1. Home grown Frankenstein

Carrying the red crystal sphere under his arm, Rory quickly made his way to the teleportation temple, stopping at the top as he prepared to leave, only to freeze as a massive head rose from the depths of the small lake surrounding the temple.

"Architect," The Khan of Blue Lightning rumbled.

"Khan," Rory nodded. "How've you been?"

"I have fared well," The Khan said, lowering his head so that his eyes were level with Rory. "Much of my time has been spent resting and consolidating. Thine people were of much assistance."

"Good to hear," Rory said with a nod. "They've been keeping up with delivering the pylons, right?"

"Indeed. It is for that reason that even amid my efforts to recover after battling thy Bane in time past, I have continued to ascend."

"Great," Rory said, being truthful. The giant serpent had been more than helpful, and it was only because of it that his Bane had been thwarted decades ago from being able to teleport its minions directly into the city.

"As for the first of my kin and clan?

Oh, he means Eia.

"She's doing well enough," Rory said, before frowning slightly. "At least I think so. It's been a few decades since I last saw her; I was quite busy. Unless something drastically changed, she's been busy claiming the region of our home as her territory. Quite a glutton, that one."

The giant snake nodded once, an amused glint in its eyes.

"I am pleased to hear. I would invite thou into the depths of my territory, but unfortunately, it is not a place for those of the land."

I mean, I could always just form a barrier to hang out within, but honestly, I'm a bit busy, so I'll just roll with it.

"I appreciate the thought," Rory said, lowering his head for a brief moment. "But even if I were able to traverse freely, I have things I must attend to."

Raising the sphere, Rory gave it a very gentle shake, just enough to make his point known.

"I sense the taint of the Blighted One on them."

"Correct, I stole it straight from under its nose. Head. Heads? Not important," Rory said, shaking his head. "I would ask how you know about the other Khan, given you don't really get out much, but I take it that would be your people? Err, your snakes?"

"Correct. One who seeks the Heavens cannot ascend alone."

Wow, what a poetic way of saying it's nice to have people to hand off shit to.

"Well, because I figure you can keep a secret," Rory said, a half-smile on his face. "I'll let you in on one. I intend to deal with that Khan sooner rather than later. I have a friend, one of my fellow Founders, who I'm going to rope into it, but that won't be until tier eight."

A wave of force flared out, which, after a moment, Rory recognized as the deep, vibrational thrum of the Khan of Blue Lightning's laughter.

"If another of your station said as much, I would find it an insulting boast, but I will put my faith that you mean what you say. Our station is high, but not unclimbable."

I'm assuming he's just saying that Territory Alphas are strong as hell, but not unbeatable. In which case, thanks, Captain Obvious.

Making it a point of not spouting the first thing to cross his mind, Rory merely nodded.

"I shall depart now, I wished to converse since some time has passed since our last meeting."

"Ehh, a bit," Rory said. The Khan was one of the few things that would view the passage of decades much the same as he had, like a minor blip.

"Farewell and watch thyself."

Watching the massive serpent head retreating into the depths, Rory watched for several moments before letting out a slow exhale.

While I have confidence in beating the Blight Khan, I'm not sure I could say the same for him.

The Khan of Blue Lightning was a monster of pure heavenly energies. While Rory had gained practice with plenty of concepts since his early days, the fact remained that the purifying aspect of it was almost a hard counter for his blood affinity. His next most potent offensive magic, Lightning affinity, would do diddly squat against it.

Good thing we aren't enemies.

With that thought in mind, Rory activated the platform, and a moment later, he found himself deposited outside the Null Window.

Now, the question: should I take these to the community-bound circle, which has undergone decades of work and development, or should I bring them home with me?

Snorting, Rory shook his head.

Yeah, that's not even a debate —time to start a mad scientist lab in my basement.

Leaving, Rory once more made a point of avoiding people, muttering under his breath as he did.

"I miss my spear,"

It was on his list to eventually remake something to aid in his stealth abilities. Still, it was a relatively low priority compared to almost everything else.

