Throughout the night, Logan completed the fifth mana channel for the spirit animal and was ready to make the next one but it was morning so he just lightly sealed the end of the mana channel and called back the spirit before stretching.
When he moved, it caused a strange amount of scratching before growling came.
He opened his eyes that had been closed all night and looked around. He noticed the goblin was gone and after finding the source of the growl, he smiled weakly.
Fearfully, on the far side of the room, the tiny goblin girl was squishing herself into the corner of the room hunched on four legs like a cat and growling like a fearful dog.
It was honestly pitiful and he could see fear and despair in her eyes. He had no way of knowing how old of a goblin this was, it could be a newly spawned on with a young soul or an old goblin that underwent a painful process.
That said, something in him said that it wasn’t the second option at least. If it was, the aggression would likely be projected differently such as grabbing items as weapons and such. She acted more like an instinct driven animal but he knew she wasn’t.
Helix confirmed her to be a sentient monster but the likely reason for her animalistic tendency is her abysmally small quantity of mana and the nearly unformed flow of mana. He was very curious about that but his mana vision didn’t explain very well and he needed better spells he couldn’t activate to achieve that.
The bond between the two was young and weak at best which is why she was fearful of him. Still, he was able to receive feedback that were the needs and desires.
Storm had those too and these were sent to him subconsciously. Such as knowing when he was running low on mana or was tired, hungry and such.
The bond between him and the goblin screamed hunger above all else. It made sense because monsters ate and basically converted everything into mana. Her lack of mana naturally meant she was very hungry.
He didn’t know how to go about taming its aggression though and he doubted it would willingly eat. As such, he decided to force it like he did with the spirit animal wisp and accessed his master control over it.
“Come here.” he said pointing to the ground in front of the bed.
It shouted but then yelped as its body unwillingly moved on its own. The aggression was gone and it just whimpered pathetically and timidly. It clearly associated its own lack of control to being beaten.
When it stopped there, walking over on all fours he did nothing except start to talk. “Alright, rule 1, you do not bite, hit me or my other battle beasts. Rule 2, do not attack others unprovoked.” He said these two simple things.
The goblin likely understood but was too consumed with fear. It was bare of clothing and he had nothing for her size.
As such, he had to look a while to find an old rag. He took it out and after eyeing her for a moment, he used Arashi to cut three openings and bent over.
The goblin instantly dropped to the ground in fear but he easily lifted her and stuffed the head through the biggest hole and then forced the arms into the other two smaller ones.
It was a very improvised rag dress if anything. Even if the goblin had a charm similar to elven, it was hidden by her fear and despair so he didn’t mind it. In fact, it was like messing with a newborn who was conscious of adult actions to some degree.
"I think I need to get you examined before we go eat.” He muttered.
Storm raised his head and yawned while stretching himself before his body transformed into his human form.
“It has awoken.” He said looking at the goblin.
“Yeah, I think before we go eat breakfast I need to get her examined. Her mana flow is strange for a dungeon monster. Even animals have stronger flows than this, I can barely see any main mana channels.” he said.
Storm just nodded and shrank himself to nearly her size.
He skillfully jumped onto the bed and then Logan’s shoulder before sitting there while he reached down. She instinctively reacted but he just scooped her up. Her height was barely reaching half way up his leg to his knee, she was very tiny. Even floor 1 goblins were at least at the height near his thigh.
As such, he headed out first and went to the adventurers guild and asked if the identifier could examine monsters.
“Sorry, you would need to visit the tamer’s branch. Their monster identifiers are also certified mage vets and understand the physical and magical problems a monster might have.” she said.
“Where do I find it?” he asked.
“Leave the plaza up the north road and go two blocks and take a left. It is a big building with two large ogre statues at the door.” the receptionist said.
He thanked her and left.
He found which way was north and quickly found it. Besides to ogre statues, the place was easy to find due to the huge number of monsters working jobs at the command of their masters.
He was rather conspicuous due to the tiny creatures on him but many people knew about shrinking magic so it didn’t matter.
