Naturally, rushing into the workshop became the next order of business after hearing the dwarf’s triumphant declaration.

However, how come the same cadets were trying to rush out just as fast?

Well, who wouldn’t attempt to do so when someone was inadvertently signing them up for an extremely optional activity of being chased by what could potentially be a deadly beam served with a side of hearty laughter?

In hindsight, they probably should’ve seen it coming the moment Cece put her goggles on, but by then it was already too late.

"INCOMIIIIIIIING!"

The dwarf planted her feet firmly against the ground as she held up a suspiciously black piece of ore with her spiritual tendrils. The stance alone was enough to send alarm bells ringing through several people’s heads, especially when they noticed she was aiming it directly toward one of the reinforced workshop walls.

"Now duck!" she hollered excitedly.

The cadets—particularly one blonde whose eyes widened into saucers as he finally understood what was about to happen and that he was directly in the line of fire—panicked.

"—ACK!"

Ollie practically threw himself against Kyle, dropping into a crouch while flattening his hair antenna with both hands in a desperate attempt to protect it. A brilliant beam of light shot over his head the very next second and slammed directly into the mounted target on the far wall.

It all happened so fast.

One moment they were standing and discussing and the next moment there was simply a gaping hole.

"..."

"..."

The target had effectively ceased to exist, and everyone found themselves staring at the damage while the workshop calmly informed them:

[DAMAGE DETECTED.]

[INITIATING SELF-REPAIRING PROCEDURES.]

The wall immediately began repairing itself.

Meanwhile, Cece looked entirely too pleased.

"Pretty nifty if I do say so myself!"

Surprisingly, Luca was the first to recover from the demonstration, though not because he was looking at the hole that on most normal occasions would’ve had him scrambling.

"Woah! The ore!"

His voice immediately drew everyone’s attention elsewhere.

"It doesn’t look burnt anymore?!"

The others followed his gaze and found themselves staring at the very same piece of ore that Cece had been holding earlier.

"!!!"

"Hic—!"

The blonde was so shocked he practically hiccupped at the sight, because he was certain that at no point had Auntie Cece switched what she was holding.

And yet the ore currently resting in her hands looked nothing like the charcoal-like lump he could’ve sworn she’d been handling only moments ago.

The blackened mass was gone.

In its place was something that shimmered with a familiar radiance.

The same luminous shine that had first attracted them to the material now danced across its surface, making it difficult to believe that the two objects had ever been one and the same.

"Is it...?"

"You’re definitely seeing right." The dwarf tilted her head proudly, a slow smirk forming as she said, "This thing here happens to be a very, very expensive sponge."

"Huh?" Kyle frowned. "A sponge?"

But before the dwarf could answer, from the side, quite literally scrambling out from Xavier’s protective hold, was Luca. He seemed to’ve come to a sudden yet extremely important realization as he practically screeched, "An energy sponge!"

Cece pointed at him and burst into laughter. "HAHAHA! Exactly!"

Ollie wanted to say no.

Very much so.

"And you all know what that means, right?"

As the person supposedly responsible for building a mecha out of this thing in public, he felt he had every right not to understand what everyone else seemed so excited about.

But with his good brother and their aunt practically posturing and laughing maniacally despite a gaping hole being repaired behind them, how could he say he didn’t?

Though more importantly, if this were really the case... then would this still be considered a peace offering to Owen, or maybeeee a very expensive, albeit cute curse?

"..."

Okay. Maybe both? Because in the end, who wouldn’t want to conveniently store energy, right?

__

Well, apparently, insane people.

And said people existed far closer than anyone would’ve imagined.

The very same people who had already been presented with a potential way to store spiritual energy for convenience and were somehow still insisting on doing things the traditional way despite how laborious and inefficient that sounded.

No wonder the Elders really looked at them as though they’d grown several extra heads.

Haaah.

Not that Killian completely disagreed with that assessment because, truthfully speaking, he didn’t really have a concrete explanation for why he’d gone along with it either.

Killian tapped his fingers against the desk, his thoughts drifting back to what had happened earlier.

"We’ve been wondering whether it’d be possible," Elder Wei had said while looking thoughtful.

"But considering how the principle would remain the same, then theoretically, perhaps extracting and storing Killian’s essence could work as a battery for you and the evolving Queen Bee."

"What?" Jax looked genuinely surprised. "That’s actually possible?"

"It’s not guaranteed," Elder Wei admitted. "But now that you’ve got a relative idea of how much is needed daily, then I don’t see why it wouldn’t work."

"And if it does, then wouldn’t it be more convenient? You wouldn’t need to keep meeting several times a day like this."

Looking back, Killian distinctly remembered jolting when he’d heard that suggestion.

The strange thing was that he should’ve felt relieved to find a solution for his scheduling issues.

Objectively speaking, it sounded like a great idea.

Yet for some reason, he didn’t immediately agree.

Instead, before he could properly think about it, Jax had already frowned.

"Huh? Then won’t that be short-changing this little one?"

"Short-changing?" Elder Shen asked.

The redhead paused in the middle of eating several honeyed nuts.

"Yeah. Like forking over child support but never showing up when it actually matters."

"First it starts like that, missing some days, then all days, then eventually the one who hadn’t been there wouldn’t even know the shoe size or the first words."

The Elders looked confused.

Shoe size?

First words?

Weren’t they talking about a spiritual bee?

Since when did bees have shoes?

Ah, but understandably, they looked even more confused when the redhead continued.

"What if this one grows up not knowing her mother and ends up thinking her existence is all thanks to a stone?"

Jax frowned harder.

"Worse, what if she thinks she’d been abandoned?"

It wasn’t often that Jax felt strongly enough about something to argue. In fact, he was usually easygoing about most issues.

This, however, was apparently one of those things he was particular about.