"And then his claws just sank through the scales of my shield, through the metal of my shield, through the vambraces, and even through my own scales like it was nothing!" Hana pulls the sleeves of her arm and flexes fer forearm, lifting the patch of emerald scales in a wave.

"How do you defend against something like that!?" Selina exclaims, her hands on her cheeks.

"You don't. We only kept it back by using Roxanne's [Explosion]."

"Didn't undead corruption spread to you?" Thomas asks, leaning forward.

"It did, half my forearm died, it was the worst pain I have ever felt. -."

Thomas laughs and Selina smiles but blushes, then she goes back to petting Gify on her lap.

"Meanwhile, we were running like the wind, trying to get our employers to safety before Wolf could join us," Alissa says.

Then Hana continues.

"When she finished her part we ran away and reached the hole with the broken enchantment. Wolfy says, 'we don't really have the time, let's jump'. So I grab them and jump," Selina's expression is a mix of fear, surprise, and laughter. "I summon my wings and we scrape on the walls, Roxanne is yelling all the way, and then when we get near the ground Wolfy uses [Telekinesis] to slow us down. Suddenly I feel a large burst of force slow me and he passes out," Hana stops speaking for a moment to increase the tension.

"So I'm like 'holy shit, we are going to crash'. Then Roxanne frees herself from my grasp and summon's her bat wings so she can float down. Now I'm lighter so I just hold Wolfy and Aoi tighter and we land heavily on the ground, at least my legs didn't break."

"And you had a half-rotted arm," Thomas says.

"Yep."

"But we still had to keep running, now carrying Wolfy, until we found a safe place to rest," Alissa says, "It wasn't that bad, Wolfy has a tendency to overuse his mana so we were somewhat used to it."

I smile wryly and look away.

We spend some time talking about the incoming Harpy attack. Thomas hired a fellowship to take care of the shop during the attack while they hide in the basement. Every house in the town has a reinforced basement where the population can hide during attacks, this is why even though the town could get destroyed the loss of life is not massive.

We leave when it's near dusk.

"Goodbye Alissa, of the Blinding Arrows," Selina says with a smirk.

"Goodbye Mr. 'Good Luck'," Says Thomas also with a smirk.

"Now I'm the one envious," Hana says.

"Now that I think about it, titles sound a little, uh, silly," Alissa says with a wry smile.

Tonight I spend my time practicing Andraste with Ciel and Aoi, who's learning to read. Then I cuddle with Alissa again as she reads a book, I'm getting good at understanding Andraste without the skill. The golems seem interested in the books, I don't know if they do know how to read or if it was just passing curiosity.

Today is the 15th.

-

My [Andraste Language] and [Sword Use] increased by 1 (now 4+6 and 12+9).

Through Lina's research, I understood that [Transformation Magic] cures birth defects by altering both soul and body. [Heal] does not cure birth defects because the defect is on the soul itself, what [Heal] does is align the body with the soul. Later, I should get some more information on how [Transformation Magic] identifies the birth defects.

It confirms to me that the soul is not a reflection of the body, they could both be independent on each other or the body is a reflection of the soul. I'm leaning on the latter due to how [Illusion Magic] some spells like [Ghost Lights] sends sensory input to the soul, not the brain, possibly indicating some form of hierarchy.

If [Ghost Lights] sends spells to the "brain" on the soul, this means there's a permanent location for the brain. Same for the mana organ. So organs on the soul have fixed positions, the question then is can I relate someone's organ position on the body to their position on the soul? I want to do this because searching the soul blindly for the desired organ is quite tiring.

I ask Alissa to use [Ghost Lights] on Lina repeatedly while I scour through her soul. Eventually, I manage to find a place on her soul that's under random changes at periodic intervals. This is quite the find, I managed to visualize the effect of an illusion in someone's mind in real-time. This could greatly improve the [Diagnosis] skill, I have to teach [Sense Soul] to Ciel.

