CH320 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 Horribly outdated compared to what she was currently making which meant they were disposable and fit for Thera’s training, but still more dangerous than most things that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.

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.

But that was a decision for later. As she watched all of her early prototypes be finished off by the life magic her niece wielded, she quickly called the girl inside to her workshop, seeing just how well she’d do at the other spells she’d been spending the last few days training in.

“Still really not a fan of this,” Thera said as she finished up her practice with homunculus creation to move on to focusing on chimeras. “I can’t see any time I’d actually put this to use.”

“That’s because you lack imagination,” Vividus chided. “It’s much more efficient to just have different beasts fight for you while you focus on more important things, or at least use them for support in your case. Besides, by every reasonable view, the boy you’ve brought is one.”

And an incredible one at that.