I have been asked about chimera as an effective magical construct to be used in combat, and I can see the appeal. Made of a combination of magics and combining multiple different monster’s body parts, chimera are often seen as a somewhat easy to make, upgradable, and cheap construct.

This is all true of course if you are only looking at the combat ability and expense of the creature, something that many students tend to overly focus on ignoring some other equally important aspects. The first major downside to chimera is their mind due to it usually being made of monster parts it often is foreign to us normal humans and thus making it harder to control then comparable magical constructs. This makes chimeras often harder to command than the normal average golem or other magical construct that while being simple, having a matrix or other human made directive system allows it to be far easier to control.

With the previously mentioned downsides comes another stemming from the same source which is a chimera's often complicated living needs and instincts. By combining multiple often very different creatures, chimeras usually require strange diets, have strict sleeping conditions, and other costly living needs to exist and since they are still flesh they will basically always need these to continue existing. Chimeras also through their beast parts will often have instincts and similarly since these beasts are often very different these instincts can clash against each other or combine in strange ways further making the chimera hard to control and often having it behave in strange strange unpredictable manner. This also makes them often not work well with other chimeras leading to it being highly suggested you keep chimeras separated whenever possible.

Now this leads to the question of “should I use chimeras at all then?” from an inquisitive student.

It is of my opinion that chimeras can serve a part in your repertoire but it's suggested you keep them as a small part of your force. This allows you to still use them for all their advantages, often being great minions to wield, and given the smaller number all the best monster parts you find can easily be used to upgrade them when necessary. It also keeps the amount you have small and more easily managed then a large number so as to avoid many of the common problems and annoyances a large group of chimeras could bring.

Another popular use of chimeras is as guards or permanent fixtures of locations. With magic circles and other such it's easy for basically any creature to understand the basic commands to guard an area and through chimeras dominant physical and magical abilities if you use high quality materials it can serve as a strong guard for whatever treasures you may want to secure. The only main pitfall to using them in this manner is whoever uses them like this still needs to find a way to feed the chimera and meet their other needs while they guard the area, something many different users find a vast array of solutions too.

— Lecture On Chimeras By Vlamimir Flamel Transcribed By Flamin Trinink

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With that major advancement in the person's magic before anything else happened the vision ended for the day and even when I tried to get the corpse to allow me to continue seeing the visions it didn't allow me too for whatever reason leaving me with the last image of the small creature standing up in my memory but showing me no further image or giving me no further information. After trying to see if I could get the visions to continue and not succeeding I decided to begin digging a hole for the body to hopefully be buried in and not exhumed until I needed it next.

As I dug the body I began contemplating what I wanted to continue doing for my future. I knew I wanted to continue pursuing magic but I didn't know where I would want to focus my efforts. I could attempt to individually continue studying fleshmancy something that from the visions I knew could be taken into many different fields.

My main worry was I didn't think the person I saw in the vision planned on continuing their study of magic so I would be mostly trying to figure stuff out on my own, a field that I didn't think would allow me to excel when compared to others who would have a more formal education in magic.

If I decided to pursue necromancy I could continue at least loosely following the vision and simultaneously also doing my own research to hopefully progress a little on my own too as I knew I couldn't rely on the visions forever. This came with the major negative of necromancy being banned and harshly prosecuted within my nation which would force me to probably hide my magic or I would be persecuted.

As I continued digging the hole I thought about the positives and negatives for both, and while I could study both at the same time I knew that stretching myself continuously thin studying multiple magics would make me a worse caster overall. Instead I decided to focus my efforts on necromancy.

Necromancy would allow me to not only to continue improving magic at a comparable level to other casters hopefully through the use of the visions, but would also allow me to set myself apart from other casters. While it was illegal in most places I didn't much care about that my goal of being someone known and remembered throughout the world could be accomplished even if I wasn't necessarily considered a good guy.

Necromancy would also, unlike fleshmancy, allow me to continue without a teacher hopefully for longer while still improving, unlike fleshmancy which I would have to find somewhere that taught it or had resources on it to continue learning at a sufficient speed, something I was not prepared to do.

Knowing what I was going to do and still having plenty of time in my day without the visions taking up any more time unlike I originally planned, I decided to return home with a little idea in mind. Returning home I looked through some traps we had for rodents and other undesirables that try to enter the farm after putting on some gloves to not catch any sicknesses from them.

After finding a rat I grabbed the trap, the trap already having killed it and returned to the forest making sure to avoid my parents so they didn't think I was some sort of psychopath or at least so they didn't think I was one beyond what they already thought.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

After returning to the forest I returned to the place I normally used the corpse for the visions and placed the creature down, and after doing so began attempting the magic I saw the vision do. Similarly to how I previously extended my fingernails in the practice, instead I attempted to use the knowledge of anatomy I had to make the leg move.

I also used some of the insights on necromancy from the vision to hopefully assist me as I willed the creature to move. As the mana was channeled from the environment moved by my intent it began going towards the creature manipulated by me as I also attempted to will the mana into formations that I had seen the vision do.

Mana manipulation wasn't a hard skill to learn and while it could be improved through practice for a wide variety of niche uses for most common uses practice wasn't super important, mostly control needed to do most normal mana related things coming naturally. The main hard part of doing anything with mana for the common person is not being able to see mana unless it was transformed through a spell so the most you could reasonably do is manipulate it without visually seeing it, something many found a hard challenge.