"It's done?" Lina asks while rubbing her eyes, she's slightly queasy.

"Yep, I found it. Thank you, my love."

"Y-you welcome," she lowers her head.

If I know where the brain and the vocal chords are, perhaps I can calculate the position of other body parts. I assume skills are the things on the outer layers of the soul, so far the organs were found inside the first layer. The second layer might actually be the first "level" layer, the one where skills are stored, since everyone (humanoid) seems to have the same number of layers as their levels plus one layer.

The first layer of the soul is a sphere, which means the organs will be stretched and their positions distorted. There might be more organs here that do not equate to physical ones like the mana organ, so not every structure belongs to a physical organ.

To find the correlation will be some very methodical and repetitive work. This is quite a headache, I want an assistant.

"Lina, Ciel, do you want to help me out?" I ask, "This is quite the complex work for just me alone."

I don't even have to ask Alissa, she nudges me on and I give her the skill too.

"What about the skin?" Ciel asks, "Have you found it?"

"Nope," I answer, "Could be just before the layer boundary."

"If we do then we could cut ourselves and see if there's a difference on the soul. Could make even finding internal wounds easier."

I give her some finger-guns and a "das rite" look.

"What are you doing?" She asks flatly.

"Reference, means 'that's right,'" I smile to her.

I take a look at Aoi's throat and compare it to ours and an elemental's. When she speaks it barely moves, ours moves a lot, and the elemental's doesn't move. Aoi must be supplementing her frail vocal chords with magic, not the [Godly Language] type but something else, something similar to the elementals but more complex.

"You are the secret to progress again my little one," I pat her head and she closes her eyes.

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"Kweh?"

"I want to copy how you speak, it's better than the elementals and perfect for the golems."

"Kweh!"

Before I continue we have to make lunch.

Ciel and Alissa come back with some groceries. Lina scurries to her side, she investigates the vegetables and picks up a small mushroom. She sniffs once and eats it raw.

"Lina!?" Ciel exclaims, me and the other girls lift their eyebrows, "Those are poisonous!"

"No...?" She tilts her head and stares at Ciel with her usual gloomy eyes ,"Those are Giftig mushrooms, we can eat it raw."

"No we can't, we have to boil and drain them. They can make your blood go blue if you eat too many! You could die!"

Lina frowns and looks at the mushrooms again. "Mom would sometimes make a sauce for us to eat along but we mostly ate it raw," she says.

"[Spirit of Gaia] cleansed her blood of alcohol, maybe it does the same thing to the mushroom poison," I say.

"Oh. That's true, it could be it," Lina says and nods repeatedly.

Ciel massages her forehead and chuckles.

We boil the mushrooms and eat them. They are blue clumps of thin noodles, almost like a beard. They taste sweet and fruity, reminds me of blueberry and menthol.

"Hmmm... I think I can use this [Sense Soul] to improve my potion and poison testing," Roxanne says, "Using it on myself was limiting my knowledge of effects."

"Wait what? You were using yourself as a test subject for poisons?" I ask, incredulous.

She shrugs.

"What else could I have used?" She asks, "It's why I prefer making potions, easier to test on myself."

That's true, we need something for her to test things on. Maybe we could capture some monsters. Animal testing might be dirty business but I'm willing to compromise in exchange for power.

With Roxanne also recruited into the [Sense Soul] research Hana was the last one left. To not be left alone she decided to joins us too.

Looking at Aoi's voice using my direct soul touch I notice how she can speak. Mana has an attraction to matter, it does not interact directly but it clumps up near matter and is what's responsible for when crystals "attune" to mana, matter becomes more capable of attracting a certain kind of mana. This is why you gather mana for spells on your heart, it causes your blood to slowly get attuned to your own mana, improving your spellcasting.

Aoi's voice is produced by a reversion of the effect, it makes matter be repelled by mana and you vibrate this effect along with your vocal chords for improved speech. Requires minute control, something that Aoi has been improving on slowly.

