Ikenga stepped forward, tapping his foot against a stray brick of the broken fountain. The liquid gold that had bled out earlier lay static, dull, and unresponsive.

"Look at your domain," Ikenga said, gesturing to the graying expanse. "A treasury is meant to circulate. Wealth is power because it moves, it influences, it commands. By locking yourself away, you have stagnant-fied your own divinity. You are suffocating the concept you represent."

Tide looked down at his trembling hands. For months, the numbness had been a shield. But Ikenga had shattered that shield with a single punch, leaving the raw, ugly nerve of his pride exposed. He was a son of Jaus. He was the God of the Everflowing Treasury. Yet, he was being outpaced by a creature that had been born from mud.

A low, rumbling hum began to vibrate from deep within Tide’s chest. It was faint, but for the first time in a while, the oppressive grayness in the air flickered.

"What..." Tide swallowed hard, clearing the taste of blood from his throat as he finally forced his head up to meet Ikenga’s gaze. "What did you need my help with, Uncle?"

Ikenga glanced at him, his expression a mask of indifference as he shook his head. "You have no need to concern yourself with my affairs. I was wrong to assume you could be of any use to me."

Turning his back on the broken fountain, Ikenga began to rise, preparing to depart from the desolate realm entirely. He took a step into the air, but before he could vanish, a sudden, desperate movement cut through the gloom. A strong, trembling hand reached out, firmly clamping down on Ikenga’s arm, holding him in place.

Ikenga halted. He slowly raised a single brow, turning his head to look back down at Tide, who was gripping his arm with strong intensity.

"Please, Uncle... I need this," Tide pleaded, his voice cracking with a raw vulnerability he hadn’t shown in a while.

The silence stretched between them, but Tide didn’t let go. He let out a ragged breath, the truth pouring out of him. "I have been trapped in this state for so long... and it isn’t just because of Siren. It’s because I couldn’t think of a way to move forward. I couldn’t find a path to push myself past this wall. Please... I need this."

A slow smile finally broke across Ikenga’s face as he stepped back down onto the ruined floor. "It seems there is still some semblance of a will left in you after all."

Tide said nothing. Instead, he answered with a sudden, sharp flex of his divine will.

A wave of restorative energy rippled outward from his figure. Like a film rewording itself, the palace architecture began to violently remake itself. The suffocating dust vanished, the shattered pillars snapped back into alignment, and the broken fountain reassembled, once again bubbling with pristine, glittering liquid gold. The magnificent, blinding glow of the treasury had finally returned. Though a massive portion of the wider realm still remained shrouded in the gloom of his long depression, this small, central sanctuary had reclaimed its radiance.

With the immediate tension broken, both gods walked deeper into the restored palace and took their seats.

As they began to converse, Ikenga quickly realized just how completely isolated Tide had been. In his pitiful state of self-pity, he had been entirely oblivious to the monumental events reshaping the outside world, including the recent, earth-shattering clash between two Paragons.

Recognizing his lap in information, Ikenga patiently took his time to recount everything, mapping out the new power dynamics of their world. Once that was done, he shifted his focus, turning his full attention to the Mage Towers, the true primary reason he had set foot in the Everflowing Treasury today.

As Ikenga explained the foundational importance of the Mage Towers to the Paragons, he casually waved his hand. Two highly exotic substances materialized in the space between them, floating serenely. One was a dense, reality-warping mineral known as a Condensed Law Anchor, which seemed to bend the very air around it. The other was a shifting, translucent crystal that thrummed with energy, a Prismatic Mana Regulator.

Pointing a finger at the two components, Ikenga said, "Among the many vital materials our world naturally lacks, these two are the ones that myself and the other Origin Gods can currently actively synthesize. We can forge them at a stable, reliable rate."

With another sharp flick of his wrist, the glowing replica of the world map unfurled between them, hovering over the pristine gold floor.

"What you see mapped out here are the exact coordinates of the remaining tower components that do naturally exist within our world," Ikenga spoke, his voice low. He pointed directly at several brightly cluster-marked regions on the map. "But as you can plainly see, the vast majority of these deposits are buried deep within claimed territories, lands actively controlled by human kingdoms and godlings."

Ikenga leaned back, "Right now, they are entirely clueless. To them, these priceless veins look like nothing more than useless, un-mineable bedrock, or strange, excessively heavy stone that does nothing but shatter their iron mining tools. But that blissful ignorance is a luxury with a strict expiration date. The moment the existence and true utility of the Mage Towers leak to the public, everything will change."

Tide’s eyes raced across the glowing coordinates of the map, his financial and logistical genius finally sparking back to life. The oppressive gloom that had hung over him was completely replaced by a tense, hyper-focused energy.

"If your words about these towers are true," Tide murmured, tracing a massive deposit located right on a volatile border, "then that means the creation of a single tower requires absolute access to every single one of these mapped locations and materials."

He looked up at Ikenga "Right now as you said, it just looks like useless, un-mineable bedrock. But the moment the truth comes out, the Paragons will no longer care about borders. They will launch brutal excavation campaigns, strip-mining their own lands and invading anyone else to secure the earth veins of these materials."

Tide slammed his palm onto the table, projecting the geopolitical fallout in real time. "Smaller kingdoms sitting on massive deposits will become targets for immediate annexation by stronger Paragons. The entire global market for raw resources will collapse overnight, replaced by a wartime economy driven solely by the race for tower construction."

"When the Paragons finally get their hands on the secrets of the towers," Ikenga added, as he leaned over the glowing blueprint, "their joy will be short-lived. It will turn to ash the very moment their miners make a calculation of those veins."

He tapped a specific, isolated pocket of ore on the map.

"They will quickly calculate the global volume of the excavated ore and realize a terrifying truth, the world of Nana only has enough natural bedrock to support a mere handful of Mage Towers. If a rival kingdom successfully completes more towers, there might not be enough material left on the entire planet for anyone else to build even one."

Ikenga’s eyes locked onto his nephew "This completely eliminates the option of waiting and seeing. Paragons cannot afford to sit back and watch others build. The sheer fear of being permanently left behind in a world where these towers dictate absolute military dominance will force them to launch preemptive, genocidal wars. They will butcher entire nations just to secure the remaining mines before the world’s supply runs completely dry."

Tide had perked up completely by this point, his mind racing to keep up with the sheer brutality of the scenario. Hearing Ikenga’s last words, the final pieces of the puzzle slammed into place. His eyes widened in genuine shock as a chill ran down his spine.

"Uncle..." Tide breathed, staring at the older god in a mix of awe and terror. "Are you... are you fully aware of the chaos you are about to unleash upon the world?"

Ikenga could easily see the mounting apprehension written across Tide’s face. He looked at his nephew, his tone dropping into a flat, absolute tone that brooked no further questioning.

"You have no need to concern yourself with why this is being done," Ikenga said coldly. "Just understand that this was a decision made collectively among the Origin Gods."

He shifted his gaze back to the two floating, artificial materials hovering between them, the Condensed Law Anchor and the Prismatic Mana Regulator.

"These are two of the ten major components required for a tower to physically stand before it can even dream of birthing a core," Ikenga explained, pointing at the exotic structures. "And just as I told you before, these specific components cannot be found anywhere in our world, a brutal reality that the Paragons will eventually come to realize on their own after they have already bled each other dry for the bedrocks, confident on completing their goal"