Leaving the morning news on the table, Frank fully turned his body to face his son.
"So, tell me. What do you find interesting about it?" excitedly asked Frank while bringing his left arm forward in display.
"The metal dad, the metal that is made of. It's so shiny and thin, but it's obviously not brittle as it is used for arms and legs." said Theron in one breath.
"Mhm, mhm." Frank nodded, a smile forming on his face.
"I read that it's called ugorgin, an alloy of which its primary component is the ore ugor."
"Mhm, mhm!" Frank's smile got bigger.
"That ore and its alloy are grey in color with a silver shine.."
"Mhm, mhm, mhm!" Frank's smile kept getting broader and broader with each sentence his son uttered.
"It is also said that the ore, along with its alloy, have the unique ability to allow a certain energy to pass through them, but I don't know what that means. The only thing I am certain of is that your metallic arm is really cool, dad!" he finally said, giving the finishing blow to his father's on-growing enthusiasm.
"O-ohh! You really know your stuff, son! Of course, that was to be expected, since you inherited your smarts and machinery love as now you have shown, from me! Muahaha!" exuberantly Frank announced as he patted Theron's left shoulder with his right hand in pride.
"Firstly, let me tell you, I totally agree with you son." he stated with a solemn tone.
In a swift move, he brought his left arm right in between them and his face forward, almost touching it.
"Look at its stream-like curves bending and connecting harmoniously with each other! Isn't it a work of art?! And what about this silvery shimmer of it! Where did you have ever seen such beauty before?!..."
With his eyes wide open and a crazy glow in them, which rivalled in brightness the silver shimmer of the metal, Frank kept hurling compliments for his prosthetic arm and the various it possessed, while his right-hand fingers danced next to its surface as he pointed here and there, showcasing the different sections and parts.
Theron immediately recognized that look the moment he saw it. It was the same as his when he was presenting his ore and alloy collection to work colleagues or when he enthusiastically talked about an engineering project with scientists of different departments during the early to middle years of his first life.
A feeling of camaraderie welled up inside him, and he was about to indulge in it by joining his father in his mad rumblings for the metallic masterpiece, but he managed to control himself in the nick of time. There were other priorities right now to focus his attention on, no matter how much he would love to join Frank in the metal admiration club.
"Then dad, what about this greenish blue glow, what is this?" he asked, interrupting Frank's rumblings while pointing at the same time to the greenish color that was faintly glowing from the arm's innermost section.
"Hm?" being interrupted didn't cause any anger in Frank, only mild confusion as he was deeply immersed in his enthusiastic speech.
"Oh, you are talking about the prosthetic's core." After he focused on where his son was pointing at, he resumed his normal, calm way of speaking as he explained. "This greenish color comes from the prosthetic's core which is also the answer to your earlier question of how this arm or any other prosthetic of the matter can move."
Theron knew right then he had accomplished his real goal; to learn about this core and its energy. He perked up his ears and paid special attention as Frank explained.
"There exist some special crystals in our world" Frank adopted a wise and mystical visage as he explained, "that have the property of holding energy in them. Some would say they are the crystallized form of the energy itself rather than natural storage units for it, the debate is still ongoing.
These crystals come in many sizes and purity. The size, which also corresponds to its capacity or "pool" of energy it holds, determines where it could be used, while its purity determines its power and grade. Let me give you some examples we have right now in our house. Uh..." in a split second he loses his wise countenance and goes back to his goofy carefree self. "Just wait a second, I will go fetch something."
Frank stands up and quickly goes to the bedroom. After some noises of rummaging through drawers are heard, Frank comes back while holding something in his right palm.
"C-cough!" restoring the sage like expression and vibe, Frank continues. "The first example is of course this!" he says and opens his closed palm.
As the palm fully opens, three small pieces of some kind of crystalline mineral, roll a few times atop it, bumping at each other before they stop.
Their sizes are about the same. They seem rough as if no later process was done to them after they were mined. Their color was of a murky white, but if someone paid close attention to them, they would notice a lingering faint green hue in their depths.
Immediately, Theron's eyes glowed at their presence.
"These are what we call the common grade mekron crystals. One of these little guys usually powers my left arm for about two months. You see the faint greenish color inside that is barely visible?" Frank asked.
"Mhm!" Theron nods.
"That is the leftovers of the crystal's energy. The energy power the leftovers possess is not enough for my arm to operate, so they are left to look like this when I replace them.
Unused, these crystals have a dark green color, but as you can see from these three, when the energy inside them is used up, only a white piece of rock is left. The little remaining energy isn't useful for anything, and it might as well not exist." Frank concluded, keeping the three pieces of used crystals in his pocket.
"Then why do you still keep them, dad?"
"For souvenirs of course!" proclaimed Frank as if it was a matter of fact.
Ignoring his father's latest answer and dignified pose, he kept stealing glances at that pocket, as if he could still see the three crystals through the fabric. His mind was already making plans on how he could obtain them; with his previous life's knowledge of energy, he knew that even those leftovers could prove useful.
"Now for the second example! Come with me in the kitchen, son." Frank said, leading the way across the wooden wall divider and into the kitchen.