Solus/Progression

## Core Progress

Solus' dual cores, one a mana core and the other a power core, is the result of her being fused with Menadion's tower in her mother's desperate attempt to save her life after being struck down by Bytra.  Solus' core was cracked, bringing her beyond what even modern healing magic could repair. To give her more time, Menadion fused her with her tower, using its power core and the massive amounts of energy it draws from the geysers to keep her stable.

Thanks to her tower half, any damage Solus might take won't threaten her life, only dissipate part of her mana core. On the other hand, it would destroy years of patient waiting and hard work to restore her physical body. After being bonded to Lith, being away from a geyser or spending a lot of time apart weakens her. Physical contact is the quickest way to replenish her energy reserves without being forced to revert to her ring form. The steady flow of energy from Lith's core also nurtures her damaged life force.

The tower also takes energy from Lith to help Solus regenerate or during a breakthrough if it lacks the reserves.

### Mana Core

As Elphyn Menadion, Solus was a prodigy, reaching the violet core by herself at twenty, her genius rivaling that of her mother. However, her core degraded after over 800 years of forced self sustenance to a mere red.

Part of her mana core is blurry as if a small chunk of it had turned from solid into a highly compressed gas. Solus lacks part of her mana core which causes her mana to leak and form the blurry area. The power core is deeply connected to the mana core, keeping it stable and allowing it to slow down the mana leak. Lith's own core is linked with Solus', providing it with more energy than it loses over time and slowly nurturing the damaged core.

It took her a long time to gain her wisp form and reach the green core whereas she quickly broke through to cyan after achieving her humanoid form due to being apart from Lith. Remaining at his finger nurtures her human core, of which she was in desperate need after almost dying of starvation. Yet it's by tapping into a mana geyser that she can nurture her tower core back to its full strength. A living core, no matter how powerful, cannot empower something so big and complex as a mage tower, only a mana geyser can. After Lith and Solus start to spend more time on their own (such as during his Ranger days), her tower core manages to reassemble itself thanks to the constant exposure to the mana geyser. The more her tower core grows in power, the more stable her human core becomes and the more efficiently she can process the energy she receives from Lith.

While both of them in the tower, Solus' recovery speed skyrockets. While still slow and unknown when flesh will replace energy, she can become human again. However, because a cracked core cannot be healed, even once both her cores go back to their full strength, she will always be dependent on her bond with Lith to survive. Even if she finds a way to fix her core, she cannot part from the tower.

### Power Core

Solus discovers the tower's power core after obtaining her humanoid form. It is both small and hazy, making it hard to properly distinguish its features or the complex network of runes that surround it like several asteroid belts. Before obtaining her energy body, using Invigoration on the tower would only reveal her weakened human core. Afterwards, the breathing technique also reveals the power core that fuels the tower and keeps her damaged life essence in check.

## Gauntlet Form

The more Solus regains her strength, the bigger her physical form becomes, allowing her to turn into a more complex defensive artifact. Later, her gauntlet/glove form is revealed to be the tower version of the Hands of Menadion.

## Stone Form

Solus' stone body can taste food but not digest it. It is stored inside her belly until she turns into her humanoid form and starts doing whatever that body does to get rid of the things she eats.

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## Tower Form

Solus can take the form of a mage tower when connected to a mana geyser. The more Solus regains her powers and learns about magic, the more the tower can reshape itself according to the most recent magical development. They grow together because Awakened naturally refine their own bodies thanks to the mana coursing through them. Solus recovers a floor as soon as the tower can sustain its effects, hence she also regains all the memories related to their use. She can also assume the first floor of the tower without a mana geyser, but at the cost of her own mana. The lights in the tower reflect her emotions, turning purple from embarrassment or red when she blushes.

The tower has no sentience - it's just a bunch of magic and stones akin to a supercomputer able to run simulations to predict phenomena and speed up the resolution of the algorithms she comes up with. Simply put, it acts as an extra brain that she can metaphorically attach to hers to become temporarily smarter.

The tower is made out of common materials like most of Menadion's works, as this eliminates the need to hoard tons of magical metals in the case they need repairs or if they have to fit a wearer the size of the Dragon. The tower can just take the mass it lacks from the raw materials available (i.e. sand) and flood them with world energy. This way, the enchantments of the power core can spread through the new parts without encountering any resistance and assimilate them for as long as it is necessary. However, turning so many common materials into enchanted stone and then rearranging the matter inside the tower's rooms so that they become an extension of the power core takes a while. A mana geyser can provide all the world energy needed, but the process requires finesse more than raw power.

Menadion had an override code she gave to Lochra Silverwing to bypass the tower's protections, with the password "Loka, white, legacy, death, Menadion."