Now that I think about it dragons are famous for their frightening roars, perhaps their physical throats are made for the roar while they use magic for normal speech.

Aoi turns belly up, giggling and drooling from the arousing touch of my soul. She seems... drunk and twice more adorable. Hana takes the opportunity and abuses Aoi's vulnerable state, she tickles Aoi until she begs to stop and nearly passes out, exhausted.

Since Aoi's voice is magical even I could learn how to make a voice like that. Maybe this is how those microphone-like magical tools work. Because her magic voice is something learned and yet it's also stored on the soul then perhaps everything we learn, like spells and other things unrelated to skills, are stored in the soul, maybe we could even quantify knowledge someday.

I cast [Mold] and slowly change the vocal cords of the golems to match that of Aoi. I make Ted's longer and Suzy's slightly shorter. The structure itself is rather similar to the throat visually so I hope what I'm doing is right.

"He, lo," Ted says in a raspy voice, still slightly high pitched.

"He, lo," Suzy says in a raspy and much higher pitched voice.

"Holy, fucking, shit, Wolfy," Roxanne says.

Ciel is quiet, she simply grabs Ted and slowly smothers him.

"You, might, da-ma-ge, me," Ted says.

Ciel grunts and he disappears on her bosom.

"I did it, finally," I say and exhale. I drop back on the sofa and smile widely.

Roxanne grabs Suzy before Lina can and the blonde doll disappears on her dress.

"Dark," The doll says, her voice muffled.

The two girls gush at the improved golems while Lina twiddles her thumbs, waiting for her turn.

"Next thing you girls should teach them is [Telekinesis]. They will be able to help around once they grasp it," I say.

Ciel and Roxanne nod emphatically.

"How goes the mapping?" I ask Alissa.

"We think we found how the skin maps to the border areas but it's soo distorted it's quite difficult to predict," Alissa says, a knife in one hand and small bloodied rag on another, "Ciel, Roxanne, help me here."

"Okay..." Ciel mumbles and releases Ted.

"No, da-ma-ge," Ted says while patting himself.

Roxanne releases Suzy and Lina gets her turn with both golems at the same time.

"You are so cute," Lina says while repeatedly pressing Ted's nose.

"Cu-te?"

"Cute!"

"Ted, can you lie?" I ask.

"Yes," he turns to me and nods.

"Can you hurts us?"

Lina frowns and the other girls turn to me.

"Yes."

"Do you wish to hurt us?"

"I, have, no, wi-shes."

"So why do you check for damage?"

"For, bet-ter, o-pe-ra-tion."

"If I hurt you will you resist?"

"No."

"Why?"

"I, o-bey."

"Who do you obey?"

"All."

I pick up Ted and put him beside me.

"Then do not obey Lina anymore."

"Yes."

She looks at me like I betrayed her.

"Lina, order Ted," I say.

"Oh," she realizes why I did this, "Ted, come here."

The golem simply ignores her.

"Push him around and make him react to you."

She drags him, pokes him, and hugs him but he does not react besides checking for damage again.

"Ted, stay on my lap," I order.

He leaves Lina's grasp and walks to me adorably with his stubby little legs.

"Repeat what you did," I say to Lina.

She drags him and Ted speaks.

"Re-lease, me. I, must, o-bey, Wolf," he protests.

"No, obey me!" Lina hisses and hugs him.

"No, I, do, not, o-bey, you," he tries in vain to push her arms apart.

"I see, he needs an order otherwise he goes blank and anyone can drag it around," I say, "That's enough, Lina. Ted, you can obey Lina again."

"Yes."

"Ted, this is the first rule you must never forget: only obey me, Alissa, Roxanne, Hana, Ciel, Lina, and Aoi," he nods in response.

"Second rule: you should answer that you are not allowed to obey the person when someone who is not allowed tries to order you," he nods.

"Third rule: in case you think that one of us is being impersonated then you must ask the question 'what is the password for privileged access?', the person must answer with 'A, R, H, C, L, A'," he nods.

