With the help of the others, binding the Void-Walker had not taken long.
By the end of it, the Void-Walker looked less like a sovereign and more like a catastrophe soone had successfully folded shut.
Lucien collapsed its active structure afterward, forcing it into a dormant state.
Only then did he take it into his divine energy core and place it in a secure sealed area.
This one, actually, was for Cienna.
That thought made Lucien pause for a mont.
When he had recreated Luke and Cienna’s bodies before, sothing had been lost in the process.
Their attributes.
Their skills remained, and the spells they had learned were still intact. However, their attributes were not recreated.
So had returned over ti after they consud the special crops and so drops.
But the restoration had been incomplete.
Cienna, in particular, did not show it openly but Lucien could see that she felt lost at tis.
At present, she possessed only the elental attributes, along with space and ti attributes.
But that was not all she once carried.
She had possessed others before.
Cosmic.
Eclipse.
And more.
When she told him that, Lucien had fallen silent.
Because she was right.
There were more attributes in existence than the ones he currently possessed.
The Magic Book confird it.
And the races of the Big World confird it too.
The Alloykin naturally bore the tal attribute.
Eirene, as a Floran, possessed the plant attribute.
Certain races were simply born aligned to powers that others could not access.
Because of physique, origin, and the structure of their mana vessels.
Those attributes were inheritances written into their body.
That was why Lucien had found the matter difficult.
Because those attributes did not drop from them.
And yet Cienna had once been able to wield several such attributes despite not being born as all those races.
That part remained a mystery.
Well, Lucien knew that was part of her cheat.
It was then that Cienna told him about another thod to obtain those attributes.
"If you want an attribute," she had said, "then do not search for the result. Search for the source."
Lucien had asked her to explain.
And Cienna had managed to sound both scholarly and excited at the sa ti.
An attribute, according to her, was a way the mana vessels themselves were taught to recognize, accept, refine, and express a certain property of reality.
That was why Lucien himself could not be used as a template.
He had no mana vessels.
His path had diverged too far.
But races who were naturally born with an attribute...
Those could be studied, copied, and understood.
Then perhaps, if one was precise enough, the pattern could be replicated and integrated into the mana vessels of soone else.
That was where the Void-Walker ca in.
It possessed the cosmic attribute.
And unlike Lucien, it had a body and mana vessel network built to process it naturally.
That made it a source.
The sa logic applied to the Alloykin corpses he had stored.
They, too, contained mana vessel structures shaped around tal.
Those could be studied.
If he succeeded, then Cienna might recover at least part of what she had lost.
Perhaps not only Cienna.
Perhaps he could grant attributes to others too.
Lucien stood in silence for a while after reaching that conclusion.
He called this project Attribute Architecture.
The idea was absurd.
Dangerous too.
Naturally, that only made it more interesting.
Still, not every specin would be so easy to obtain.
Cosmic, yes.
The Void-Walker was sealed now.
tal, yes.
The Alloykin remains were available.
But plant—
Lucien rubbed his brow once.
That one was awkward.
The clearest living example near him was Eirene.
And asking Eirene, with a straight face, if she would kindly reveal the internal structure of her mana vessels for dissection-level observation felt like an excellent way to destroy several layers of trust at once.
He could imagine the conversation too clearly.
It might end badly.
Probably with a smile.
Which, in Eirene’s case, sohow felt more dangerous.
So he set that one aside for the anti.
Then there was Eclipse.
That one was worse.
From the mories of the Mural World, Lucien could only think of one lineage that wielded Eclipse as a natural magical attribute.
The Lunarians.
They were very unlikely to appreciate visitors arriving uninvited to inspect their inner structures.
Lucien exhaled slowly.
Still...
If Eclipse truly could only be sourced from the Lunarians, then sooner or later he would have to consider it.
•••
That very day, Lucien began Project Attribute Architecture.
Inside the depths of his divine energy core, the sealed Void-Walker body floated in a frozen state.
He began carefully.
The first tool he used was Breathglass Film.
