Kaden continued his work and made the control and communication formation for the unfortunate human.

"Act naturally", Kaden commanded the human once he was done.

"Master, what have you done", the man asked. "M... Mas...Master. I cannot say otherwise."

"You are now a slave", Kaden told him. "If you can figure out how to oppose me, you may have a chance to defy me before you perish. I'm not going to command you to do so. I want to see, if an intelligent thinking human can manage it. High Beast for sure couldn't."

The man just stood there without doing anything. Kaden assumed he was attempting to do exactly as he hoped. He observed the formations and how everything functioned. There appeared to be no problems.

This sort of slave was far more useful than anything he knew or had seen before. Serin's puppets were likely quite useless and he had used them only as toys, basically. They didn't have even enough self control that they could prevent themselves from being injured. Then there were Nosran's minions. They were constructs and, as far as Kaden understood, they had basic set of rules that they would follow. Other than that one would have to personally control them.

"My slaves can act by themselves and think", Kaden thought as he continued his observations. "This has great benefits, but it brings in risks. Even if it seems like they can't act outside of my rules, I should always keep eye on them."

The human then seemed resigned for the moment.

"What do you want me to do", he asked.

"I have no actual personal use for you other than as test subject. I assume you will die once the commander of this place figures out what he wants. Its a shame. Perhaps I could have kept you around and seen how long this formation lasts on humans, but it seems stable. Now go stand there quietly."

Kaden was preparing to work on the second human. The two were in worse condition, but seeing the results on the first one, he assumed they would survive too. That is until Korkud suddenly decided.

"I don't actually think I require a human wandering about", Korkud told Kaden. "I had a little discussion just now with Harsol." Korkud then took out a few slightly larger mana crystals that had formations crafted on them.

"Stuff these inside the humans", Harsol told Kaden.

"These are mana concentrators?" Kaden said.

"Indeed, we will turn these humans into bombs", Harsol replied. "If you put these somewhere inside their chest, once they begin self destruction, it cannot be stopped by ordinary ways to interrupt. It will also increase yield due to having more time to concentrate before detonation."

"I'm aware", Kaden said.

It was fine enough. It would reveal humans that something weird did happen, but its not like there were not parasite Cari that could take control of their victims. Human side would merely keep eye on their people for a while. No one would note his new enslavement formation.

"I want to see some blood, though", Korkud added in. "Kill one of them. I also think three returning is more suspicious."

"Sure", Kaden replied and the decided to conduct another test. "Choose one of your companions. Pick the one you like more. Then kill him. Do it painfully and slowly. Lets see, if you can find a way to resist my command."

Kaden wanted to see what would happen when a slave would receive a command where they could choose what to do and be against it. There was no telling how close these people were, but the man had at least tried to defend his more injured companions originally.

"Yes", the man merely replied. There was not even hesitation, but with such short answer Kaden assumed he was not happy about the command.

Kaden took the remaining human as his newest slave started to torture the other and started to construct yet another slave formation. Korkud seemed to be enjoying watching the human kill the other one. Kaden felt like Korkud's reasoning for his request to kill one of the test subjects was a bit flimsy, but he didn't care. Likely Korkud merely wanted to play with the humans just like everyone was before killing them.

As for the second slave. The process was succesful. The slave nearly perished during the process, but Kaden was able to stabilize him. This was a good discovery for Kaden that the process could be adjusted in such a way without it resulting in failure.

The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.

Once he was done, he made some observations on the first slave, now very bloody from killing one his companions. The man looked rather broken.

"That will be noticed", Kaden wondered for a moment, but solution was already available. "Behave and look like everything is normal", Kaden ordered.

The slave immediately relaxed and seemed very calm.

"Indeed, body will do what I order", Kaden though to himself. "What the soul wants does't matter at all."

Korkud was eating the killed slave.

"Truly, eating them just after extreme pain and terror makes the meat taste better", Korkud said.

"I prefer my meat charred black", Kaden said to which Korkud rolled his eyes. How phoenix ate their meals was known to him. "At any rate, I did promise the test subjects to you, but we could have used even that last one. I made discovery making this second one that allows me to complete the process on even heavily injured ones and not have them die during it."

