Narrative--shortly before Azelf left
The machine was nearly complete.
The Red Chain had been constructed through four machines before, one for each of the spirits of the lakes, and one for the physical construction itself. But here, now, Cyrus had neither the time nor the resources to construct all of them.
Adapting them was simple enough, although it required more time to construct the one than it would have one of the previous machines. Still less than all; an acceptable sacrifice.
The adaptation led to the ability to contain the data extracted from the gems of the lake spirits. They couldn't all be contained simultaneously as before. But to hold that much data, the record of the power of the gods, of the mind itself, took a considerable amount of storage space. The processing power of that device was about equal to that of the rest of the school, mostly shipped in from his holdings in Sinnoh technology production.
Getting Azelf into the machine was simple. He needed only dare it to do so, something he wondered up to that point if it would actually work.
The lights dimmed as the machine powered on. Within an hour, after a near-complete power outage in the teacher dorm, he had what he wanted.
He had a third of the power to become a god.
Simply, easily, he set Azelf outside and went about the rest of his day as if nothing had changed. And really, nothing had. He was simply establishing his fate.
And what a divine fate it was to be.