Karska paused for a moment.
"May I hold it directly?" he asked, brief and restrained.
Lucas glanced at the Loticentra, then gave a lazy nod. "Go ahead."
The moment the artifact changed hands, nothing happened.
No bloom. No pulse.
Karska already knew—without the proper trigger, the Loticentra was nothing more than a container.
He stepped forward and knelt.
With one hand, Karska held the Loticentra. With the other, he unfolded the paper he had taken out earlier. An old parchment—its surface covered in rough scribbles, half-formed sigils, and mana lines drawn without symmetry. He laid it carefully on the ground, then placed the Loticentra precisely at its center.
His fingers brushed the artifact lightly, almost reverently.
The resonance structure is stable, he thought calmly.
Strange. Why does it absorb only vital mana… and not surface mana?
He withdrew his hand.
Lucas frowned. "Hey. If that thing turns on, we're getting soaked."
