Leo summoned Caldwell back into the training room, and everyone waited. No one knew when he was born exactly, it could have been the early morning, or late at night. So all they could do was wait and continue to train in silence while Caldwell sat there awkwardly. Luckily, they didn't have to wait very long. Around noon, there was a perceptible shift in the flow of mana around them, and Caldwell's first awakening, the mana coalescence, happened. It reminded Felix of his own, with slight visible distortions in the air. It seemed Caldwell was a relatively rare low-grade mage.
All the better, Felix thought. It would make him a more accurate test subject.
After around fifteen minutes, the flow of mana stopped entering Caldwell, and he looked around the world, as if his eyes had been opened for the first time in his life. He seemed normal so far.
"In about an hour, your elemental affinities will awaken. When that happens, you'll need to concentrate, and let us know immediately if you feel pain, discomfort, or any other situations you would describe as unusual." Felix said. Caldwell nodded meekly in response.
Felix had the maid prepare a bowl of water for Caldwell and placed it in front of him so he would have a source of the water element nearby when he awakened his water affinity. Just in case, Leo had prepared a few metal bars as well, and set them out around him. Not having a particular element nearby when one awakened wasn't actually an issue, the affinity would just lay dormant until a source of the element was detected, but still, they didn't want any unusual mishaps.
An hour passed without incident. Then, the flow of elements around them began to change. Felix began focusing on the elements around them. First, Caldwell absorbed the water element - it seemed to be his major affinity. After a couple of minutes of doing so, however, his aura began to turn chaotic, and his face turned bloodless and pale. He began to hyperventilate.
"Shit." Felix said.
"Arboro, can you tell what the issue is with him?" he asked Arboro inside of his spell space.
"Give me a moment, I'm examining him. Get Leo to stabilize him if he can." she said.
"Leo, do you know any water vitality or healing spells that can help stabilize him for a bit? I'm working on a solution." Felix said. Caldwell had collapsed onto the chamber floor by this point, struggling to breathe and panicking. Leo looked thoughtful for a moment, and surrounded Caldwell in a gentle water which glowed softly. It seemed to take the edge off of Caldwell and calmed him down somewhat, but his situation still wasn't great. Felix touched his chest.
"It looks like although you successfully converted his metal affinity into darkness affinity, it wasn't correctly attuned to his soul any more. It's kind of like his affinity and his soul are two blocks of metal scraping against each other right now, when they need to be melted or welded together, instead." Arboro said.
"Can you fix it?" Felix asked.
"I can certainly try. Give me the remaining Yin energy and absorb as much dark energy as you can." she said. Felix complied and absorbed the darkness around himself. He felt a tingling in his soul as Arboro used his body as a medium for her power, which he allowed, and a dark glow appeared on his palm, which was touching Caldwell's chest. Felix could sense a strange, ethereal change coming over Caldwell, and he slowly began to look and feel... more solid. More complete. More....real.
After a couple of minutes, Caldwell gasped, and the dark energy surrounding them flooded into Caldwell. Leo continued maintaining the gentle water, and Felix kept his palm on his chest, doing his best to sense all of the changes within him. After a few minutes, Caldwell weakly sat up.
"That hurt like hell." Caldwell said with a grim, weak smile, as he spat out a mouthful of blood.
"What are both of your affinities, Caldwell?" Felix asked him.
"My major affinity is water, and my minor affinity is darkness, Young Master." Caldwell said, still panting.
"He really succeeded...." Leo muttered to himself on the side.
"Very good." Felix told him. "Stabilize your new core for a few minutes, and then we're going back to the surface." he told Caldwell.
Caldwell nodded and meditated, slowly absorbing the water and darkness around him. Leo and Felix stepped out of the room and into one of the crypt chambers on the side to speak.
"What went wrong?" Leo asked Felix.
