conjoined pieces.

Once that was done, he was left with the three staff pieces on the table in front of him, all now emitting that strange power even though he was no longer touching them or feeding them his power. He could see them instead absorbing the magic power in the air, though it seemed that wasn’t enough for the pieces to do what they appeared to be trying to do.

“It’s safe!” Cassandra shouted from the other side of the observation glass. “Channel your power into them!”

Leon gave her an exasperated look before turning his attention back to the staff pieces. He could sense something curious from the staff’s aura, and he wanted to know a little more about it before he started directly feeding it his power.

Besides, while the power was safe for him, the staff’s power certainly hadn’t been for Iron-Striker, and Leon wasn’t going to risk Cassandra’s, or anyone else’s, safety.

What he felt about the staff’s power was rather curious. He found that most magic power was mindless in the way it expanded to fill a space. For the most part, it simply spread out and dissipated until its environment was perfectly uniform in magical density. The Luwen Staff’s power, in contrast, did fill the room, but didn’t do so uniformly; it was denser around his body and thinner when farther away from him, and by quite a noticeable degree, too. The air around the room’s walls barely fifteen feet away at the closest was half as dense as the air around him with the staff’s power.

That power didn’t seem to be doing anything other than clinging to him, though. It followed him like a personal cloud when he moved, as if it were trying to obscure him from view. Were that power not so eye-catching to magic senses, it might’ve even worked.

After some experimentation, Leon determined that the way the staff pieces were arranged affected the magic density, too. If he placed the staff pieces at the corners of a triangle, with all pieces equidistant from each other, then this effect would increase, with the air around him growing even denser with the staff’s power, and if he moved out of this triangle, then the effect greatly diminished, though remained quite noticeable.

With that in mind, Leon arranged the Luwen Staff pieces into a triangular formation and then stood outside of the triangle before preparing himself to start channeling power into them. He would start very weak out of an abundance of caution, especially since he’d gotten around to asking Iron-Striker what it had felt like being struck by the staff’s lightning.

Iron-Striker had explained that it had effectively paralyzed his body, taking away not only his ability to move but also the flow of magic within him. It was like all the mana inside of his veins had frozen in place, though his blood kept pumping. Naturally, it hadn’t been a pleasant experience, and Iron-Striker had also told Leon that many of his blood vessels had burst from this sudden increase in blood pressure.

He\'d also told Leon that he’d had some trouble moving after being captured, though it was hard to tell for sure given just how restrained the Sunlit Emperor had kept him. Fortunately, he could move now, but Leon couldn’t discount the possibility that Iron-Striker was up and about now because his limbs had been removed and regenerated. Leon was hardly trying to have more of his own limbs removed, so slow was how he was going to take this.

Bit by bit, individual sparks compared to the lightning bolts that flashed through his body, Leon began to channel magic power out of his body and into the staff pieces. And bit by bit, the aura that the staff pieces emitted began to increase in potency. Thankfully, they weren’t doing so in excess of the power that Leon was providing them.

After a couple minutes of having the aura around him thicken, a bolt of dull yellow lightning flashed between his hand hanging at his side and his hip. Leon sprang back and cut off his power supply, but he couldn’t sense any damage. It hadn’t even scuffed his armor, let alone harmed him in any way.

So, after doing his due diligence and observing his surroundings as much as he could, Leon continued. Again, once the aura around him reached a certain point, another bolt of dull yellow lightning flashed across his body, though it only danced over the surface of his armor, light as could be, leaving not a single mark behind.

Leon increased the power, and lightning began to swarm around his body, arcing all over him before growing larger and arcing between him and the floor and walls. And yet, he felt not a single jolt of pain. Hells, his body hair wasn’t even standing on end.

He was feeling kind of warm, though, warm enough that he realized it was the lightning’s doing. More concerningly, he could feel his muscles begin to relax even though the dull yellow lightning still couldn’t penetrate his armor.

Leon stayed there for quite a while, analyzing as much as he could about this strange lightning. In the end, he could easily see that it was some kind of power designed to interact with the body, though to what end he couldn’t say. And so, knowing that the Luwen Staff was still powered by him and so could be turned off in an instant if he so desired, Leon cautiously began removing his armor a bit at a time.

