Chapter 320: Vividus's Perspective
Out amongst the snow the great life spirit hovered in the air, watching the battle going on beneath her as Abrus’s child faced off against the beasts she’d created for the coming conflict. A small horde of creatures, any one of them built to tower above Thera with teeth and claws fit for killing and not much else. They were meant to be predators in their purest forms and better than any plain homunculus could be, due to the seconds' limited nature and functions.
Instead, they were her first attempt to create a chimera that used a homunculus as a base. Horribly outdated compared to what she was currently making which meant they were disposable and fit for Thera’s training, but still more dangerous than most things that undirected nature could produce due to the fact that they had all the danger that could be put into an artificially created life form, while at the same time all the benefits that were gained by an ensouled creature, able to make decisions on its own without constant input. They were violent by their very design, yet still collapsed to the ground one by one in the face of Thera’s magic while Vividus evaluated from above.
Better, but not good. She thought as she watched the display, seeing it fail to meet her standards. If she could use more of her mana at once then she could have dealt with them all after a single attack, this is barely less of a disappointment than training her as a child.
Still, Thera was a potentially powerful tool in the coming war and was already obviously more dangerous than some of her earlier attempts at living weapons, so she would be worth trying to raise up more in the short time they had.nôvel binz was the first platform to present this chapter.
The issue was that it was already coming to an end. After a week of stalling, acting as if she didn’t have the answers they sought from the moment she first looked at her niece’s companion, the time limit she’d given was ending tomorrow, nowhere near enough to get her anywhere near the level Vividus hoped for, not unless something drastic occurred.
Mmh, maybe I could spend one of my better creatures, but then it’s a matter of sufficiently motivating her.
“Better, but still far from the point where it could actually fly. If you can’t do this then you’ll never be able to do it with creatures that would prove far more useful.”
“And I don’t want to. Look, I’m thankful for the lesson on the topic and the chance to practice it, but I’m not setting up a place in my home to cut animals apart and put them back together.”
“A poor decision based on meaningless mortal values, but fine, let’s move on to your true interest.”
It was the only one that Thera showed any enthusiasm for while also being the one Vividus had to pay the closest attention to, but she could at least admit that in that case her niece had been doing a reasonable job. Lifespan enhancement, a means of using life magic to reduce the effects of aging, potentially to a significant degree. While it couldn’t be stopped altogether, if a person had enough skill and mana it could add decades to the life a person typically expected, and that was only when one considered the amount of mana a typical soul mage had. If Thera ever made it to the higher end of an awakened life magic she might be able to manage much, much more.
At first, Vividus hadn’t understood the girl's interest in the subject. It was no secret among the great spirits that they expected she’d live exceptionally long for a mortal, even if it would be nothing but a blip in the lifespans they’d already had and could still expect in the years to come, but she was at least marginally aware of the fact that Thera didn’t seem thrilled with that knowledge the way other mortals might have been. The reason for her nieces sudden interest only came to her as she saw Thera looking at the boy, the air filling with pheromones to an even greater extent than what she’d dealt with in Stonewall that neither could consciously notice was there, even if it seemed to be such a central part to succubus biology. Thera was less interested in any application of the spell for herself than for those in her life, a weakness shared by many of the soul mages she’d met in the past as well.
But an exploitable one.
She did believe Thera was taking her lessons seriously. The issue just lied in that she wasn’t properly motivated to go beyond her limits and Vividus had just formed a perfect idea on how to change that. If Thera failed then it would only cost the great spirit an interesting subject, and she already knew how he’d been made. If there was a need then to examine something like him in the future then she could simply produce more.
