Lykea was still amused about Ren’s story...

"Well, it sounds like he only missed an important daughter from the Goldcrest house!" Lykea hollered cheerfully, mentally ticking off the kingdom’s high noble inventory.

That specific, wildly inappropriate observation actually managed to break the tension. A chorus of genuine laughter erupted from Sirius and Luna despite the heavy emotion of the moment.

It was even more hilarious to Luna.

But they had spent far too long inside this soundproof bubble, so the rest of the kingdom’s sprawling history and the Goldcrest fall could be delivered to Lykea at a much slower, calmer pace later, preferably when she wasn’t fresh out of a crystal tomb, and when Ren wasn’t currently the color of a dying star.

When the tears finally subsided and the breathing leveled out, Ren managed to expertly slither his way out of the crushing embrace and the avalanche of gratitude.

Though, if he were being brutally honest with himself, a truth he had absolutely no intention of admitting out loud today, or probably ever, he had actually gotten used to the hug at some point.

It hadn’t been unpleasant at all to be fiercely doted upon by Luna’s reunited family.

But that small, warm realization was again... a secret he would keep strictly to himself.

♢♢♢♢

A significant amount of time had passed...

Ren raised his hand and unraveled the mana threads of Selphira’s soundproof barrier.

As the ice dome dissolved, Selphira didn’t offer a shred of resistance.

Ren immediately noticed the cavernous room was much emptier. The fifty academy youths who had lent him their mental processing nodes were entirely gone. At some point during the tearful family reunion, without anyone inside the bubble noticing, Selphira had efficiently thanked them, generously paid them with high-grade silver shine crystals, and dispatched them back to the surface under Victor’s supervision.

Now, only their inner circle remained in the tenth chamber.

Selphira, who had known Lykea intimately from the old days, stepped forward first. Behind her came Larissa and Liora, the girls who were essentially about to become Lykea’s extended family. They approached to formally greet her, offering polite, aristocratic curtsies.

However, both girls had to bite the insides of their cheeks, desperately fighting back smiles as their future mother-in-law immediately unleashed a torrent of loud, entirely unfiltered commentary regarding how stunningly beautiful they were, loudly comparing their facial structures to Luna’s and elbowing Ren making him red again.

Ren slipped away when Liora was unable to resist and walked toward the colossal crystal brain.

He did it partly out of genuine, burning curiosity. But mostly, he did it to put some physical distance between himself and his new mother-in-law’s ’top-of-her-lungs’ inner monologue, which continued to narrate every single passing thought at a volume that offered absolutely zero mercy.

He stood before the towering, translucent structure, his eyes sweeping over the seven empty, perfectly round sockets carved into its base.

The ancient runes etched around each slot clearly indicated a specific element. Ren meticulously read them one by one, translating the dead language until he identified the socket corresponding to Earth. Without overthinking the mechanics, he reached into his shadow. He pulled out the Mantis crystal, the perfectly crystallized clone of his own beast’s system.

He firmly slotted the clone crystal into the empty Earth depression.

A soft, pulsing hum vibrated through the stone floor.

A dim, gentle light flared from the socket. It was a partial, incredibly smooth activation. The ancient supercomputer had recognized that one of its seven vital missing components had been restored.

Behind him, Luna had quietly slipped away from the greetings. She stood a few paces back, watching him intently.

"What are you doing?" she asked softly.

"Just testing," Ren replied.

Then, he reached out and placed his bare palm flat against the colossal crystal brain.

His internal system connected to the ancient formation instantly.

It wasn’t like the brutal, violent kick of Sirius’s corrupted heart, nor was it the chaotic, screaming static of Selthia’s chaotic network.

This connection was breathtakingly clean... It was perfectly ordered.

A pristine, crystal-clear thread of raw data flowed directly into his mind. It unfurled effortlessly, operating on the flawless logic of an ancient machine that fundamentally recognized the entity touching it, willingly handing over the exact intelligence it was permitted to share.

Ren gasped softly, dropping his hand from the crystal. He blinked rapidly, processing the data.

"Are you okay?" Luna asked, quickly stepping up beside him.

Ren gave a firm nod.

Driven by her own curiosity, and inherently trusting that the brain wasn’t rigged with lethal traps since Ren had touched it unharmed, Luna stepped forward. She placed her delicate hand on the exact same smooth facet of crystal Ren had just touched.

Almost immediately, she snatched her hand back, blinking in confusion.

"Did it tell you how to use and create the crystal hearts too?" Ren asked, his eyes still distant as he reviewed the information.

Luna turned to him, her brow furrowing in deep confusion.

"What are you talking about?"

"The system crystals," Ren clarified. "The exact instructions for filling the empty crystals. The method for manufacturing the cores without needing to..."

"No." Luna shook her head, thoroughly bewildered. "I didn’t see any of that. I just felt an immediate, heavy lockout instruction. It was like the artifact was directly demanding that all seven crystals be seated in their slots before it would see if it could grant me permission to access its knowledge based on something else."

Her frown deepened.

"Something inside it instinctively warned me that without those seven keys, the data was strictly classified. Did it actually give you the information?"

Ren went perfectly still. The silence stretched between them for a long, heavy moment.

His mind flashed back to the suffocating darkness of the corrupted ruin. He remembered Selthia’s mocking voice echoing off the rune-covered walls, arrogantly explaining that he and she were fundamentally different from ordinary Tamers.

She had told him that these ancient doors, these massive brains, and these ruins were designed exclusively for specific, apex entities, and that he had already evolved into one of them.