Chapter 77

There was a murmur in the lab, all the students, as well as Dylan himself, were very impressed by Vivienne's demonstration of magic. More than half of the students immediately began asking a ton of questions and it took them a few seconds to get themselves under control and resume the silence.

Vivienne smiled happily at their enthusiasm, but was in no hurry to answer all the questions at once. First, she reached for the dome and opened it. The creature inside raised its head and began to growl, creating a strange rumbling sound. But Vivienne did not pay attention to this, she reached out to it with her hands and began to make similar, calming sounds. The creature listened to her, stopped showing any aggression and calmly lay down in her arms. Having picked it up and leaned it against her chest, like a small kitten, Vivienne began to whistle quietly and melodically in its ear. From this, the creature became even closer to her and without any fear began to make other high sounds, to which Vivienne listened with great pleasure.

Watching her, the students could not find words, Dylan also did not fully understand what was happening, but it was not hard to guess that Vivienne somehow communicated with this creature.

"Heh heh, you are all so funny." Vivienne laughed loudly, petting the creature with one hand. "I'll call you Felix, little bundle." She said and touched her index finger to the smooth muzzle. Felix opened his mouth full of sharp teeth and began to gently chew on her finger, combing his teeth.

Watching him, Vivienne smiled even more, but decided to start a conversation with the students.

"Does anyone know what's really special about this creature and how it earned itself the nickname Dragon Cat?" Vivienne said, without removing her finger from Felix's mouth.

The students shook their heads in response, as did Dylan himself. Although he thought that with that cute appearance and fairly high intelligence for an animal, it seemed obvious.

"No, no, it's not because of how smart they are and how similar they look." Vivienne shook her head. "In the future, anything that has a name that is somehow related to dragons is very dangerous. After all, Dragons are the most powerful creatures on the planet and only a few creatures can pose a danger to them."

"Well, the Dragon Cat earned this name for several amazing abilities. Their physique is truly amazing, and I'm not talking about the strong armor plates, but about the special organs that create high-frequency vibrations. Have any of you seen the "sound wave" spell and "vibration blade"?"

Several students nodded in agreement, while others continued to listen attentively.

"These spells create vibrations at different frequencies, if the "sound wave" makes mainly air vibrate, and the "vibration blade" spell is cast on a suitable weapon, then the Cat-Dragon is able to do both solely due to these organs."

"The most common attack of the dragon cat is a sound wave, they stun their victim and then tear it apart with teeth and claws. In cases where this does not work, they make their tail or claws vibrate at high speed. Touching by them object with it at this moment, they are able to cut through mana steel like paper. Actually, this can be demonstrated now." Vivienne said and put Felix on the floor.

Felix, without taking his eyes off her, opened his mouth and began to rumble loudly, begging to be picked up again. Vivienne smiled and stretched out her hand, and a very appetizing-looking piece of meat appeared on it. Felix began to rumble louder, begging for this piece of meat, simultaneously approaching him. Vivienne responded with that same melodic whistle, but did not give him the meat. A steel box appeared in her other hand, and before Felix's eyes she put the meat inside and put the box in front of him, again chirping a melodic whistle.

Felix began to scream loudly in frustration, making sounds that were very hard on the students' ears. Vivienne snapped her fingers and an imperceptible ripple of mana passed through the air, which completely solved this problem.

Dylan tried to sense what had happened but it didn't give him much, other than the flash of mana he didn't understand anything. So he continued to watch as Felix solved the problem.

The Dragon Cat approached the box and began to try to bite it with its teeth and dig it with its claws, after fiddling around like that for a few minutes, it growled in frustration, creating a sound wave that knocked over several objects in the lab, but did not harm the students in any way. After that, Felix began to hold the box tighter with his teeth, at one point his teeth began to emit high vibrations, but the box simply slipped out of his mouth. After making a few more dissatisfied sounds, Felix grabbed the box tighter and began to vibrate his paw with claws. He tried several times to vibrate his claws correctly to open the box, but could not achieve the desired frequency. After several attempts, Felix's claws with a high sound, easily cut through the steel box. Having understood what he should do next, Felix easily gutted the box and began to eat the delicious meat.

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Watching him, Dylan made some surprising discoveries about his abilities. Simply put, his physique can cause vibrations, turning his claws and teeth into something like a renovator.

This is powerful.

After waiting for Felix to demonstrate his abilities, Vivienne continued speaking.