The moment he exposed some skin, however, he paused. His hand, now sans gauntlet, became the locus of this strange lightning, with dozens of bolts running over his knuckles and sinking into his palm. From there, he felt this power rush throughout his arm, inundating his bones and muscles, and apparently existing in harmony with the power in his body. In fact, he felt like he could probably expel this power if he wanted to. Though, he supposed that it was his power anyway, just filtered through the staff…

Still, he felt no pain, and even felt quite relaxed. As more and more dull yellow lightning raced into him through his hand, he even began to feel rather good. He could feel his body starting to heat up even more than it was, and though there was some arousal, the effect wasn’t as pronounced as it was when the staff was intact.

Leon began to remove more armor, allowing more of the Luwen Staff’s power into his body. Soon enough, his body was being flooded with this power, and he started to get a better idea of what was going on: this lightning was concentrating in his bones and muscles, just as he’d used his power to do when creating his magic body.

Leon stared at the staff pieces in wonder. ‘Is this… a training device? Is this designed to aid a mage in creating their magic body?’

As the idea took root in his head, the staff’s power finally reached his heart, where a mage’s connection to their soul realm was located. And once there, it sank into his heart and rushed through that connection.

Leon almost lost control there as a feeling of unbridled ecstasy flooded through his system. So intense was the sensation that the flow of power to the staff pieces was momentarily disrupted, and the power rushing through his body lessened.

With this power reduction, Leon recovered quickly, though not before Cassandra noticed.

“What happened?” she asked, a look of worry finally crossing her face.

“Not sure,” Leon admitted, his words hitching slightly as he tried to steady his breathing. “I think this is meant to be some kind of training object, to help a mage create their magic body…”

“Really? Is that it? It looked like it was affecting you; how is something that helps a mage reach the sixth-tier strong enough to have that much of an effect on a ninth-tier mage?”

“I think it’s trying to do something else, too,” Leon said. “It was rushing to my soul realm.”

With some slight reluctance, Leon cut off the flow of power to the Luwen Staff. It quickly settled back down.

“An interesting thing,” Leon said. “I think I might call it here, though. I’m not about to mess around with something that’s trying to mess around with my soul realm. Nope, not today.”

“Not today, huh?” Cassandra quipped as she slipped into the room. Leon was a little concerned when he noticed the power starting to concentrate around her, too, but nothing seemed to come of it. “Still, this was… illuminating. It wouldn’t be that big of a stretch to say that most of the current Aeternan civilizations are descended from, or at least heavily influenced by, the Thunderbird Clan. Certainly moreso in the center of the continent where the Thunderbird Clan was strongest. How those who came before trained is a complete mystery.”

Cassandra absent-mindedly ran a finger of one of the staff pieces, and a bolt of dull yellow lightning sprang out of it and burned her finger.

“Ow! Fuck!” she exclaimed as Leon sprang over and kicked the staff piece away from her. “Then again, maybe this wasn’t a training device, but is only having that kind of effect on you because of your own unique physique.” Cassandra spoke with bitter vehemence as she glared at the Luwen Staff pieces, her words professional even as her ruby-red eyes spelled abject fury.

“Some more testing will be required,” Leon said as he took her hand and examined her finger. It wasn’t a bad burn, so he kissed it a few times. “How does it feel now?”

“Better,” Cassandra said with a cheeky smile, any pain she might’ve felt now forgotten. “But… I think some more treatment may be necessary…”

Leon could only grin as he took his wife’s hand and made for the door. However, as he paused to grab the staff, he could tell that he was going to need to test this out a lot more thoroughly in the future. His soul realm had grown by a hundred miles in the campaign on the Sword and after this test, he wondered if Sunlit had been responsible for that, having struck him with a bolt from the Luwen Staff in their last clash…

He was so close to tenth-tier that he could practically taste it, so any boosts he could receive to finally cross that threshold would be received with great enthusiasm.

---

Leon marveled at the work already done as he walked through the halls of his new palace. Two months since the groundbreaking ceremony and it was already almost complete; the Bison Tribe’s magic engineers were efficient workers, that was for sure.