"I converted his affinity successfully, but I didn't know the affinity had to be re-attuned and re-integrated to his soul afterwards. Luckily I was able to somehow re-meld them. Good thing we tested on him first instead of Scarlet, if I do the same thing on Scarlet, I can simply re-attune her affinity to her soul beforehand, and there won't be any issues next time." Felix said.
Leo looked at him carefully, and then nodded. "How sure are you that there won't be any issues if you really do this procedure on Scarlet?" he asked.
Felix thought for a moment. "Although we've only had one test subject, I would say that I'm 99% confident of having no issues." he said, thinking of how he had Arboro backing him. If there was anyone who was an expert on matters of the soul, it was her, the grand dragon spirit of darkness.
Leo watched him carefully, and nodded. "All right." he said. "Although that 1% chance still pains me, it's ultimately true that anything is rarely completely guaranteed in life, especially when it comes to gaining power. These odds can already be considered extremely generous, and you seem very confident, for some reason." Leo remarked thoughtfully.
"I quite like Scarlet too, you know. I have exactly zero plans of harming her." Felix said, with a smile. Leo nodded.
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"Right." Leo said. "So, I'll go ahead and kill the maid and that matricidal brat now so there aren't any information leaks and-" Leo began, when Felix interrupted him suddenly in a bit of a panic.
"What the heck do you mean?!?" Felix asked. "Why on earth would we kill them?"
Leo looked at him with pity. "Come on now Felix, do you want to become a target for everyone? If word of your new power gets out, you might implicate everyone in the family, let alone yourself. The only way to be absolutely certain about this is to eliminate the two of them." he said coldly.
"I get what you're saying, but... surely there's another way? Can't you like, rip the memories of what occurred out of his soul or something?" He asked pleadingly.
"Although I'm certainly capable of doing so, it wouldn't be foolproof. What if a powerful water mage happens to notice an irregularity about Caldwell due to your procedure and investigates him, ultimately figuring out what happened to him and tracking you down through the karmic strings? What then?" Leo asked Felix.
"Karmic strings? What are those?" Felix asked Leo blankly.
"Every action you do which affects another person sows karma in this world. If you rob someone, a dark string of karma will connect the two of you. Similarly, if you provide someone with charity, a bright white string of karma will connect you. Lovers will have pink strings of karma. So on and so forth. Although the number of people who can see the karmic strings in the kingdom can be counted on one hand because it's a technique which only house Duvain knows, and it's a very high level one at that, the number isn't zero. And our relationship with House Duvain is basically "sworn enemies"." Leo explained.
"Sworn enemies? Why?" Felix asked.
"I'm not sure. Grandfather said he would explain the reason why to us when Scarlet and I were both of age." he said. "But that's not important right now. The point is, not killing the two of them is a huge and unnecessary risk." Leo concluded.
Felix bit his lip for a moment. "I'm allowed to take any of the slaves as my own personal slaves, right?" he asked.
Leo raised his eyebrows. "You are, up to 50, which is the usual limit on the number of slave bonds a soul can maintain. Why, you want to take a matricidal freak experimental guinea pig as an underling?" he asked.
Felix nodded. "It's as you've said. By doing this experiment on him, I've sown karma. If I cause him to be killed for my sake, it will be a strong negative karma. But if I take him as my own personal slave, it might even be a good karma due to the opportunities he might have working under me. Besides, if he's standing right next to me, if I happen to run into one of those karma seers you're so worried about, they would already probably try to kill me anyway. So I can make him my personal responsibility, sow good karma, and limit your risk using myself as the shield, by keeping him near me." Felix said.
"You'll have to take the maid too." Leo said, glancing in her direction.
"That's fine. I'll take her too." Felix said.
Leo sighed and shrugged his shoulders. "All right. Have it your way. But there won't always be an easy way out like this in the future." he said.
"I know." Felix stated with a sigh himself.
Leo summoned both Caldwell and the maid in front of them.
"You, what's your name?" Felix asked the maid.
