It was a magical CPU. A processor that ran on mana instead of electricity. It took raw power as input and, guided by its imprinted software, produced a specific, predictable output. The implications were staggering. He could create a stone programmed with the protocol: ‘Continuously generate a contained, spherical, anti-gravity field with a lift capacity of 2.5 kilograms.’ He could then power it with a small, ambient spiritual energy collector. He could build a flying machine. He could create a stone programmed with: ‘Analyze incoming light and project a refracted, holographic image based on these parameters.’ He could create a cloaking device. The gap between this world’s medieval magic and his own 22nd-century technology had just been bridged. The Lilith Stones were the missing link. They were the key that would allow him to build his future. He felt a surge of pure, unadulterated joy, the fierce, triumphant ecstasy of a scientist who has just solved the fundamental equation of his universe. The Aegis suit was no longer a dream. It was now a simple, if complex, engineering problem. He forced himself back to the immediate task at hand. The boy. The surgery. His grand, technological ambitions would have to wait. He had to use this newfound knowledge to solve the immediate, biological crisis. ‘Administrator,’ he commanded, his mind now sharp and focused. ‘Analyze Item Alpha’s potential for medical application. Specifically, its capacity to be imprinted with a bio-stabilization protocol. Can it be programmed to maintain the spiritual and physical homeostasis of a critically ill patient during invasive surgery?’ The Administrator’s response was, as always, instantaneous and brutally, beautifully logical. It was perfect. It was the exact, miraculous function he had fabricated out of thin air in front of Lord Qadir. He had lied his way into the truth. [] the Administrator added, its calm, monotone voice a sudden, chilling note of warning. [] Lloyd’s triumphant elation came to a screeching, grinding halt. ‘Define A-grade,’ he commanded, a cold knot of dread forming in his stomach. The checkmate he had been so proud of had just been turned back on him. The stones he had so masterfully acquired, the keys to his grand plan, were… useless for the very purpose he had claimed to need them for. He had promised a miracle, and the universe had just informed him that he didn't have the right tools to perform it. The cold, hard data from the Administrator was a bucket of ice water thrown on the roaring fire of Lloyd’s triumph. The Lilith Stones he held in his hand, the prize he had risked everything to acquire, were inadequate. They were the equivalent of trying to run a quantum computer on a pair of AA batteries. For the complex, life-sustaining protocol he had so grandly described to Lord Qadir, they were little more than pretty, useless rocks. For a long, terrifying moment, he was paralyzed by the sheer, cosmic irony of the situation. He was a master strategist who had been outmaneuvered by the simple, unforgiving laws of magical physics. His brilliant, intricate lie had crashed headlong into a brutal, inconvenient truth. He could go back to Lord Qadir. He could tell him that the stones from the vault were flawed, that he needed to search deeper in the mine for a rarer, purer specimen. But that would be a dangerous, transparently greedy move. It would shatter the fragile trust he had so carefully built and re-ignite the lord’s suspicions. The humble doctor would be exposed as a demanding, manipulative charlatan. His mind raced, sifting through a hundred different contingencies, a hundred different potential lies and escape routes. But they were all flawed, all temporary patches on a problem that was fundamentally, structurally unsound. And then, through the rising tide of his own strategic panic, a new, insane, and utterly brilliant idea began to form. It was a thought so audacious, so far outside the bounds of his own carefully laid plans, that it was either the work of a genius or a complete and utter madman. He was focused on the tool. The stone. The hardware. But what if the problem wasn't the hardware? What if the problem was the software? The Administrator had said that an A-grade stone was required to run a protocol of such complexity. But he wasn't a machine. He was a human, augmented by a divine, god-like System. ‘Administrator,’ he thought, his mental voice now sharp and urgent, a new, wild hope dawning in his mind. ‘The stone is the lens, the focusing crystal. I am the source of the will, the one who imprints the protocol. What if I do not imprint the entire, complex protocol onto the stone itself? What if I use the stone merely as a passive, B-grade conduit?’ He was thinking on his feet, re-engineering his own miracle on the fly. ‘Precisely,’ Lloyd shot back, the idea now taking full, glorious shape. ‘The stone will not be the processor. I will be the processor. I will imprint the stone with a single, simple, continuous command: ‘Act as a passive, high-fidelity conduit for externally focused spiritual energy. Receive, amplify by a factor of 1.5, and project towards the designated target without distortion.’ That is a simple enough protocol for a B-grade stone to handle, is it not?’ There was a brief pause as the Administrator calculated the variables. ‘And then,’ Lloyd continued, his mind now a blazing forge of pure, desperate genius, ‘I will be the one to generate the complex, harmonic, life-sustaining energy myself. I will use my own spiritual core, my own will, guided by my [All-Seeing Eye], to create the perfectly tuned healing frequency. I will then project that energy into the Lilith Stone. The stone will simply act as a passive amplifier and an aiming device, a magical magnifying glass. I will be the surgeon, and the stone will be my scalpel.’ ᴛhis chapter is ᴜpdated by NoveI-Fire.ɴet He had done it. He had found a workaround. He would bypass the stone’s limitations by replacing its processing power with his own. It would be an act of immense, unprecedented control, a feat of magical and mental multitasking that would push him to the absolute limits of his abilities. It would be like trying to perform open-heart surgery while simultaneously composing a symphony and solving a quantum physics equation. It would be agonizing, exhausting, and impossibly dangerous. A single lapse in concentration, a single flicker in his will, and he could accidentally flood the boy’s system with a torrent of raw, untuned energy, killing him instantly. It was the most dangerous, most reckless, most insane plan he had ever conceived. And it was the only one he had. [] the Administrator conceded, and for the first time, Lloyd thought he detected a faint, almost imperceptible note of something akin to surprise in its synthetic voice. [] ‘Noted,’ Lloyd replied, his voice a cold, hard piece of steel. He had his path. The odds were terrible. The risks were astronomical. But the mission was still possible. ‘Proceed with imprinting the conduit protocol onto Item Alpha.’ The conversation with his private god was over. He opened his eyes, the familiar, grimy reality of the clinic snapping back into focus. He looked at the dull, milky-white stone on his desk. It was no longer a useless piece of rock. It was his weapon, his tool, his only hope.