After separating from Burn and strolling toward the treasury, Morgan felt everything was just peachy. She’d practically taken up residence here after regaining her consciousness, so it had nearly become her comfort zone. A place she could put her guard down.

Even knowing Burn’s father was poisoned with corrupted mana, after all, she was still the Original Saintess. Cleaning up corrupted mana was her gig for five hundred years, and honestly, it would take more than a simple curse to toss her off her game.

Then she strolled into the treasure chamber, and bam—what a nasty surprise. This wasn’t the garden-variety poison they used on Shorof.

The moment she collapsed, because apparently the universe had a sick sense of humor, she managed to ping Nemo with jumbled orders via her consciousness. Lucky for her, her mind wasn’t entirely switched off yet. The curse could take her body, but her soul? Nope, that was still on the line.

Before long, help arrived. She was completely incapacitated, not able to lift a finger, and yet she was getting the front-row seat to her own disaster. Her body was a useless husk. But her soul was still very much able to witness everything.

But unfortunately, communicating with Caliburn was a bridge too far. No texts, no calls, not even a smoke signal. Instead, she felt herself pulled deeper into the abyss.

Until she saw that man.

“The demon lord certainly seized that golden opportunity to trap me in that mind prison curse. If presumably I’ve been the bane of his existence for so long, it makes perfect sense for him to take that slim chance to render me utterly incapacitated,” Morgan said, having finally retrieved her memories courtesy of Nemo, rather than Burn.

“But in that murky abyss, I discovered that he paid quite the hefty sum to pull it off,” she added, directing her gaze at Burn.

The man furrowed his brows, attempting to grasp the gravity of her words. “Price. Right, like how you offered your soul to settle our curse?”

Morgan nodded gravely. “To trap me, the Original Saint, in that curse, he used the equivalent of an entire continent's worth of corrupted mana. And he could only sever my mind, leaving my soul and body intact. That seems to be the extent of power he could muster.”

That was why Morgan's soul remained intact, with her body untouched. Burn's memory flashed back to his earlier confirmation that her physical form was indeed perfectly unharmed.

“If I had learned Vision Art, would I have been able to communicate with you back then?” Burn asked.

Morgan’s lips curled into a gentle smile. “Perhaps. But it should have been me actively trying to reach out, not just relying on Nemo, who shouldn't have been able to speak.”

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“Speak! Papa! Yell! Nemo! Yell!” Nemo chirped.

“Good girl,” Morgan sighed, patting the construct with a mix of affection and exasperation.

Most constructs, created by past Mages and Vision users, lacked the charm of genuine sentience. Conveniently programmed to serve their creators, they were unique in functionality, sure, but hardly brimming with personality.

Fashioned from magic, their so-called consciousness was merely a concoction of mana and materials. They typically took the form of catalysts—shiny objects or treasures designed to help regulate mana and spells, as well as to calculate and program magic effects.

Now, take Mnemosyne’s Aeons. Built with an astonishing amount of soul energy—because, of course, she belonged to Morgan—her complexity was more than just “very impressive.” She stood, well, floated, as one of the finest constructs ever conjured; an achingly beautiful combination of design and magic meant to impress.

Yet, a construct, mind you, shouldn’t be gracing the world with spoken words. The logic behind that is simple: no organic mouth, no vocal cords, and most importantly, no reason to speak. