At this point the number of people volunteering to train under me is leveling off, I don’t expect more than two hundred and fifty thousand people once all is said and done. Still, it is so many that I am not able to properly teach them all at the same time. So I have to rotate who I teach throughout the day, otherwise, I can’t teach them properly at all. The process will be slower than I would have otherwise liked it to be, but it isn’t terrible.

I think I’m going to prioritize my teacher’s people a bit, they will learn faster than most of the rest and if I can get them out of here then I no longer need to deal with them. That should make things go a little more smoothly.

Already there are a handful of people I’m keeping my eye on for potential recruits into my Paladins. Few of them are close to where I want them to be skills-wise, but they do have potential. I look forward to seeing how they progress.

As for the lessons that I received today, nothing particularly noteworthy happened. Which is good, it means everything is going the way it should.

During my downtime I hung out with Tiddol, I haven’t gotten much of a chance to do that since she left for the front lines. I think I understand what people meant when they were saying watching me felt creepy after all of the non-plant parts of my body were removed. It’s very uncanny watching her move around with an amalgamation of flesh and clockwork.

Speaking of, the subject of her newly changed body came up, or rather I asked about it. I was curious, and her situation was very similar to my own. She says that her thoughts don’t come to her quite as clearly, and it’s more erratic. She has trouble focusing on one thing at a time, but at the same time, she has gotten better at multitasking. Not good enough to make up for her constantly divided attention, but still. I can probably make something to help her alleviate that. She also has problems with healing, traditional healing only works on her fleshy bits and she no longer recovers from injuries. She has to repair herself every time she’s injured, even if only slightly.

A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.

On the other hand, she has found that working with clockwork takes much less thought. It’s become instinct for her where before it took a conscious effort. She also doesn’t really feel pain anymore and has no need for sleep or food. Which is good because she doesn’t have a digestive tract anymore.

She got Azrezel to do a check-up on herself, apparently, she was concerned that she had become an undead somehow. Azrezel did a couple tests and examined her, and the results were a definitive yes for pretty much everything. There is no doubt that Tiddol is currently undead. Also, she probably can’t evolve anymore, like at all. There is simply nothing for her to evolve into, and the world doesn’t have enough information about clockwork creatures for me to guide it into creating something new. So pretty much her only option to improve her body is to do in manually, which won’t get registered by the world.

As fascinating as her current body is, that wasn’t the extent of our conversation. She’s been changed by this event, it would be weird if she hadn't. She seems a lot more violent now, less compassionate. She’s also very twitchy, she probably can’t properly control her body. And she has to take a moment to think through what she is trying to say every time she speaks, she never did that before. I’m really worried about her, but I can’t fix her problems without risking her death, I’m more and more sure about that the more I learn about the soul. And there is nothing I can do for her less physical issues.

While we were talking we were snuck up on by a very large beast, probably not sentient. Before anyone realized what was happening Tiddol had already managed to beat it black and blue with her bare hands. Had I not stopped her she likely would have killed it. She was horrified when she realized what she did, and wouldn’t stop apologizing and sobbing, though she was incapable of crying. It kinda put an end to our conversation, but I still held her until she calmed down, and then at her request kept holding her. I ended up spending quite a while like that.

She feels colder.

Anyway, Good Night Diary.