Jonah didn't return to his room. He walked directly through the Academy's shiny hallways, his steps making sounds that showed a new purpose he'd never felt before. He found Seraph in her office, a small, very practical room that had only a desk, a chair, and many sharp items on the walls.
She looked up from a datapad as he entered, her expression unreadable. "Report."
"I need a new Progeny," Jonah said, forgoing any pleasantries. "Draven was right about one thing. I don't have a sword."
A hint of approval showed in Seraph's eyes. 'You need a hammer,' she clarified. 'And you need it before the practical exams. I agree."
She stood and walked to a heavy-duty storage locker in the corner. After a quick scan of her palm, it hissed open, revealing shelves of dangerous-looking artifacts. She reached in and pulled out an object that made the breath catch in Jonah's throat.
It was a Genesis Core, but it looked nothing like the smooth eggs he'd worked with before. This was an old, stone-like skull, as big as a small boulder. It had a rough, flattened nose and two sharp horns curving from its forehead. It felt very old and gave off a strong, wild energy.
"Primordial Beast Skull," Seraph said, placing it on her desk with a heavy *thud*. "Terrestrial type. Core property: Savage." She tapped one of the horns. "This will give you a foundation of pure aggression. But a foundation is nothing without the right materials. What do you plan to build with it?"
That was the question, wasn't it?
He left Seraph's office with the skull in a sturdy bag. Its wild, strong energy felt like a heavy weight on his shoulder. He knew who he had to speak with next.
He found Vanessa meticulously organizing her notes on elemental resonance, her brow furrowed in concentration.
"I need a blueprint for a brute," Jonah said, dropping the heavy satchel onto the floor beside her desk.
Vanessa jumped, startled. "Jonah! You can't just – what in the world is in there?" She could feel the chaotic energy pulsing from the bag.
He unzipped it just enough to show her the horned skull. Her eyes went wide. "Is that a… a Primordial Core? The Headmaster gave you this?"
"Seraph did. She called it a hammer." Jonah zipped the bag shut. "I need an essence to go with it. Something strong. Something that could look a guy with a six-foot greatsword in the eye and make *him* flinch."
Her academic interest immediately surfaced, pushing aside her earlier surprise. She turned her chair and loaded a holographic creature database onto her screen.
"A fighter who uses returned force… you need something that gets power from anger. An ability that changes damage into attack strength.''
She scrolled through images of monstrous beasts. "Most wild fighters are not very tough. They hit hard, but they break easy. You need both strength and toughness…" Her fingers flew across the keyboard. "Earth affinity for defense, Strength for power, and… ah. Here we go."
A new image filled the screen. It was a boar, but a boar from a nightmare. It was the size of a small vehicle, with thick, rocky hide and tusks like sharpened daggers. Its eyes glowed with an angry red light.
"[Raging Boar]," Vanessa read. "Essence Properties: Earth, Strength, and the wanted 'Fury' trait. Its power literally increases the more damage it sustains. It's a perfect feedback loop of pain and power." She looked at Jonah, her eyes excited. "It's your hammer."
It sounded perfect. Too perfect. "What's the catch?" Jonah asked.
He'd learned long ago that nothing was ever that simple.
Vanessa's smile tightened. "The catch is the residue. The 'Fury' trait isn't just a skill; it's the creature's very nature. Raging Boars are nothing but blind, screaming rage. That strong madness is deep inside them. Anyone who tried to take it in to study it suffered from severe mental damage."
Jonah's stomach twisted. He remembered the feeling from the archive. This would be a hundred times worse. "So I can't touch it."
"Not directly," Vanessa said. "The data you need, the blueprint for the 'Fury' skill is tangled up in all that chaotic emotion. It's like trying to read a single sentence in a book where every other page is on fire."
Jonah slumped into a chair. So he had the perfect core and the perfect essence, and no way to put them together. It was another impossible puzzle.
He watched Vanessa as she paced in front of the screen, her mind clearly working a mile a minute. She was tapping her chin, quietly about mana frequencies and psychic contamination.
"Wait," she said, stopping abruptly. "The problem isn't the data. It's the noise. The emotion is the noise. What if we… filtered it?"
Jonah looked at her, confused. "Filter it? How?"
"With a sieve!" she declared, grabbing a clear crystal from a case on her desk. "A Mana Sieve. It's an advanced Mage theory, purely hypothetical until now. I could try to weave a complex rune sequence around this crystal. A spell matrix designed to let pure, informational mana pass through, while trapping the chaotic charged frequencies."
Jonah stared at her, then at the crystal. "You want to… strain the anger out of it? Like pulp from orange juice?"
She gave him an annoyed look. "In the crudest possible terms, yes. I'm going to make psychic orange juice." She held up the crystal. "It's risky. If my rune sequence has a single flaw, it could amplify the rage instead of filtering it. But if it works…"
"…I get the blueprint without the madness," Jonah finished, a slow smile spreading across his face.
"Vanessa, you're a genius."
She blushed a little at the compliment.. "I'm a scholar. Now, go get the essence. I need to design this spell."
An hour later, they were in Jonah's room, which had once again become a high-stakes laboratory. Seraph had provided the Raging Boar essence with a simple nod. It floated in a containment field on his desk, a throbbing, violent orb of crimson light that made the air feel heavy and hot.
Vanessa had placed her crystal on a stand directly in front of it. She took a deep breath, and her hands began to move, weaving complex patterns of light in the air.
Complex runes, glowing with blue energy, flowed from her fingertips and wrapped themselves around the crystal, sinking into its surface until it glowed from within. The process was delicate and intense, and beads of sweat formed on her brow.
Finally, she stepped back. The crystal hummed, radiating a calm energy that pushed back against the boar's chaotic aura. "The Mana Sieve is active," she said, her voice a little breathless.
"It's your turn. Just a trickle, Jonah. Channel a tiny stream of its energy through the crystal."
Jonah took his own deep breath and reached out with his mind. He carefully touched the edge of the furious red essence. A sudden feeling of pure rage shot through him. A desire to smash, to break, to destroy. But the feeling was quiet and far off.
He pulled a thin thread of that red energy and guided it towards the glowing crystal. The moment it entered the Mana Sieve, the magic flared. The angry red light was stripped away, absorbed by the runes, while a clean stream of white data flowed out the other side and into Jonah's mind.
It was working.
He felt no rage, no madness. All he received was the blueprint. He saw the way the creature's muscles were designed to tense under impact, the way its nerves were wired to translate pain signals into a surge of raw power. He saw the structure of the Fury.
The method was a success. He could safely analyze the essence. He now had the plan for his first true heavy-hitter. He had his hammer.