He asked for an identifier for the goblin.
“What kind of problems does it have?” the woman asked.
"I am not sure, I just obtained it but with my limited identification magic, I noticed there is a big problem with the mana channels.” he said.
“Oh, then I will get one of the doctors.”
She led him to a room and asked for him to put her down on the mat and make sure she didn’t move around.
Soon enough a male doctor walked in, “Hello, I heard you have a problem regarding the mana flow of a monster?” he asked.
“Right. This is a variant goblin I obtained. The person I got it from said he saved it from cruel magic experiments. I have the magical vision identification magic but it is very medicure mastery so I can’t see anything except mana but there is clearly next to no flow. I felt it as well when binding her.” He said.
"I see. Since it is a target of magic experiments, please order it to not resist my touch and probing as well as attacking me. They are very prone to extreme temperament changes until proper masters show them goodwill and their mental state stabilizes.” he said.
Logan helped and gave the orders and he began to touch her with mana coated hands. Each touch seemed to release a very weak pulse that was visible and it clearly touched upon the mana of her body.
After that he put on a pair of glasses and activated higher rank identification magic and began to examine her and turn her.
After a bit he nodded, “Well, to say the least, this poor thing was tortured beyond compare.” He said. “Magic experiments have a tendency to get really extreme and one type is the removal and regrowing of a dungeon monster's flesh. This produces big problems as they regrow just the flesh and bones and not the mana channels. I had wondered if it really was a goblin but looking at it, I can confirm it is but the size is a clear result of 9 of it’s 10 mana channels being completely broken or outright removed. The last one is broken with seven gaps along the length. Even 80% of her secondary mana channels were broken or removed alongside the rest. Her capillary channels basically rearranged themselves to compensate for the loss of main vessels.” he said.
“Wha! It was that horrible!” Logan exclaimed. He condemned the demon for this level of cruelty.
“Indeed, this is truly an unfortunate one. The mana body is quite unstable as well and the amount of mana left is nearly at the level of what common rabbits have. It is basically surviving purely on the fact that it is in the dungeon. If it left in this condition, it would die instantly or would drain your mana at an exaggerated rate.” he explained.
Logan frowned at this. “How do I fix it?” He asked.
“Well, considering you are already bound with it, the natural progression is training it. Due to the current state of the channels, her intelligence is naturally compromised but that is not a problem. Similar to how you processed her mana, you can actively rebuild the channels in her body.” he said.
“Okay but her size and my size is really different.” he said.
“True. Have you heard of Spirit animal wisps?” he asked.
"I have one.” Logan said.
“Oh how lucky. Then you won’t have a problem understanding the process. The only thing you need to watch out for is the size of the mana pool. You calculate like this.” he said and began to mess with the drawers and took out a small mana stone. “Think of this as this goblin’s monster core. First off, you grab the two longest points and turn it to aim up and down to form the north and south peaks. It is painful but her body is basically incomplete at this point. You circle it with mana until you get a perfect orb with the longest peaks being the only touching corners on the orb. Then, forming 1 millimeter coats like how pearls are formed, you form five coats. This is the proper size of the mana pool you need to make.” He said.
“Is it that easy to make a mana pool?” Logan asked.
“Naturally not, this will not replace or process the mana stone like how sentient monsters want them. This is purely to contain mana from leaking and to allow you to process mana outside the imperfectly shaped crystal. We call them proto pools because they do not function like mana pools until the core itself finally gets processed. Once it is formed, the size will naturally grow alongside the monster core until it finally blends with it.” he explained.
“Great, so considering she is broken like this, what would be her natural size?” he asked.
“Hmm, since you have F rank mana and are likely to directly build her up with it she will instantly stabilize at F rank. She is likely to obtain the natural size of goblins so between knee and mid thigh height.” he said.
“So after getting to F rank, do you think she will form a solid body?” he asked.
