"I really don't think this part can be handled that way. Look, even if this stone does have anti-magic properties and would definitely do serious damage to those Watchers you were talking about, the problem is that petricite also stops the flow of power from Hextech crystals.

"Even if we carve Noxian runes into the middle layer, the moment the magic flow reaches the petricite, it gets cut off so completely it can't move forward at all. No, actually, even if the magic doesn't pass directly through the petricite, the stone will still actively absorb and suppress it. Which means that, for us, petricite really doesn't have that much practical value."

"As for using alchemical potions as auxiliary propulsion, that idea's even worse, because alchemical potions alone can't reach the power output of Hextech magic. But if we try to merge the two, ugh, this is so damn annoying!"

The room was full of shifting color and light. All kinds of precise, complicated instruments were set out on platforms along both sides, and in the center stood an enormous machine. Suspended in the middle of that machine was something remarkable, rotating slowly in midair. It looked like a small cannon, with a beautiful blue body and a holy silver-white barrel.

The muzzle was about eighty millimeters wide, and the whole thing had a portable overall size.

Her long blue hair was tied into a large bun that bounced lightly as she moved. Dressed in an oversized white research coat with long, wide sleeves that hid her hands, Jinx spoke with absolute seriousness to the people around her.

With both hands on her hips, she looked at the others, waiting to see whether any of them had a good idea worth trying.

And the people gathered with Jinx now were, Ekko, Viktor, Jayce, Professor Heimerdinger, Professor Singed, and even the current dean of Piltover University's School of Mechanics, Zevi Retta.

The Twin Cities had never been short on geniuses. It was not just Ekko, Viktor, and Jayce who were exceptional. Someone like Zevi Retta was absolutely a prodigy among prodigies. When she was very young, she designed the vibration blade, the standard-issue weapon Piltover Enforcers used before the Twin Cities were established.

And that weapon had been invented when she was five years old.

Yes, five.

What had Logan been doing at five? Probably just reaching the age where he had stopped running around with snot and split-seat pants, but still young enough to be playing in the dirt and pretending with toy houses.

But at that same age, Zevi had already created the multi-frequency vibration blade, launching the Retta family into prominence and becoming such a prodigy that Piltover University admitted her early.

In Professor Heimerdinger's words, there was now no one in the Twin Cities more outstanding than Zevi in mechanical engineering. The girl's eyes were measuring tools. One glance was all she needed to understand the structure of even the most complicated device.

And now she had been specially invited into this laboratory, working alongside the other legendary geniuses of the Twin Cities on weapon development.

If that still did not make her ability clear enough, then think about the gauntlets Vi wore.

The Atlas Gauntlets, originally created for miners, were first developed by Zevi herself.

"This really is a pain," Jayce said, rubbing his forehead. "At this rate, this thing would only be usable by physically powerful people who don't rely on magic. But then that creates another problem. Lady Lissandra said those Watchers are over three hundred meters tall, basically the size of an iceberg. So if you're not using magic, how is a person even supposed to get close to one?"

He paused, then added, "What, are we supposed to build a petricite weapon and go trim its toenails?"

What a mess. What a headache. Just unbelievably troublesome.

Petricite was incredibly powerful. Jayce had recognized its potential almost the moment he got his hands on it. But the direction in which it was powerful was the problem.

Anti-magic.

The Twin Cities now publicly presented itself as a city of magic and alchemy. Alchemy would not do even the slightest bit of damage to the Watchers, while magic was nullified by petricite.

As for why they could not simply use Hextech weapons directly against the Frost Watchers, it was because current Hextech weapons simply could not do meaningful damage to demigod-level beings. Even a missile built by Jinx at full capacity could not actually injure a demigod.

Because demigods were not target dummies.

As Logan had put it, the destructive force of the missile had already reached demigod-killing levels, but the problem was that gods had endlessly varied means at their disposal. They were not going to stand there like idiots, let themselves get targeted, and just watch a missile fly toward them. And even if it did hit, the damage would never be all that significant.

Jinx's weapons were devastating against humans, a single shot could wipe out a huge section of a small country, but against beings like gods, things that existed beyond human understanding, the effect really was limited.

So they had to use petricite, first to halt the flow of magic and restrain a god's movements, then to deal actual damage. Better yet, if they could fire petricite as a projectile tip, then even a god would not be able to take that easily.

Viktor narrowed his eyes and pressed a few controls on the machine, altering the shape of the model before saying, "What if the rune core were moved here instead?"

Jayce looked over and saw that the new model was completely different from before. The barrel shape had changed first, and now a projectile model had appeared as well. Viktor had made the most substantial changes to that projectile.

Jayce stared for a second, then clapped his hands in delight and said, "That might actually work. Use the Hextech rune core as the power source, then runes and Hextech crystal energy inside the projectile, an alchemical fluid middle layer, and an outer shell of petricite. For propulsion, burn Shimmer as well.

"When the projectile strikes the target, the outer petricite shell activates first and starts absorbing magic. Once it absorbs enough, the alchemical fluid in the middle layer ignites and dissolves the petricite shell. Then what's left is the heavy-damage rune and Hextech magic payload."

Jayce and Viktor truly were close friends. Viktor had only just laid out the structure of his idea and had not even had time to explain it before Jayce already understood exactly what he meant.

Of course, that was also because Jayce had extensive research experience.

But then another voice spoke up and rejected the entire concept.

"No. If you do that, the structure becomes unstable. Forget accuracy, speed, or range after firing. The first thing that'll happen is the barrel will rupture."

The magnetic voice came from Zevi, who raised a hand toward the model. With two fingers, she rotated the cannon body in the display, then pointed to one section and said, "If you change it this way, this part loses its precision tolerances. Because this is completely different from the original firing principle. Before, you only needed a small amount of Shimmer to burn and use the Hextech crystal to accelerate the projectile. But now you're relying on a large volume of Shimmer combustion to drive the launch directly. The heat output and propulsion force are on a completely different scale."

In plain terms, Zevi was saying one thing.

It would blow up.

"She's right," Ekko said, picking up the point. "Professor Zevi's absolutely right. Viktor, that section really can't be done that way." He hesitated, then asked, "What if we reinforce the barrel?"

"Reinforce the barrel?" Jayce said. "Do we even have enough time? Logan said he's leaving with the others in five days at the latest. We have to finish this before then, and with only five days... that's not enough, is it?"

"Five days is way too tight. There's no way that's enough," Jinx said at once.

She was the lead designer on the weapon. She knew the stability and overall excellence of the fourth-generation cannon better than anyone. As the best military weapon they currently had, the fourth-generation Hextech cannon outperformed all of its predecessors, and trying to improve on that foundation in only five days was completely unrealistic.

That instantly left everyone stuck. Frustration showed on every face.

The only one who looked totally unbothered was Singed.

And why shouldn't he?

He was a biologist who had been dragged over to help design a weapon. Fine, building weapons was not a problem in itself, but the issue was that what Singed specialized in was biochemical weaponry, not mechanical engineering.

Yes, it had been said before that Singed was a polymath. His strongest discipline was biology. If skills worked like a stat board, then Singed's biochemistry would be level 100, while mechanical weapons and the rest of his fields would sit somewhere around level 90.

Across the Twin Cities, that was still phenomenal.

But inside this room? Weapons science, Hextech, mechanics, every one of those gathered here had maxed those skill trees.

Especially the highly specialized Jinx and Zevi. One had pushed weapons science beyond level 100, the other had pushed mechanics beyond level 100.

So in a room like this, where exactly was there for Singed to speak?

He had been called in to provide data on Void creatures. Using the corpses of a Xer'Sai and Queen Rek'Sai, plus information from Kai'Sa, Singed had now built a rough data model for Void creatures. He had also run simulations on the Frost Watchers. That was why he was here, to provide information, not to dominate the technical discussion.

Looking up at the crowd still arguing, the short professor smiled sincerely and clapped his hands to draw everyone's attention.

Then Heimerdinger rose up on his toes, tilted back his big head, and said cheerfully, "Children, it truly makes me happy to see all of you standing together, sharing your ideas, debating, and researching together. It really is something wonderful to witness.

"But there's no need to rush so hard. Weapon development has to be done step by step. Yes, Logan and the others are heading north in five days to fight those monsters, but this battle is not something that's going to be resolved in a single day or two, is it?"

"We still have time."

Heimerdinger said it with complete seriousness.

Viktor smiled, then stepped back to the machine and began pressing controls again as he said, "Then let's divide up the work."