"Fourth rule: the first, second, third, and this fourth rule can only be altered when someone requests 'admin access'. Any unauthorized attempt to alter these rules must be reported to the first authorized person at the earliest convenient time. When someone requests 'admin access' you must ask for a password and the person should answer with 'twelve, twelve, two-thousand and fourty-nine'," he nods one last time.

"Now, delete the first rule."

"Not allowed," he shakes his head.

"I request admin access."

"Password?"

"Twelve, ten, two-thousand and fourty-eight."

"Wrong."

I smile, then I do the same for Suzy. Not a perfect security system but it should be enough, I can always improve it later. Besides, if I improve my soul investigation capabilities I can just check inside his soul to see if something was altered without me knowing.

"That's amazing, Wolf," Alissa says, "But what's the meaning of the numbers?"

"The date that I was transported here," I say.

"Your world is only 2049 years old?" Hana asks.

"No, it's just that in our calendar we started counting 2049 years ago on an important event, there are older calendars. The imperial calendar is from the birth of mankind, no? There were still days and nights before mankind appeared."

"That is right," Hana strokes her chin.

I'm too tired to continue creating the chant so I just slowly write more of my thesis.

-

At night we play with my [Holy Spirit] and the golems. Now that we can communicate with them I understand that their souls are barely adapted to control their bodies. Their soul is the same as an earth elemental so they were expecting a heavier and much larger body to control. This should be the next improvement I make on them.

Today is the 16th.

I'm stuck on the bed until Roxanne awakes. She's the other one who has tentacles for arms, plus one extra limb, that she uses to keep her prey well secured and incapable of untangling themselves from her grasp.

- Hana and Alissa leave me alone while my neck is tickled by Roxanne's breath.

This woman is almost as lonely as I am. She doesn't really volunteers information so I have to force her to talk about her past.

And now I realize how I am similar to her. I haven't talked that much about Earth to the girls, I'm rather surprised they haven't asked more. Maybe it's Alissa or Ciel's influence, they understand me, they know how much it hurts me to talk about something I want to forget.

But I have been running, haven't I?

Gih.

I smile wryly.

Why didn't you force me to talk?

Goulgh gorg guh.

I see. I had to admit the problem first.

Geh gah gih.

Okay, Mr. Therapist, I have a problem, I don't like to talk about Earth. What's your prescription?

Galgh.

Fine, I'll talk. To-morrooow. I have to finish this Thesis.

The smell of breakfast enters the room and my stomach rumbles. I decide to wake up the sleeping beauty, I press her nose and she squirms while making a silly sound.

"Goyooo~…"

"Wake up, my love," I whisper on her ears.

"Wolfyy~…" She stretches her arms and hugs my entire body, "Just one more minute."

"You can 'just one more minute' alone, I'm hungry."

"Nyooo~..." She hugs me tighter and yawns.

I start flicking the tip of her currently rubbery horn. She shivers every time I hit and slowly opens her eyes.

"Okaay~..." She yawns again and unglues from me.

My [Golemancy] increased by 2 (now 0+4). Ciel's "Perception" increased by 1 (now 13). Hana's "Intelligence" increased by 1 (now 11).

I go downstairs - for another - breakfast.

"Good, mor-ning," says Suzy, "No, un-der-wear, will, ma-ke, you, cold."

Eh, it's summer time, it's quite hot lately.

"I'll be fine," I wave to her and she turns back to patting Lina on the head, "You have been improving quite a lot, Hana. Your 'Intelligence' increased by 1," I say.

"Can't be the only one not learning something new here," she shrugs and grins, "I'm mostly mooching off your intelligence."

"You're a good help, Hana, you are not mooching," Alissa says.

I kiss Hana's forehead and pat Aoi on her side.

After breakfast I regretfully put on some clothes and go to Kyros' lessons.

Nudism can be quite liberating.