Teeth and mouths snapped at me as the monster tried to twist and reform itself out from under my thick and hard rod. The jokes with these things would never get old. The Rod of Taming was chugging away as the mental timer counted down from 100 minutes.
It was late in the evening and we had pushed hard to get to this monster today, but I didn’t want to waste time. I wanted to get in as much practice as possible. “This is both scarier and more underwhelming than I thought,” Bao Wang said, and I agreed with him as he sat on the ground watching the scene.
“It is the difference in stats. It just can’t move at all or damage my hard sturdy rod. That is pinning it to the ground,” I replied.
“The jokes got old after the first one, but it is amazing to see how much of a difference stats can make,” Bao Wang said. He was getting in the right mindset. At least that was my hope. The fact we weren’t going back to grinding was probably a big help.
“Well not like there is anything else to do. Almost done now,” I said. I was being careful not to injure the monster, since I had no way to heal it. Just like the Divine Empress had pinned by head with her boot, I pinned the monster with my rod.
“Hopefully this works since your entire plan hinges on dressing this monster up as the Divine Empress. We are both going to die horribly,” Bao Wang muttered the last part.
“Yee of little faith. You just need to believe. And done!” I said as the monster went still. I felt the connection to the Rod of Taming in my hand.
I closed my eyes and I knew where the monster was and could sense what it could do. I focused on the Divine Empress. Transform, change. I opened my eyes.
Okay, that was progress. But it wasn’t good. It was like Picasso had sculpted a rock and tried to make it look like the Divine Empress.
“Maybe if it is very far away people will be fooled. Very, very, very far away.” I ignored Bao Wang’s teasing.
I focused on the head. The rest of the body could be covered. The rock mimic didn’t know what a person looked like. It could just do the boulders instinctively. But it could change shape and color. I just needed a Divine Empress boulder shaped head with the right coloration.
Very slowly the monster’s portion that was its head began to take shape. It didn’t understand colors. I had to use mental sliders for each portion of the face. It was splotchy at first. It wouldn’t be able to speak either.
It took two hours, but I finally ended up with a passable head. “What do you think?” I asked Bao Wang. While he had only seen her once, it was clearly an experience that had stuck with him.
“The lips are a bit off. The eyes are dead. The hair needs a lot of work.” Well, the rock mimic didn’t like hair and the texture was tricky. “It would only fool someone who has never seen her and is an idiot. Can it speak?”
“No.”
“Then that will be a huge complication. Can it move its head?” I had the monster incline the head slightly and turn it.
“Completely unnatural. It is bulging in weird places, not like muscles at all.”
“But the idea has merit?”
“You are going to have to battle your way through everyone. But the Dragon Empire has had bigger idiots before. If this works, I will never doubt you again. But for that to happen, you will need to practice a lot and get it as perfect as possible. Still there is a chance.”
“See, you just need to believe,” I told Bao Wang with a grin and he rolled his eyes. The first thing to right in a long time. It was getting dark, and Bao Wang needed to rest. We had left the cart behind, and he had a pack of supplies. I had a pack as well with the enchanted armor.
I began moving the rock mimic around trying to perfect my control. It had come up before that higher Spirit allowed one to shift the items in the store further along their baseline. I wondered if it was true for a pet monster like this?
“Bao Wang, hold the rod. I am curious if you have a harder time controlling or making adjustments,” I told him as he was settling down to sleep.
“Fine, then keep quiet. I am exhausted. The thing stomps like an elephant. I doubt the Divine Empress does that.” I handed him my hard rod and held back from making a joke. He fiddled around with the monster but he was clearly inferior to me.
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He handed my rod back to me and went to sleep, confirming that the Spirit stat was making a difference and coming in clutch. With my Endurance stat at 200 stat points. I could go a night without sleep and be completely fine.
I stayed up and had the monster sit in front of me. Well, it formed a blob. I would work on the movement later. I just needed to get the head right. Everything else could be hidden in clothing and the hands could be hidden in the sleeves. I just needed to get the general shape right for the body.
Very slowly the head began to become more and more detailed as I focused in on smaller and smaller sections. I decided to go with her disapproving look right before she yeeted me into the stratosphere and put a hole in my chest.