Thanks to Elise’s input, the palace was a masterpiece that incorporated many Bull Kingdom aesthetics into the otherwise quite Tribal building. It was built around nine main courtyards, arranged like a three-by-three grid, with additional courtyards branching off. These primary courtyards were quite large and would contain extensive gardens for both leisure and Elise’s private projects. The central courtyard was the only exception, being completely paved. That, Leon had ordered, would house a new Tribal totem, one that would represent his Clan.

This new Tribal totem hadn’t yet begun to be carved, though a massive pillar of porphyry had already been moved into place in the center of the courtyard.

As for the palace itself, the ‘public’ areas would be reserved for the areas around the three southern courtyards. Those gardens would be open to anyone, and various public buildings that the people might need to access would be located there.

The central three courtyards would be devoted to more private governmental dealings. The headquarters for the various departments in Leon’s government would at least nominally be located in these sections.

It would be the central courtyard, though, that Leon would be most concerned with. His throne room would be on the north side of that courtyard, and flanking it would be various meeting rooms for his advisors, as well as a large barracks building for the Tempest Knights.

The three northernmost courtyards would be his family’s personal residences. He and his ladies would reside in the center of these three courtyards, with plenty of space for guests, his retainers, workshops for himself, Nestor, Helen, and several more with tools enough that any visiting Raven could show him just about anything they were working on. He also had several arkpads of varying sizes, with the unlocked Thunderbird destroyer, now renamed Featherlight, already stationed on the largest one.

The decoration was opulent, with light projections on the marble walls focusing on the brilliance and wisdom of the Thunderbird Clan. Statues glorifying his Clan lined the walls and filled private alcoves, friezes and reliefs covered walls, and silver and blue gemstones could be seen everywhere. Even many of the trees that were being planted around the courtyards and even within the palace itself had glowing blue and silver leaves.

His throne room was, even incomplete, already shaping up to be the most ostentatious room in the entire place, with a floor of polychromatic marble polished to a near-mirror shine, marble walls with decorative pillars and arches, bronze arches gleaming in the room’s light, large windows to let in plenty of air and sunlight, and a ceiling covered in bright lapis lazuli, into which had been placed an enormous precious stone that glowed the color of the sun. The ceiling had been further enchanted to produce actual clouds, which drifted lazily around the throne room.

There would be galleries, additional artworks, decorative enchantments, and so much more added, but Leon was already feeling quite overwhelmed with the sheer scale and design of the palace. He could hardly imagine living there, but at least his ladies seemed to enjoy it quite a bit. Maia had an underground grotto just as opulent as the rest of the palace featuring a massive pool for her to relax in; there were training rooms aplenty where Leon knew Valeria would probably spend most of her time; Cassandra had plenty of space for her research and work liaising between her Empire and the Ten Tribes; and Elise had her gardens. Even Anzu had his own little playground, where he could run around having fun or training in either of his forms as he pleased.

And so much more was planned that had hardly even been started yet, aside from the buildings themselves. Libraries, offices, mustering grounds, towers, private theaters, and even a large bathhouse.

As overwhelmed as Leon was, it was just another sign that everything that had happened over the past year or so had been real—it had actually happened. He was now a King, and this palace would be one of the biggest expressions of his power on the plane that there could be.

As that thought crossed his mind, he supposed it was rather fitting that the palace wasn’t complete, yet. But it was getting close, and only getting closer by the day. He wondered if when it was complete he’d finally feel like the King the Elder Council had declared him to be.

After a moment’s consideration, though, he realized that that wasn’t going to happen. It would take more than just a palace far fancier than anything he would’ve asked for to make him feel that way. It would take power, and it would take victory. He’d need to reach the tenth-tier, and he had to beat the Sunlit Emperor. He wouldn’t rest easy until that happened.

Fortunately, it had been nearly five months since the last time the Hesperidic Apple trees had produced, and with the sharp increase in manpower—‘spritepower?’ Leon wondered—that Tikos had received, the trees were getting close to bearing fruit once again.

And with this harvest, he’d reach the tenth-tier. It was now so close he could almost taste it. After the tenth-tier came Apotheosis. Immortality, origin power, power so great that he could travel through the Void by himself if he wanted to. Even the Nexus would be within reach.

‘So close… so close…’