The film revealed the invisible currents beneath flesh and shell. Lines of energy lit up across the creature’s structure, exposing the pathways where mana flowed.
Lucien watched in silence.
The internal map slowly revealed itself.
Next, he activated Burrower’s Eyes.
With it, Lucien could observe the natural structure of the vessels.
He compared the two views constantly.
Flow and vessel.
Circulation and architecture.
Then he activated Structural Insight.
The entire structure unfolded before him like interwoven threads. With this skill, Lucien could ensure that nothing escaped his observation.
Now he understood how the energy flowed, how the vessel structures were ford, and the underlying clauses that shaped the mana vessel network.
Even so, the Void-Walker proved complicated.
Its anatomy did not resemble the mana vessel systems of the Thousand Races.
At the center of its structure rested a beast core.
Every vessel eventually converged toward that central core before being redistributed outward again.
Lucien observed the pattern again and again.
Then he nodded slowly.
Lucien began adjusting the theory.
If the Thousand Races lacked such a core, then the pattern would need to be redistributed. The vessels themselves would have to simulate the missing center through circulation loops and resonance points.
It would require structural translation.
But it could be done.
On the other hand...
The Alloykin specins were far easier to examine.
Their corpses had long since lost active circulation, yet their vessel structures remained intact. Unlike the Void-Walker, the Alloykin possessed standard mana vessel networks.
Lucien mapped them quickly.
Even without active flow, the pattern was clear.
With Structural Insight assisting him, Lucien could predict where the energy would naturally circulate if it were still alive.
Piece by piece, the architecture unfolded.
•••
By the ti Lucien noticed the passing of ti, an entire day had vanished.
Lucien leaned back slightly, reviewing the models floating before him.
He was getting close.
Several adjustnts were still required. The integration process had to be refined so that foreign attributes would not destabilize existing vessel systems.
Still, the direction was now clear.
For the first ti since he began the project, Lucien allowed himself a small satisfied smile.
His next instinct was to test it.
The Mirrorhorn Duants ca to mind imdiately.
They would make excellent candidates for testing.
But Lucien stopped himself.
Seraphine was not present.
Aside from her, no one understood the internal anatomy of Mirrorhorn Duants better than he did.
Attempting the procedure without proper preparation would be careless.
In the end, he still needed to train others in the thod.
So Lucien closed the floating models and let the constructs dissolve.
Testing would wait.
For now, the foundation had been built.
Only then did another thought surface.
Eirene.
Lucien rubbed his forehead once.
In his excitent over the Void-Walker specin, he had unintentionally abandoned her outside earlier.
He exited his divine energy core and returned to reality.
Eirene was not difficult to find.
She stood near the edge of the Palace of Stillness again, overlooking the rising territory below.
When Lucien approached, she turned her head slightly.
A faint smile appeared imdiately.
"You look pleased," she said.
Lucien laughed softly.
"I may have forgotten the passage of ti."
Eirene’s eyes brightened with quiet amusent.
"That happens when people find sothing interesting."
Lucien nodded.
"Co," he said. "Help take a look at what we obtained from the resource site."
Before she could ask further, the world shifted.
Lucien brought her into his divine energy core.
The landscape inside the core stretched vast and surreal.
But what imdiately drew their attention were the mountains of spirit crystals.
The treasure from the hidden resource vault had already been placed here earlier.
Lucien’s eyes shone as he looked at them.
Eirene watched his expression instead.
When she saw the excitent there, her smile deepened.
"It seems the expedition was worthwhile," she said.
Lucien stepped forward.
Then, with the enthusiasm of soone who had just discovered a private treasure hoard, he waved his hand grandly toward the crystalline mountains.
"Welco to the spoils."
The air around them shimred with the pressure of unimaginable wealth.
Eirene let out a soft breath.
Then she walked beside him.
Together they descended toward the mountains of spirit crystals, their figures reflected in a thousand facets of light as the treasures of the hidden vault spread endlessly before them.
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