### Tower Layout

The deeper the tower gets in the mana geyser, the more abundant the energy flow is. The tower places its floors so as to optimize the consumption of world energy. The Crucible is always the last underground floor, while the Crystal Mine is the second last. If the Crucible were to be a higher floor, the tower would need more arrays just to keep the heat from damaging the floors below. On top of that, the excess world energy would hinder any Forgemastering experiments. This way, instead, the power of the mana geyser gets progressively sapped by the mines that work as a buffer, making it easier for Solus to fine-tune the output.

### Tower Appearance

Solus completely redecorates the first floor's interior with Lith's coat-of-arms, embroidering it on every carpet, curtain, and tapestry in every room. The entire first floor is covered by a soft, circular, hand-woven carpet depicting the shared history of Lith and the tower in a circular picture. In the first slot, Lith is still a four year old kid picking up a rock. In the last one, there is the scene of him and Kamila walking through the door. The carpet is updated showing in its last panel the coming of the Verhen family.

Solus makes a room for each member of the Verhen family, who decorate them to their heart's content. Aran and Leria make an ugly, tacky room for themselves filled with heavy armor, weapons, and magical books filled solely with fairy tales.

## Human Form

Solus' centuries of isolation cost not just her memories, but also her body. However, the tower has her "blueprints" and is able to rebuild it from scratch once provided enough nourishment.

With her cracked core and crippled life force, Solus needs huge amounts of energy to keep her physical form. When her mana core is low on mana, the tower operates on "safe mode", allowing her to still operate the tower's basic functions because it's a part of her, but cutting her off from her mind link with Lith and the lights to save energy. However, she can use the Sage Staff to help sustain her human form away from a mana geyser. Unlike her energy form, forcefully losing her flesh is an excruciating experience as if someone is cutting her into pieces. Moreover, damage on her human body reflects on the tower. Even though she can recover her magical power by returning to her ring form, the same doesn't happen to her body.

Unlike in its full form, the tower is just very sturdy when fueled by a mana geyser. Without it, the tower has to consume the energy it stores and becomes weaker with each second that Solus spends in human form. When Solus sustains damage in her human form, she is unable to heal because she's not fully human yet. Her body is a product of the tower so once it loses too much energy, both start to crumble. She is just like a Horseman, but her power core needs much more energy than theirs to work.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 952: The Apprentice Surpasses the Master (Part 2)
2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 2.3 2.4 Chapter 1070: Life Maelstrom (Part 2)
3. ↑ Chapter 1177: Battle Against Time (Part 1)
4. ↑ Chapter 1455: All Work and No Play (Part 1)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 1598: Back and Forth (Part 2)
6. ↑ Chapter 1190: Long Waited Reunion (Part 4)
7. ↑ Chapter 77: Interludium
8. ↑ Chapter 1071: Foolishness and Wisdom (Part 1)
9. ↑ Chapter 1093: Trust Issues (Part 1)
10. ↑ Chapter 987: Boss Monster (Part 1)
11. ↑ Chapter 1383: Eyes and Charms (Part 1)
12. ↑ Chapter 1437: Family Time (Part 1)
13. ↑ Chapter 1028: The Secret Tower (Part 2)
14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Chapter 1599: Four Floors (Part 1)
15. ↑ Chapter 422: Departure (Part 2)
16. ↑ Chapter 488: Growth (Part 2)
17. ↑ Chapter 1456: All Work and No Play (Part 2)
18. ↑ Chapter 1189: Long Awaited Reunion (Part 3)
19. ↑ Chapter 1601: Shared Power (Part 1)
20. ↑ Chapter 1618: Down Memory Lane (Part 2)
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 Chapter 249: First Floor (Part 1) - Previously discovered when Lith and Solus merge, temporarily granting her a green core. After she breaks through to green, this becomes a permanent ability.
22. ↑ Chapter 865: A New Project (Part 1)
23. ↑ Chapter 864: Suspects and Theories (Part 2)
24. ↑ Chapter 860: Hidden Truths (Part 2)
25. ↑ Chapter 526: Leaving (Part 2)
26. ↑ Chapter 1422: Kamila and Solus (Part 2)
27. ↑ Chapter 1428: Solus and the Family (Part 2)
28. ↑ Chapter 1438: Family Time (Part 2)
29. ↑ Chapter 1236: The Eye and the Hands (Part 2)
30. ↑ Chapter 1598: Back and Forth (Part 2)
31. ↑ Chapter 1628: In the Flesh (Part 2)
32. ↑ Chapter 1631: Domestic Issues (Part 1)
33. ↑ Chapter 1667: Source of Power (Part 1)
34. ↑ Chapter 1670: Fields and Ovens (Part 2)