“Oh dear no. Goblins as goblins have never once achieved that miracle. The most likely form she is to achieve a solid form is as a hobgoblin, either elite F rank or an E rank or as a higher breed.” he said. “If you have an ogre’s horn you can accelerate the process after she stabilizes.” he said.
“No, I want to train her as a healer. I honestly lack that.” he said.
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“Makes little difference, hobgoblins, no matter the evolution, will form a horn. Ogres and trolls are the most well known but that doesn’t mean they are the only ones, there are many others like yourself who get dungeon goblins and train them magically. Many become much more humanoid and less monstrous in the process, though I never saw one this humanoid. Nonetheless, to evolve, she will form a horn and mana will flow into her body and muscles.” he said.
Logan sighed and nodded as he understood that was part of the biology. It was just like how Storm formed crystal horns instead of bone ones. His biology was based on his ability to crystalize his scales as secondary power sources.
“Alright, how much for this?” he asked.
The doctor smiled and he dealt with the fees which weren’t as high as he expected.
“Just one thing, the best time to train is just after eating. This goblin basically has no organs at the moment due to the instability of her mana body but she does contain a gastral sack where her food enters. She is in such a starved state that it will break down even solid meat into mana and this is a big source of mana to process into her body.” he said.
“Alright, thank you.” Logan said and picked the goblin up and headed back to the inn.
He instantly ordered breakfast. That said, he ordered a third plate of monster meat from drops for the goblin. It was vital to strengthen her body's stability.
She was fearful as she sat down but as soon as the food arrived, she drooled and jumped at all the food but Logan skillfully caught it.
She growled and struggled but he ordered her to stop to let the waitress put down the food. He split her portion and placed her down and pointed at the plate. “Only this is yours.” he said with the binding command.
Getting the confirmation was all she needed and instantly threw herself into the plate. Table manners were the last thing she was worried about and no one could blame her. In any similar situation, it would have been the same for them.
That said, it was funny as she could barely rip the meat and had to put a lot of effort into each chunk but she exclaimed in happiness after each bite.
Even as her belly expanded she kept eating because her body didn’t follow general rules just like the doctor explained. Her body was so unstable that she had no organs and existed purely because of the dungeon’s mana sustaining her form. Now she could stabilize her form and she took any chance she could get.
When she was done, she was swollen and fell asleep to digest it all. Logan laughed as he was finishing as well and the waitress came over. “Sorry about the noise.” he said.
“No worries, every so often we get people with new, young monsters who are getting their first meals. It happens in every inn.” she said.
He still apologized and then took her up. The rag was covered in sticky sauce so he removed it and washed it and the goblin. She was out cold trying to break down the food into mana. Sadly it was slow for obvious reasons.
He used magic to dry the rag and put it on the side before going to the bed with the swollen goblin and knew he had to help it out.
The meat didn’t have a lot of mana but to her it was.
As such he began to transmit mana and found her mana core. He activated his mana vision and looked at the core. He could barely see the contours through the shine of mana but he used his mana to feel the shape as well until he found the two longest points which were always opposite each other.
A bit sorry to cause it more pain, he used mana to grab it and started to fix the alignment. It instantly woke up and growled in pain until it was straight in the chest. That said, this small fix actually caused a mystical effect as all the jagged edges released a thin filament of mana revealing the connection points of the mana pool. Only then did he realize that besides the north and south peaks, there were ten jagged points meaning the mana channels came out from them.
They barely stretched outwards though and just barely reached a centimeter from the core. This was double the length the mana pool needed to be formed at.
He started to channel mana around it until it formed an orb and as ordered, he formed layers in millimeters until it was 5 mm thick.
Leaving just the top layer to act as the model, the internal mana began to move. It left the pool through the string like mana channels and connected to the closest ones it could and formed a natural flow.
The mana from the meat began to barely react and was pulled through while the mana in the core began doing the golden lion technique within.
He naturally had to produce his own mana because there was no way he would get F rank mana for her with her body condition.
He kept injecting until there was sufficient mana to start and he did it just like the spirit animal.