Sucking it up, Rory finally made it to his oversized tree house, slipping inside without issue. Rather than climbing upward to the topmost room where his room proper existed, he instead began to descend into the earth, the turning stairs leading down into the roots of the tree. Eventually reaching what could be considered the 'basement' of the tree-based complex, Rory set the red crystal sphere off in a corner. It was far from a permanent enclosure, but it took barely a hint of will to keep it maintained, especially when the captive monsters were nearly lethargic without a source of blight or blight adjacent energy.

"Alright, so, on one hand, I could try things like I did long in the past and simply force the little buggers to change, or we can do something a bit different."

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Thinking about it for several moments, Rory nodded to himself.

"Something new it is."

A core part of Rory was that when given the opportunity to try something in a new way, he would be loath to miss the chance.

Retreating into his Mind Palace, Rory quickly considered a plan of action, and what felt like moments later, he returned to the 'real' world as he began to set up his work.

What did they call bug enclosures on Earth? Terrariums, I think? Or was that just plants? Whatever, it's not important.

His plan, conceptually at least, was relatively simple. Selectively breed the monster until it produced a specimen that met his needs.

"Domesticating horrific bug monsters, in other words," Rory chuckled to himself.

Setting up the 'terrarium' wouldn't be that difficult, as thankfully, the contained monsters weren't all that powerful to begin with. The royal drones could be an issue, but then that would simply be a little more planning on Rory's part.

Hmm, I wonder if I could convince one of the Khan's kin to act as a 'Gardner' or sorts….

Putting the thought on hold for the time, the first thing Rory did was carve a circle into the ground. Projecting magic circles was fine and dandy in a fight, but what Rory needed was something that wasn't transient in nature.

Alright, easy enough. Next up, inscriptions.

Not doing anything too fancy, Rory largely replicated the runes that had surrounded the isolation barrier within the Khan of Blue Lightning's territory, albeit with some modifications and adjustments befitting his higher level of inscription knowledge.

Hmmm, I wonder. Should I add a Living Rune?

While it wasn't a terrible idea, the intention was to help propagate a deviation in the monster line after all. Rory didn't want to accidentally risk overloading the bound circle, as it wasn't exactly being made with high-quality materials.

Perhaps if I have the opportunity to use some better materials, I could try that, but let's keep it minimal for now.

Shifting the earth within the enclosed circle with Earth Soul, Rory compacted and solidified the ground a foot beneath the topsoil, not wanting the little buggers to tunnel their way out, given he had seen just how much dirt that blight mite empress could digest.

Thinking it over for an extra second, just to be safe, Rory momentarily moved the dirt atop the compacted floor of the circle out of the way. He quickly poured out what appeared to be ash on top of it, churning and resolidifying it a moment later.

That should be enough.

It was ground-up coral from his volcanic workshop home. Mixed into the bottom layer and then compacted once more, it would add a layer of strength that Rory doubted a tier one could eat through so easily.

Resuming his work, Rory finished off the inscription surrounding the bound circle. With some gems, he could have jazzed up the entire thing to a new level.

If he had any gems, that was the issue.

"Whatever," Rory said, bemoaning his loss with forced cheer. "For the purpose of this, I really don't need anything more than a bound circle and an environment to propagate the little beasties."

One thing Rory added to the bound circle that the isolation chamber had been lacking was several Pneuma Crushers to draw in and fuel the entire thing. While he could have 'wired' the setup into the Ehkorrus pneuma reserves, if Irene or anyone else with authority to view the Sovereign System took a look, he didn't want to deal with any questions or concerns of a new drain on their reserves.

Plus, it really won't need that much pneuma.

With the bound circle and runes finished, Rory focused on the 'fuel' for his experiment. Given he was underground, it was far easier to create earth and dirt to inevitably 'infest.'

Which was precisely what he set about doing next. Pressing his hands into the earth, something that made the process easier due to conceptual reasons that Rory had long since shrugged off, Rory began to pour pneuma into the circle, kickstarting the process so he wouldn't have to wait on the pneuma crushers. Whereas the isolation barriers he had worked with had only been capable of aspecting one type of pneuma at a time, the improvements he'd made within his own impromptu bound circle would allow for up to three, assuming one could handle splintering their mental threads that many directions while also fixating on the internal aspects of whatever conceptual elements they were working with.

