A Wolf's Howl, A Fairy's Wing

In her hands was a beautiful wooden box. But rather than hand it to him, she pouted a little sadly. "You know, I'd almost think you were trying to raid this place before disappearing on me."

After being disillusioned of the harbinger being an automatic ally, she now still harbored some fears and anxiety's about being abandoned again. Especially after she had disabled her defensive sigils.

Perhaps that was also the reason she continued to fall for their teasing to easily.

Erik smiled slightly with a charming sparkle in his eyes. Then, before Eira could react, he took a step closer, put a hand behind her neck, and pulled the solid form constructs mouth against his.

Her lips felt surprisingly soft and realistic, although they were missing a biological person's body heat.

Eira's eyes opened wide in a mixture of surprise and panic. She was dumbstruck due to Erik's actions. Her mind was unable to process her next best course of action, so she simply stood there as she felt a soft and pleasant warmth on her lips.

To Eira, the moment seemed to last far to long, but in reality, it was no more than a few seconds before Erik pulled back. He grinned slightly at her. "I'd never abandon a beautiful and loyal girl like you, Eira."

When stepped back, the box she was holding was already in his hands, something that Eira didn't seem to realize. Her shocked expression remains as her hand slowly traveled to her lips and touched them softly.

Suddenly, her mind seemed to catch up to events again, when a heavy blush appeared on her cheeks.

"S— Scoundrel!" she exclaimed in a mixture of confusion and anger, before disappearing.

"I think you might have caused a short circuit," Elora giggled through their bond. "I applaud your efforts to seduce a sigil construct, by the way. That dirty mind is part of why I love you. What did it feel like?"

"Surprisingly realistic!" Erik chuckled. "I wonder what her tongue feels like…" he pondered while walking back towards the training room.

"Just remember that her insides are basically just raging strands of aetherium," Elora smirked. "I don't want to have to find ways to regrow that monster between your legs."

Erik stopped in his tracks while a shudder passed through his body. When it was gone, he continued walking. "Did you have to put that image in my mind?" he grumbled.

"Just being realistic!" Elora giggled mischievously. "Besides, even if you can't have sex with her, I'm sure there's still people that would be jealous of your AI hologram cow-girl girlfriend."

While Erik laughed at Elora's comment, he had reached the training room, and taken a seat on one of the training area.

Soon, he was once again sitting cross legged in a dark dome, but this time, with a wooden box of unknown treasure on his lap.

"Let's see what we're dealing with," he mumbled while opening the box.

Inside was a breathtaking spectacle in the form of tiny ice crystals twinkling around an icy white lotus flower giving of a freezing aura.

"Well, it looks beautiful at least," Erik mumbled. Even in his seven years on Söl he didn't remember seeing anything like this.

"I think that's a frost lotus," Elora pondered. "While it will still take many years for something like this to appear on Earth, it's actually not that rare, and only a third-rank ingredient. Not to mention that it is more related to the frost affinity than ice. Still, you should be able to get plenty of insights into ice from it. I think its perfect for our purposes."

Erik nodded and prepared to get started. This wasn't his first time using something like this to aid in his understanding of an affinity, although it was the first time using a third-rank ingredient for it.

Not wanting to screw this up, Erik quickly breathed out and calmed down before taking the lotus in both hands. It looked small and fragile in his large hands, and despite his thick Runebound skin, it still felt a little cold.

Next, he closed his eyes and started circulating his ice affinity through the flower. Find your next read on m_v l|e'm-p| y r

Immediately, insights and understanding began to flood his mind, while the flower quickly started losing its shine.

As his understanding of ice deepened, an idea finally jumped into his mind. Something which he realized he really should have thought of before. 'Ice isn't conductive to lightning! I could never fuse ice and lightning without a solution to that!'

He wanted to hit himself for needing this flower to think of such a basic scientific concept, considering his parents had covered basic physics in his education.

But he quickly tossed away all distracting thoughts and started thinking of a solution.

He couldn't ask Elora, as he needed to think of these things himself for the good of his foundation. If he got all the answers from someone else, his foundation would always be shaky.

'Okay, think, think… How can I make ice be conductive to lightning… If ice isn't conductive in and off itself, perhaps I could introduce something that is?'

Luckily, his understanding of lightning went far deeper than that of ice, so he quickly realized two things: one, metal could conduct electricity, and two, lightning was part metal.

Lightning was fused from the second rank affinities magnetism and storm. Going further down, storm was build up from the basic affinities of electric and wind, while magnetism was fused from metal and electric

'That means that lightning is one fourth metal,' Erik continued to ponder. 'So what if there is only a single way to integrate ice and lightning? By integrating lightning into ice, and starting with the metal part of lightning, I could make the ice conductive, before adding the rest of the lightning affinity!'

Erik's eyes flew open, and Elora smiled curiously in his head, knowing he had thought of something.

"I know what to do! Let's pick it back up!" he exclaimed with excitement.

Elora quickly did as he asked, and started sending him possible symbol combinations again, starting with the ones that he had previously failed to draw.

This time, however, Erik tossed out many of the sigils he previous thought might work, as he only wanted those that followed his earlier realization.

Because he now had a clear framework to what he wanted, the process went far quicker, and no more than a few days later, his eyes flew open again.

This time, icy white sparks flew around him, and a wide grin appeared on his face.