That was the visage that had stuck with me. The hair rods were a bit tricky, but I kept it simple. Everything was black and white with her except the face and hands. But the hands didn’t matter. The angular jawline, the sunken in cheeks. The eyes filled with hate and death.
The eyes were the hardest part. They didn’t have that liquid sheen like real eyes did and it was impossible to make the surface of the mimic shiny or watery. The ears took time. I had to glance at the sleeping figure of Bao Wang a couple of times to remember how ears looked.
I kept going over every detail again and again. Making sure everything looked as perfect as possible with me close and personnel. I couldn’t mentally save the state of the rock mimic, but I could tell it to keep that portion of itself unchanged. I then had it copy the head and began working one that was injured.
That would offset any questions about the Divine Empress not speaking and why she wanted points brought out. I would position myself at the pillar with the mimic and take them for myself instead. It might raise a few questions, but who would dare question the Divine Empress when she was injured.
Who would dare think, I was stealing the points instead. I might go for sheer audacity. Have Bao Wang dress up in the elite Black Talon armor. I would dress up as a mercenary who found and helped the Divine Empress. She trusted me after saving her and bringing her back to the evil empire.
There she planned to reward me for my service after healing up. People would either think I was going to die horribly or got incredibly lucky. Either way I would be under her protection, and they wouldn’t bother me. It would explain my foreign nature and allow me to stay close without anyone daring to interfere.
I was no artist, but I thought I did a decent job on creating an injury. A long gash and burn mark up from the chest, on her throat, and then stopping right on her mouth. It would also explain why she wasn’t in any enchanted clothing since the last set was ruined.
It was all coming together perfectly. The light source finally poking its rays above the horizon. “Bao Wang, wake up.”
He slowly got up and rubbed his eyes. He then paused as he stared at the two headed monster. “What do you think?” I asked.
“I am going to have nightmares. What is with the second head and the injury?” he asked. I explained my new plan to him.
“Let me use the bathroom first.” He walked a short distance away to relieve himself. After his business was done, he came back and looked closely at the monster and both heads up close.
“Much better. The eyes are off, but it can pass if no one stares for a long time or they don’t her very well. I can’t say more than that. The injury, now that is interesting.”
“It can work you think? No one would want to question her while she is injured?”
“Yes. But it will take a lot of work to get it just right. We will need to practice. So, it does things when I say certain phrases.” I winced at that since my Chinese was terrible. As good as I had done with the rock mimic, I was terrible at learning the language. Even with all my practice, my brain just did not think in Chinese.
“Will need to make them very clearly enunciated and five at most,” I replied.
“That is workable. It needs some touch ups. But the wound looks good and will push away any questions or difficulties. I will need to think about the story I will craft very carefully. To get my answers just right.”
“Well, that is good. Now we just need to name it.”
“A name? Just call it the Divine Rock and be done with it,” Bao Wang said. I gave him a scandalized look. I then went over and hugged my pet rock.
“Don’t listen to him. Team members get names. And you are going to do great things. Alright, time to go back the way we came,” I said.
“The swamp? This place really needs roads,” Bao Wang complained, returning to his usual annoying self.
“Yes, I don’t want to go through the war front. Can’t let people see my pet rock.”
“We will need to get the outfit just right. Isn’t the rest of the monster a bit large?” Bao Wang asked.
“I thought of that. It can slide over the ground, watch,” I said. It moved slowly, but it slid over the ground. “Can just have a solid lower part where the legs should be. It will be a bit tight, but no one should tell the Divine Empress to hurry up.”
“The longer things go for, the more time people have to ask questions. But I suppose from the gate of the outer ring of the Forbidden City to the plaza isn’t that far. You should practice switching between the two heads. To make it appear as if the Divine Empress has healed herself from the pillars.”
“Good thinking. That way we can go right to the airships and escape. Or maybe go into her palace and mess things up first.”
“We should escape immediately. The treasury is the only thing of real value. It isn’t like there would be a horde of weapons or something valuable. Unless you plan to steal her underwear?” Bao Wang asked me and that got me to chuckle.
Stealing the Divine Empress’s underwear. Oh boy. It might just be worth it to imagine the expression on her face. Would stealing her treasury or her underwear piss her off more and would the rage combine causing her to explode. It might just be worth it, so she would go even more nuclear on her return.