I knew the symbols in the vision came from a magic language (a language specifically made to assist casters in casting spells), but sadly beyond some basic knowledge of what each symbol did unlike the person in the visions I did not know what each symbol meant not actually going to school like they did but seeing a abridged version did not allow me to have all the knowledge they did.

While I didn't have a deep knowledge, the slight amount I did I hoped would at least somewhat help me with casting the spell. After the casting continued for some time nothing happened to the creature or at least I hadn't noticed any change.

I knew that I could only have a few attempts per creature before I could no longer use it for study into necromancy. Through the visions I saw the person first try to train on one creature for days before realizing that one creature could only take so many necromancy spells or rituals before they would no longer work on it.

The person in the visions sadly didn't know why, but luckily it was a sufficient warning for me to allow me not to waste my time. I didn't know where I could continuously acquire creatures from exactly yet knowing I could probably only occasionally get rodents like this one in the future.

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That didn't matter right now though as I continued attempting to cast the spell to get the creature to move more with minor success I swear I saw it twitch its leg barely one time but I knew I could also have been going insane.

To fully be able to get a creature under my control like this I knew would take awhile, but I also knew that hopefully with my knowledge from the visions my training could avoid many of the pitfalls theirs did.

After about an hour I knew that the creature could no longer be used and I did the next far more grimm planned thing to do with the creature. The person within the vision dissected any animal they found studying not only the effects of death which would minorily help necromancy but also partially through the research help the progression of fleshmancy.

In my opinion it was killing two birds with one stone so with a grimm resolve I decided to try and dissect the animal.

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My resolve was quickly broken as while I could apparently move a mostly decomposed body my stomach drew the line here. I hadn't butchered animals really, mostly my father doing that gory task, so this was my first experience with a fresh corpse and after dry heaving for some time I looked at the animal's corpse.

While I studied magic with the creature's corpse I had mostly been avoiding the grim fact of time experimenting on a creature and had been avoiding actually looking at the creature. While I didnt cry I did feel a pang of guilt as I looked at the dead pest.

I also knew that the best way to not make the creature's death not matter like many farmers rationalized was to use the corpse so it wouldn't go to waste. After continuing staring at the corpse psyching myself up I approached the corpse again and this time I was able to cut it open somewhat,

I slowly over multiple hours studied the creature in hopes of getting a deeper understanding looking at each organ and part in hopes of gaining further knowledge about how the creature works.

After the dissection and me taking multiple breaks in between the rather gruesome task it was getting late and I knew if I didn't head home soon people would begin to worry about me. So I went back home and it seemed right in time, because as I entered my Mother told me supper would be ready soon and to get freshened up before we eat.

After washing up and cleaning my hands and face we all sat around the table eating a stew today, seemingly a combination of some vegetables, and scraps of food reused from other meals and meats and such.

As we ate after my dad took a few bites he said “So son I have been thinking about the talk we had a few days ago. I have been asking around with some old friends I haven't talked to in awhile and it turns out one is a scholar. He said he might be able to take you as an apprentice in about two years if you are willing!”

I had thought about it and I didnt know if I would be around for that time if I accomplished what I want in magic, but also backup plans were always worthwhile and I could attempt to use any time I had while not learning to continue training magic.

Showing some interest in what my father said I asked “What exactly does your friend do as a scholar?”

My father quickly answered clearly already having had some communication with his friend “He works in a large library. I forget its exact name but he does research and maintains the records within it. He also is sometimes called to educate lesser noble children and advise them , but that's pretty rare, he said.”

After being in contemplation for a second my father said “It's a great opportunity that most don't have. I know I would have loved an opportunity like this. Not to pressure I just thought I should illustrate that if you don't act on this a similar opportunity probably won't present itself.”

After some thought I mentally agreed with my father that it would be rather dumb to not agree to go with my fathers old friend and learn. While sure I had other plans it's not like me going too somewhere with more information wouldn't possibly help me if I couldnt find better places to go within that time.

Having backup plans in case within these two years I don't improve at the speeds I am hoping for wouldnt hurt, and with that in mind after an awkwardly long pause I told my father “Yeah I think that would be good. Does he want me to do anything until my apprenticeship or should I just wait until then?”

My father thought for a second and responded “I probably should have asked him but I can send him a message and ask if you want.”

“You don't have to, but if you do I could probably be more prepared before going there.” I said not wanting to make my father obligated to send them a message but also knowing that it would be helpful if he did send it.

After that discussion dinner went mostly normally though I did participate in the conversation a little more than I normally would have. After dinner I returned to my room for the night, and as I did I began meditating and analyzing the events of the day, particularly my experiments visualizing them in my brain the best I could in hopes of learning anything I could.

While I had gained some small insights I knew I would have to study and experiment far more if I hoped to gain anything larger than minor insights into the field of necromancy. As I mediated I only spent a small bit of focus and time on gathering further mana within my body.

With me deciding my main focus would be on necromancy it is a magic composed mostly of rituals outside of combat using undead in battle to fight for you as you at most cast spells while guarded from the front.

With that information I focused my time on not furthering my magical potential instead focusing on casting quickly in my mind felt like a waste of resources and thus I only spent a minor amount of time on it enough so I would still have an ok amount of mana to use in case of emergencies but no more than that.

As I studied to the best of my ability, given only my mind to go off, I eventually felt my eyes remain close not out of visualization but out of lethargy, something that I found myself doing more and more working until I am on the verge of just sleeping. As I drifted into sleep I thought about what I would do tomorrow and how my magic would continue growing in the future.