Starting from the lower peak, the mana came out and began to spin along the orb of mana until it reached the top where it began to actually form the mana pool.
The size was many times smaller and the amount of mana needed was equally low.
He didn’t need to worry about mana leaks either so he worked for about 2 hours to complete the mana pool.
The amount of mana gathered from the meat was honestly miniscule but when the mana pool formed, the goblin growled and grabbed at it’s chest before a white pulse spread through its body.
This pulse, shockingly, originated from the ten thin strings of mana pools as the mana still in the core shot out and all the easy access mana in her stomach was pulled.
It instantly formed a full flow through the body but it was fully disconnected from the entire system except the single remaining mana channel.
The mana pool had revealed the basic system of her mana channels but it was just a flow of mana in the shape, it did not have the capacity to hold the flow. That said, it was a start. He looked at the single outward flowing mana channel heading to the head but never returning. It was natural that the first mana channel to be restored was this. That said, he didn’t start, he had just formed the mana pool so he began to channel mana into developing it a single cycle.
The grinding caused the goblin to tremble lightly for another hour until it was done before his mana entered the new string connection heading to the first broken piece. It instantly began to grind and compress the mana into forming a totally new mana channel and like opening a channel where it is destroyed and rebuilt, it was a slow process.
Thankfully, the meat in the stomach began to break down half way through and the amount of mana in solid matter is not small. From morning until dinner, all that mana was concentrated and processed until it was compressed into a small fragment that connected to the first broken piece of the mana channel that was reconnected but instantly started grinding to open the channel properly.
They left and got something to eat to continue through the night. Of course, Logan took a rest to regain his mana and they proceeded to the next fragment.
The only reason it was a quick process was because of how small her body was and that he was making only the main channel as he did with the spirit animal wisp.
Even then, the spirit animal’s channels were 3 times the length of her own and had a much higher compression requirement to form a stable unleaking mana channel.
She did not, her body was there to catch any mana that leaked and would eventually gather it back into the core. It was less stressful so the process was much faster.
Basically every meal was one fragment filled in and the connected piece could be enhanced by the mana. The channels, however, were clearly disproportionate in size just like barely opened channels compared to those naturally open. He didn’t know how he would reconnect but he didn’t doubt that the magic of her body would deal with that problem on it’s own.
That said after a week, the channel was reconnected and a much longer process commenced to return down the line formed by the mana channel string.
He knew he would be stuck for month's dealing with it as well as taking breaks for the spirit animal.
He turned in a few of the troll blood containers and got some money to sustain himself but beyond that, he basically closed up to restore this goblin to health.
***
While Logan ignored the world, within the higher level powers, humans who previously had the abilities of Lightning Clad were no longer the concern of the leading powers.
Helix had personally come down from the top of his dungeon and called a meeting of national kings in secret. This event included the adventurers guild’s highest command power and told the half lie he had fabricated but made sure to get across the message.
“Demons are trying to make a comeback and they are trying to disarm humanity of the only weapon we have against them. Do not turn a blind eye just because the demon lord from 1000 years ago is dead. Just like humans can make legend swords, so can they. Spread through human society, demons, like other monsters who mated with humans, blend in.” He said.
The kings were serious upon hearing this and it made them worried. “The demons have yet to achieve their goal of forging a holy weapon. They want to instantly form an awakened flame grade sword using the corpses of 100 legend swords. If this is true, they also need sufficient numbers of holy artifacts to fill in the gap.” one king said.
“We have refrained from actively producing warriors who train holy magic and all the religions are stringent on handing out even low quality holy water for even removing curses. We must make them change for the future.” one of the more powerful emperors said.
Everyone agreed to pressure the religions. In the time since the war, religions have only grown more arrogant, it was rare for saints like the holy paladin to exist so if they did not react to reason, they would react to force.
The final say, however, was from none other than the Emperor of the centermost empire of Nuntip. For a decision to basically antagonize the religions for the greater good of humanity on Nuntip they had to have his support.