"I view this at most a little game", Korkud replied. He didn't seem to put much weight on Kaden's note of wasting resources. "No one else can produce these slaves."

"Yet", Kaden quickly pointed out. If Cari were to eventually conquer human territories, they would likely save a few humans for cattle ... and possibly slaves.

Korkud ignored Kaden as he continued. "We at most could have had three of them and these two we are going to send out there to explode valuable targets. I'm not going to waste too much of my time on this project."

Kaden muttered quietly that it was still wasting resources. Then he handed over the mana crystals, with Harsol's formation on them, to the two human slaves. "Insert these in your chests", he ordered them. He wanted them to cut incisions by themselves and stuff the foreign objects, the crystals, in.

"They will last for a while", Harsol pointed out. "A mana crystal that isn't absorbed, will cause disruptions in the body, but a short amout of time required here is more than enough."

"Do you have targets in mind", Kaden questioned Korkud without replying to Harsol. "I would myself pick a leader, your equivalent on human side. What of the other? Have him explode inside wherever human warriors will be resting? Supply store?"

"Their formation masters", Korkud said suddenly. "We time it so that these two will be at human side just before or after True Magi and True Cari clash the next time. Have them blow up their leadership and formation masters just at the time they would be needed to repair formations on their side and no one immediately around to put things in order."

Perhaps Korkud wasn't as impulsive as Kaden thought. Humans would be able to replace their formation masters quicker than Cari could, but it would still take some time.

As for what this little move would cause at the border was probably going to be mostly neglible. Even if human side would not be able repair their fortifications soon enough, it would only leave it slightly weakened. They would have to leave that section broken for a while, but it wouldn't last long.

Kaden didn't really care. He had his test subjects and as far as he could tell, the formation would serve his purposes at the very least. What happened at the border did not matter to him. It would only matter once the conflict truly errupted, but none could say when that was going to happen.

To be honest, Kaden was pretty happy that Korkud had wanted to send the slaves back to human side with a suicide mission. If there was some way they would be able to resist, it would be at that moment when they were among their own that they would reveal it.

"It will have to be the last test", Kaden thought to himself feeling quite pleased. "I believe nothing will go wrong and in that case, I will trust the formation far enough and make my way to human territories once again. In this case, back to Saint Empire. Sacronan will have to wait."

Kaden continued and added the communication and surveilance formations on the slaves. He had continued optimizing his work and had been able to reduce their size and place them in such locations that they wouldn't be visible without an deliberate inspection. At that point he could always order a self destruction.

Kaden looked at the two living bombs standing in front of him. They had both stuffed in the crystals inside their bodies. There were small cuts in their abdomens. For humans at Condensation stage, they were meaningless wounds. It seemed the slaves had still been careful instead of attempting to cause extra damage along the way and thus cause failure of the plan.

Kaden was again pleased. They had either not thought about it or had been unable to do so.

"They are ready, Korkud", Kaden replied after giving a last inspection. "I can order them to go whenever you feel the time is right."

"We will wait for the next time True Magi and True Cari pass by", Korkud replied.

For a while Kaden wondered why True Magi and True Cari bothered to battle each other repeatedly over and over again. Perhaps it was the best opportunity to do so as usually many of them resided far away from each other. Such as True Magi usually were inside human territory and so on. At the very least they regularly made a lot of work for Kaden and other formation masters when they came to, likely, test their power against each other.

"I won't have to wait for too long, I assume", Kaden continued his thoughts. Then he turned to his slaves. "Use this time to prepare to move across the border. Make sure you look like you barely escaped."

Kaden wouldn't let his little experiment fail on bad acting.

Then again, it mattered very little. Kaden didn't really care about his two slaves. They were merely experiments. Even if he was able to keep them, he would kill them. They were useless to him. He couldn't take them away from the border. They were soldiers stationed there so people would ask questions why they weren't there.

No, Kaden's concerns were mostly out of pride. He had been able to work hard and invent himself something useful once again. To have his experiment's end fail in some pathetic manner was not something he wanted to see.