"That's the main reason they're so dangerous, but it's not all. They have echolocation, an innate resistance to a lot of non-magical poisons, great speed, vision in complete darkness, fast flight, high intelligence, and several other very clever uses of high-frequency vibrations. But perhaps what makes it even more dangerous is that they live in packs and eventually develop sound magic." Vivienne said, waiting until Felix had eaten all the meat before she could pick him up.

One of the students raised his hand and Vivienne easily gave him permission to speak.

"This means that they are very strong and pose a great danger to people, but why has no one here heard of them until now?"

"It's simple, they also have their drawbacks. The right climate is very important to them, without drought, high humidity, low and high temperatures. This is due to the body's thermoregulation, due to the fact that they are covered in chitin plates and that they emit a lot of heat when vibrating, they are not able to cool themselves down quickly. Their vibration abilities consume a lot of energy, so they either eat a lot or lead a lazy lifestyle. Although they are predators, they are not very aggressive, they attack only if they are defending themselves or hunting. In general, there are several regions in our kingdom where they play a very significant role, but they are fought by intelligent races and other high-level monsters, so under normal circumstances they will never become a threat to us."

"They live mainly in forests, caves and burrows with a temperature familiar to humans. Their population in such places probably numbers about two or three hundred individuals. Living in such groups, they can fight off creatures much higher than their level and lead a pleasant life for themselves. It even happens quite often that one of them receives classes and takes the place of the leader. Once I even found an intelligent community of these creatures. They went far beyond their instincts and even invented their own language at high frequencies that are inaudible to most animals. It is truly amazing!"

"Overall, I think they have great potential as an intelligent race, but they lack human skills. If they could learn as quickly as humans and build their own homes... ah, let's not talk about sad things." Vivienne finished with a sad smile, stroking Felix's head.

"Miss Vivienne, how long do Cat-Dragon live?" asked one of the students.

"Not very many, somewhere around 50 years at level 1 of the race. This is also a significant disadvantage, but not so critical. The best of this species can live a very long time, the oldest I met was a little over 300 years old. A full level in the race would allow him to live the same amount of time, not counting his [Rare] classes." Vivienne answered.

"I don't want to fall into melancholy, so I'll start explaining what exactly I changed when creating Felix, because he is not a copy of the race, but, let's say, my interpretation."

Vivienne said and began to tell what exactly had been changed. First, she clarified the brief characteristics of the race. Cat-Dragons were creatures with physical abilities, later they, like people, could begin to develop mana cores and study magic. Due to their great understanding of vibration and sound, it was easy for them to master this school of magic, but they were practically incapable of mastering other schools of magic, although this was not always the case.

The first thing Vivienne changed in Felix was adding an internal mana grid, which significantly strengthened his physique and all his abilities, thereby making him a magical beast. She boasted for a long time about how she developed her own mana circuit, which is capable of strengthening almost all characteristics up to 1000 with large investments, but clarified that Felix has a smaller version. She also corrected minor flaws in his physique and significantly developed the structure of his brain, making it similar to a human one. Everything else she did with him further, in her eyes, was considered a trifle: she added built-in knowledge of the language of Cat-Dragon and other knowledge, slightly strengthened his outer armor, claws and teeth and slightly improved his physical body.

Then she started to talk about Felix's significant disadvantages as a homunculus. There were several: first, he had a weak pseudo soul. Not because Vivienne couldn't make it stronger, but because it simply didn't justify the means. This meant that Felix could only have a small number of his own skills until he earned his titles. The second significant disadvantage was the inability to produce his own mana, because he had a pseudo soul, he couldn't get a real connection with the mana core, which caused this.

Vivienne explained that all artificial beings suffer from these shortcomings and that they can theoretically be overcome, but she herself cannot yet create beings with a working mana core. And Felix's third shortcoming is weak mana control. This is again caused by the pseudo soul, because of this his aura is weak and his mana control is weak. But this was not significant, since Vivienne believed that this problem can be easily corrected thanks to the system's statistics.

"It was nice talking to you, it's a pity of course that today I won't show the creation of spirits and golems, but we can arrange it some other time. In general, there's nothing special about it. Some are created thanks to magical structures in the object, others thanks to the artificial creation of spiritual flesh. Read about it if you're interested. My next lesson is "Healing", the rest of you can hurry to your classes. Just go to the main door, you will be met there and shown to the exit. " Vivienne said, stroking Felix.

Dylan nodded at her words and thought that he was lucky to have a new teacher. Most of the students left the lab while Dylan was thinking about the trinity of - magic, matter and spirit...

Even in his eyes, it sounded like he was thinking like a typical MC cultivator that he was about to realize some unknown secret that would be invaluable to his advancement.

Stupid world.