Power Core

A **power core** is the sum of multiple pseudo cores, capable of coordinating and mixing them to obtain a number of effects greater than their sum (e.g. a power core with fire and wind makes a flame tornado from the 2 skills). Power cores were invented by Tyris through her love and determination to have her lover Valeron return to her safely, also leading to the development of Blade spells. A powerful artifact has many enchantments and managing them all requires a focus that real combat rarely permits. Power cores give artifacts the ability to be almost self-sufficient so that the user only needs a thought to express their needs and their equipment will deliver. Artifacts with power cores learn from its user and vice versa, becoming an extension of their body.

Unlike a pseudo core, a power core can be realized one step at a time and even from different mages. Imbuing huge artifacts like a mage tower or an academy with several enchantments of different nature would be impossible otherwise, even for someone who already owns a tower. The different pieces have to be crafted so that the pseudo cores merge after assembling their physical vessels.

To do that, it is necessary to alter the usual order of Forgemastering procedures and leave the creation of the mana circulatory system for last. On the one hand, it makes the crafting of the single pieces simple since each one of them only hold a small part of the final enchantment. On the other hand, the pseudo cores have to be positioned so that they won't disrupt the formation of the mana circulatory system. That way, the sudden flow of power from the crystals carry the different pseudo cores to the heart of the artifact and exerts a pressure that would allow them to merge into one power core capable of managing all the different enchantments. Finding the right position for each core requires a lot of planning and even more trial and error.

Normally, mana crystals are Bonded to the object as part of the preparatory phase along with Runesmithing. However, crafting a power core requires a different approach. As the crystals are fused with the artifact, they also generate a complex network of channels that allow the world energy to flow throughout the metal as if it is a living being. In normal enchanted items, the mana circulatory system is necessary to imbue a powerful pseudo core into the chosen vessel without making it crumble due to the strain that high volumes of mana exert on inanimate objects. For power cores its purpose is different - the Forgemasters must harness the violent flow of world energy and use it to move the single pseudo cores from their starting position towards the heart of enchantment.

Assembling a power core requires an enormous amount of mana and focus, but splitting the task also lessens the strain. To assemble a power core, the Forgemaster has to merge several pseudo cores into one, making sure that their runes harmonize so that the resulting core is greater than the sum of its parts. Once Bonded with the metal, mana crystals generate a flow of world energy but during the Bonding process, before the mana circulatory system fully forms, the flow is actually a flood. The time window between the start of the Bonding and its end is the only moment when the pseudo cores can be moved from their original position, like boats amid a storm on the surface of the sea.

The mana pathways surrounding the different cores are meant to keep the energy of the pseudo cores they protect from dispersing, not to stop new energy from getting in. Otherwise imprinting an enchanted item would be impossible due to the mana pathways blocking the mana of the mage that is supposed to grant them ownership and to the item the energy source it needs to last forever.

The power required to imbue pseudo cores into an artifact is additive; if there are 10 pseudo cores, with each reaching 200% of the Forgemaster's power, then the power core requires over 2,000% of their energy just to be imbued in an artifact, let alone be repaired.

Fake Forgemasters are limited due to the fact that crafting complex power cores requires too much focus; even the greatest mind has its limits. violet-cored Awakened, instead, can form runes with body casting.

## Tavar Sinak's Legacy

The 5th Ruler of the Flames **Tavar Sinak** invented a technique to mimic power cores and apply to same principles to both improve its efficiency and use the energy core as a blueprint for arranging the pseudo cores in an artifact. After studying the 4th Ruler of the Flames Bytra's technique, Tavar Sinak discovered that just like by choosing pseudo cores with similar enchantments it was possible to make so that the sets of runes would affect all the pseudo cores instead of just one, a similar principle could be applied in the crafting of power cores.

Sinak's Forgemastering technique requires choosing pseudo cores with as many runes in common as possible and crafting them in an imperfect form on purpose, each one of them comprised of all of its unique runes but lacking part of those in common - this makes the pseudo cores unstable, requiring from the Forgemaster a great focus and mana just to keep them from fading away or blowing up in their faces. On the other hand, however, once the mage makes them overlap to form the power core, the process is smooth sailing.

The hardest part of crafting a power core is that the greater the power each pseudo core possesses, the harder it is to make them perfectly overlap until they fuse into one. On top of that, a truly powerful artifact never uses just a few of them, but at least a dozen. The purpose of purifying magical metals is to make them capable of withstanding many enchantments while that of crafting a power core is to combine such spells the way a mage would. By combining these two properties, a good Forgemaster can create artifacts as powerful as their owner.

Crafting a power core from just a few pseudo cores is considered a waste of good materials and the Forgemaster's time. Combining several powerful pseudo cores, however, had been proven to be a mammoth task for a long time - something that only Guardians, mages with their own tower, or those willing to share their crafting methods with many apprentices could perform - at least until Sinak shared his discovery with the rest of Mogar. Thanks to his technique, the unstable pseudo cores offer little resistance to the merging process because they obtain the runes they lack and achieve stability. Only once the power core is fully formed do all the pseudo cores have their rune sequences completed. The procedure reduces the repulsion between the different enchantments not only because the missing runes fit into the different pseudo cores like pieces of a puzzle, keeping them together, but also because it makes their energy signatures and properties harmonize with each other.

For mages, it is the only way they have to craft powerful artifacts with the help of one or more colleagues (barring cases where multiple people share the same energy signature, e.g. a cursed object and their host).

## References

1. ↑ Legion on Discord
2. ↑ Chapter 1400: When All Are One (Part 2)
3. ↑ 3.0 3.1 Chapter 1272: Family and Gifts (Part 2)
4. ↑ 4.0 4.1 Chapter 1274: Power Core (Part 2)
5. ↑ 5.0 5.1 Chapter 1275: Craftsman’s Pride (Part 1)
6. ↑ Chapter 1623: Failure and Success (Part 1)
7. ↑ Chapter 1573: Growing Power (Part 1)
8. ↑ Chapter 1504: Early Rankings (Part 2)
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 9.2 9.3 Chapter 1621: Life and Death (Part 3)
10. ↑ Chapter 1622: Life and Death (Part 4)