Which Rory could. Why someone would have made something for themselves that they couldn't have handled was beyond him.

The first element infused was the same as what he had used for his base experiment, a tinge of green aura concentrating within the bounds of the circle. Allowing the concentration to build for a little longer, Rory began adding the second element, his own blood affinity.

Finally, once that had time to begin saturating the environment, Rory began to add the final element, the tiniest tinge of foundational affinity. It was still far and away the hardest aural affinity he could work with, which was always a matter of interest to Rory, given he technically had an affinity for it. When he'd first managed to learn to tap into the aural type with any sort of reliability, he had assumed that with enough time it would become as easy to manipulate as his two real affinities, but that had proven false.

His leading theory was simply that foundational affinity was some form of aural affinity, far more abstract and advanced than he had yet to truly grasp.

All things in time.

Trying not to get sidetracked, Rory delicately balanced the pneuma elements within—ninety percent noxious, nine percent blood, one percent foundational. Continuing for long enough that Rory could sense the concentration rivaling the latent pneuma levels of his volcanic workshop, Rory released his hold on the pneuma. Inside, the green-hued air had an almost orange tinge to it. As for the dirt, without any way to say it nicely, it looked like someone who had eaten far too many prunes had taken a dump inside.

Good enough.

Snatching his red crystal sphere containing his two specimens, Rory rolled the sphere inside before releasing the hold on the containing magic. Freed in an instant, the two looked around, taking in their new environment now that they had been roused by a pneuma type aligned with their own affinity.

Their observations lasted only a second, as the blight mite empress began the process of gorging herself.

What was interesting was that, nearly halfway finished with consuming the disgusting-looking dirt, the blight mite empress turned on her spawn, its proboscis lurching out and spearing inside its body.

Huh, I wonder if, without a source of living organics, they will cannibalize themselves?

The lower queen made no effort to resist, even if it did release some rather horrid-sounding squeals in the process.

Consuming the lower queen, the blight mite empress turned back to its original meal, consuming the rest of the prepared matter -and then some as Rory was forced to provide more- before finishing up twenty minutes later. With access to far more concentrated pneuma, the blight mite empress had finished her feasting far faster than before.

When the egg sack was inevitably ejected, Rory mentally took stock of the fact that, rather than the prior ten-plus eggs, this time it spawned a mere six eggs.

Huh, interesting.

When the eggs hatched an hour later, what appeared wasn't a grouping of royal drones, drones, and queen, but instead what looked like whip-spiders, if one ignored the reaching tentacle feelers sprouting from their backs, that is.

Pestilence Creeper

Level: 30

"Thirty? Jeez, a bit much, ehh? Ehh?"

The six Pestilence Creepers had turned on the blight mite empress before lurching forward, the intent easy to read.

"Whoa, how about no!" Rory shouted as a flex of his intent squashed the pestilence creepers to the ground before they could so much as graze his precious empress.

Frowning at the unexpected outcome, Rory couldn't help but snort as the blight mite empress, apparently unfazed by the sudden betrayal of its offspring, began to consume their corpses, recycling what she'd spent.

Alright, try number three.

Repeating the process, Rory changed the concentration of conceptual elements. When the birthed monsters once more attempted to turn on the blight mite empress, and Rory was forced to squash them again, Rory could only frown.

Right, I'm missing something here.

For his fourth attempt, Rory made a point to use no blood affinity or foundational affinity, reverting to basics.

The good news? The birthed monsters -some drones and a queen- did not attempt to kill their spawning queen.

The bad news? They did attempt to break free, the royal drones having an urge to attack him.

Squashing them as he had the last few batches, Rory once more added some of his blood affinity, ninety-nine percent noxious to one percent blood.

What spawned looked identical to the last batch, Rory's frown only deepening.

Well… This will take some time.

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