"My name is Hope, Young Master." the maid said with a curtsy. Felix finally looked at her features, before now having mostly ignored her as any other maid. She appeared to be slightly older than Felix, perhaps nineteen or twenty years of age. She had long, dark hair, green eyes, and a cute button nose. She was of an average height, and leaning a bit towards the petite and skinny side, with a demure countenance. She blushed and looked a bit nervous as Felix looked her up and down.
"Hope, why are you enslaved to the Belrose family?" Felix asked her.
Hope sighed heavily. "I offended a young Lord of the Golden Flame Clan. I was starving due to having no work, and I stole an artifact he had placed on a table when he wasn't looking, and fled the region. I was caught near Belfast actually, tried, imprisoned, and given a choice. They offered me to either ship me back to my home region of Ashenreach, where I would probably be beheaded for stealing from a noble, or I could be enslaved as a runaway vagabond, which is a life sentence. I chose the enslavement, Young Master, since it at least let me escape that horrid fate." Hope said with a depressed expression.
Felix nodded. This seemed to be an all too common trend, the poor and starving trying to steal from the rich to improve their lot, and failing.
"And you, Caldwell, I'm assuming you've got a life sentence as well, considering the nature of your crime?" Felix asked him, turning his attention to Caldwell.
"Yes, Young Master." Caldwell said with a bow.
"Right. I'm exercising my authority as a Young Master of the Belrose household, and making the two of you my personal slaves." Felix said.
Caldwell and Hope looked surprised, but they both bowed their heads. "Yes, Young Master." they said in unison.
"Leo, this is my first time doing this, what should I do, exactly?" He asked, turning to Leo.
"It's not too difficult. We control the slaves through a pyramid structure. I control a few slaves, who themselves control a few slaves, who themselves control a few slaves, and so on. We just have to get their masters to release them, and then you can cast Enslavement on them again, making them yours. Normally we could just use a slave ownership transfer spell, which is how we get slaves to control other slaves, but it isn't convenient in this case, since their masters aren't here." Leo explained. He waved his hand and Caldwell and Hope were both bound by black ropes, restricting them both. Their expressions sharpened up, but they didn't say anything.
"I trust the two of you know the consequences of resisting. If you try to resist at all, even if Felix pleads on your behalf, I'll kill you both instantly." he said coldly. Since they were bound, Hope and Caldwell could only give meagre sounds that vaguely gave off an air of compliance and acceptance.
Leo closed his eyes, presumably handing out soul orders. After a couple of minutes, he opened them again. "It is done. They're unbound." he said, gesturing towards the two of them.
Felix didn't waste any time, and walked in front of Hope. He activated the Enslavement spell with his hand on her forehead. He didn't feel any resistance, and after a couple of moments, he felt a weak bond formed between himself and Hope. He nodded in satisfaction, and did the same to Caldwell.
"It is done." he said, turning to Leo. Leo waved his hand and the dark bindings vanished. Hope and Caldwell rose and bowed to Felix.
"Master." they both said unison.
"All right, that's enough of that. You two aren't to talk to a soul of what happened down here. Got it?" Felix said, addressing them.
"Yes, Master." they said.
"All right, I guess we better return to the surface before Scarlet gets lonely." Felix said to Leo with a smile. Leo nodded, and they turned to the lift. It took an hour for the lift to reach the bottom level, and another hour for it to rise to the top level, so during that time Felix and Leo both worked on constructing darkness spells. As usual, Felix opted to work on a new hex spell, this one called Hex: Inner Turmoil. This was a hex which was used to distract opponents in battle, drawing up their worst memories and all of their skeletons on their closet, all of their guilt and repressed memories they had long forgotten. In the middle of battle, being distracted for even a moment could be deadly, so although this was another hex which wasn't directly combat oriented, it's utility was still very powerful. He didn't finish constructing it by the time they reached the surface, only making about forty percent progress.
They stepped out of the Mausoleum, and back into the open air. Hope's expression and countenance improved greatly, while Felix felt like he had clambered out of his warm and comfortable bed and had to walk outside into a rainstorm. He sighed, and the four of them went to find Scarlet.