Chapter 50

Zale pinched and rubbed his eyes with one hand, feeling the satisfying burning sensation of relaxation. "You're probably right. I'm clearly not getting any closer no matter how much I stare at this board," he admitted, grabbing the damned thing and spinning it with a hard push.

He was startled by how much strength he used. He flexed his hand and stretched his arms. His mind flashed back to a time when he was healthy and blowing away monsters with his team. Their smiles, their brilliant blessings, and their howls of pain were burned into his memory. It was a life he'd begged for since before he could remember.

He reveled in the subtle feeling that he was returning to his former glory. He imagined offering his own blessings again, batches bigger than what Meru had done when they were last together.

Another memory that punched him in the gut. It seemed he was collecting them. He shook his head and pushed down the intrusive thoughts. The board squeaked to a stop, and it dawned on Zale his approach to the forge might have been too biased towards mana and the quality of it. "Give me a sec."

He shuffled back over the board and uncapped the dying marker. Mert fidgeted with the hem of her suit coat and stood by while he scribbled away. The only sound for the next ten minutes was the office's wall clock and the squeak of the marker, punctuated by the occasional mumbling from Zale. "All right, I'll retire. I just had to write this down before I forgot," Zale said, giving Mert a charming, though weary, smile.

Her muscles relaxed and propelled her toward the door, which she held open for Zale, making certain he was leaving. Zale tapped his tablet. It was already 1 AM. He thought for a moment and decided to leave it and himself at the facility. "I'll just crash in the break room. Too much time to get back to the estate," Zale said.

The break room, which consisted of a small kitchen, a few tables, and some food, also had a couch. Zale promptly collapsed on the plush cushions. He was asleep almost as fast as he laid down.

"So, my next theory is that we've been… I've been approaching things from the wrong angle. Instead of focusing on the quality of the mana and old results, I'd like to use the types of crystals and cores instead. Mainly, I want to look at the different monsters they come from," Zale explained to the team.

Rahja scoffed and jabbed his thumb at the forge. "We've been running your little experiments nonstop since you got here. It's been over a week, and you've yet to produce anything significant. Do you really think this is going to make any difference?"

"I either try, fail, and learn, or I do nothing and gain nothing. That's how I see it. If you'd like to take over, be my guest. I'm sure Shai will be happy to listen to you after dealing with this national crisis."

Rahja rolled his eyes and huffed. Silence settled on the meeting. Another scientist came forward, whether because she actually had a question or to break the tension unclear. Her doubts were clear, though. "Sir, we've already tried using different combinations of cores. What are you proposing we try instead?"

Though not a helpful prompt, Zale was glad not all the scientists were elitists, or racist. "We should sort all the cores we've found according to the attributes of the monster they came from. For example, primal cores might all be the same type, but beast-men are different from a Savage Fenrir. But a Fenrir might be similar to a hellhound, even though they are demons categorically."

There had been a tickle at the back of Zale's mind that he couldn't quite grasp since last night. It threatened to breach the surface as a full idea but was hidden just beyond his reach. Each time he thought about it, there was a tiny bit more rope to grasp.

As the team, sans Rahja, adopted the idea and set to work, Zale hoped their efforts would coax his memory into action. He ignored Rahja's sudden absence and let the team start haggling out which monsters would fit into which categories best. Zale passively listened as they argued, his active mind perusing his memory.

What was it that he'd heard about races? Nothing in the records he'd been reading rung a bell. Maybe it had been something he'd heard in passing at Elvash. He and his team had exchanged hundreds of stories about monsters while sitting around a campfire grilling meat or eating field rations.

"Sir, don't you agree that dragon cores MUST be added to the list of intelligent races?"