Viktor was highly capable in hands-on work. He might not equal Zevi when it came to construction and repairs, but when it came to comprehensive technical knowledge, he was the only person in the room who could truly stand beside Heimerdinger. And on top of that, his understanding of Hextech surpassed even the professor's, so there was no one better suited to assigning tasks.

"First, Jinx stays in charge of overall direction. No objections?"

Jinx thrust up a hand, slender fingers slipping out from her oversized sleeves, and patted her nonexistent chest with confidence.

"Leave it to me! Explosions, giant fireworks, thunderous booms, those are my favorite things!"

With wild excitement in her eyes, Jinx grinned brightly.

"Jayce, you'll handle the Hextech side. Try to figure out how to reduce its conflict with petricite. Since they're both mineral-based materials, there's no reason petricite dust shouldn't be able to merge with Hextech crystals. There has to be something we haven't discovered yet."

Jayce nodded. "Got it."

"Ekko."

"Go ahead."

"You'll assist Jayce. Be more confident in yourself. Broaden your thinking. Don't stop just because something seems impossible. The difference between you and Jinx is that Jinx dares to imagine and dares to act, while you dare to imagine but not to act. Jayce needs your help. The two of you will handle the petricite and Hextech crystal integration problem. Can you do that?"

"I can," Ekko said seriously with a nod.

That really was one of his flaws.

Still, he had something to say about that.

In the entire Twin Cities, Jinx was probably the only person who dared to imagine literally anything and then immediately go do it.

Because what kind of normal person liked explosions that much?

But Ekko kept that complaint to himself.

"Zevi, the stability of the Hextech cannon is yours. You're the strongest builder among all of us, so there's no one better suited."

"Leave it to me. In five days, I'll come up with an improvement, but once I do, I'll still need the rest of you to coordinate with me. And as things stand right now, the approach you suggested earlier definitely won't work."

Viktor smiled at that. He was not petty, so Zevi's bluntness did not bother him in the slightest. He simply nodded and thanked her for the hard work.

"Professor Singed, Professor Heimerdinger, the two of you, "

"I know my role," Singed said, cutting in. "I'll handle the data intelligence. The moment the weapon is ready for testing, I'll have the relevant figures prepared in advance."

He paused, then added, "But I should say this first, I can't guarantee the precision of those figures, because I've never personally encountered a Frost Watcher."

Heimerdinger, meanwhile, smiled and said, "I understand, Viktor. If anyone needs my help, I'll go help."

"Good. Then let's get started, everyone."

Viktor nodded with a smile and raised an arm. "Prepare yourselves for five straight days without rest. Prepare yourselves for Shimmer doses."

"Let's get to work!"

At the same time, while the Twin Cities was immersed in weapon development, two figures arrived at the docks of Bilgewater.

One had smooth white hair falling over her shoulders and kept her eyes closed.

The other had black hair and carried a blood-red greatsword on his back.

Stepping onto Bilgewater soil again, Logan smiled as he gave Lissandra a running introduction.

"There's a god here who doesn't get along with me, but I'm not scared of It anymore. And now that you're here too, It definitely won't dare show itself."

Lissandra ignored him, because she already knew who he meant. It was because of that being that Lissandra had first taken an interest in Logan and begun paying attention to him in the first place.

Nagakabouros.

An ancient god.

But ancient? Please.

No matter how ancient, could It possibly be older than Ornn?

Did It even understand the weight carried by being the first god born when Runeterra itself came into being?

"Come on. The person we're looking for now, hmm, actually, I'm not even sure whether she still counts as human."

"But we really do need her help. She's strong. Honestly, out of all of us, the only one she'd probably be weaker than is you."

Logan spoke casually.

Lissandra's first instinct was not to believe him, but after thinking about the things Logan had already done, and the things he somehow knew, she chose not to comment.

Fine.

Far too many things had already gone beyond her foresight. She had clearly not grasped everything after all.

And Logan really was not exaggerating.

That woman was far stronger than he was, and stronger than Janna, Swain, and Karma too.

After all, she had fought Volibear. Yes, he had already been wounded, but even so, facing Volibear head-on, trading several blows, then escaping while heavily injured, that was still absurdly strong.

And as for how they were supposed to find her...

That was not difficult at all.

Because she was always searching for powerful beings.

Her name was,

Nilah.

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