"I am in agreeance. It is still a shame the Golden Lions are no longer a viable fighting force against demons. We might have to invite a division of another continent’s demon fighting corp to reinforce our continent’s power.” He said.
Helix frowned, “Great emperor, that may not be necessary immediately. A secret I withheld is that the 4th grandmaster designated me to safeguard the ancient art of his order. Feeling the bad omens to come, I have already returned it to a proper candidate. It might be possible that it is not even needed but in the case it is, it is released into the world and will not fall into the wrong hands even if my dungeon is destroyed. We are aware of their motives and movements now so we can move to intercept their advance and slow their progress or outright smash it. Inviting an uncontrolled force of another continent is never a good option as each great power created by the ancient hero to protect each continent might not be as ‘free’. Loyalty to their continent and more can make many things change.” Helix said.
The emperor stroked his beard and agreed. Every power was an extremely strong order. Their strongest being S rank and if they are abnormal, they might even surpass that through sheer talent and quantity of mana alone.
The emperor himself was one such person as a result of the Legend sword he possesses which has taught him ancient powerful arts his ancestors developed over the years and is why he could maintain his rule in this boiling political world of great might.
"I will trust your judgement on this. The Golden Lion is a dead order, its resurgence is likely to be heavily attacked so hiding its appearance is important until it can protect itself.” he said.
Everyone understood that it meant more than just from demons because the ancient Golden Lion was a continent wide policing force. Nuntip had adapted to being without it even if the mercenary group did exist, it was far less effective with its limited strength limit.
“If the demons are trying to resurrect or birth a new demon lord, should we not take preemptive measures and create a new hero?” one king asked.
Instantly, the faces of many kings and emperors sneered.
“Depending on the term, no. Summoning a hero is a useless endeavor meant as a last resort. If it turned out like the ancient hero, it would mean endless casualties and hardships as he grows.” one emperor with clear knowledge of the true facts said.
“Yes, but we have the family of the hero who created the adventurers guild. They could definitely have inherited his talent and can be trained.” the king said.
The notion wasn’t as easily rebutted this time. The hero fragment that made the guild had been the hero’s humanity and was the weakest piece. The one that needed to put the most effort to grow and the support of thousands. Loved by all and hated by few for his feats and humanity towards the people. He was also the one to finally take over as the main hero instead of the mage hero or the one with the holy sword. He took control and blended them into him and was the one that survived.
That said, his new body was never like that of the true hero. It was a form made restoring his original strength, true, but not the biological part of a hero that made him special like before.
Of course, he still became the greatest man of the age due to the remaining knowledge he kept from the others and using that he spread prosperity throughout the world instead of hoarding it to one land.
The kings looked at each other in contemplation but it broke when the voice of the great emperor spoke, “The descendants of the hero are countless and it might even possess many lost branches. For all we know, many beggars in the streets of all the cities could have the origins of the hero. We cannot hope for a hero's descendant because unless some ancient power awakens the hero genes that passed on to only the first born child and never his others, it is impossible.” He said.
It was true, he had but one child during the war. After he was revived he gave birth to nearly 10 others but only that single child was born from him as a hero’s fragment.
The hardest thing is tracking down 1000 years of lineage. Not to mention that he could have had secret lovers and more.
“We should think of it differently, instead of thinking of a hero, we should think of the greatest weapon we have, legend swords. The demons are trying to make them, this is for war. If that is so then in the same sense, we can prepare for it as well. Its greatest feature is its ability to enhance talent and gather the power of fate. Some might be weak and some strong and it depends on how they were raised that their foundation will be strong. There are many magic swords which can become legend, they simply lack the smith. We should enter in contact with the Order of Legend Smiths and call upon people with great fame but their swords are not legend. Passing on that legend is vital as children grow the most with them. The next generation has to support the coming waves and we can only act as wave breakers if the waves are too big.” the emperor said.
The kings nodded as they understood this. As such, the meeting resulted in calling upon the Order of Smiths to produce legend swords from many powerful figures to raise their next heirs to support the weight of the future.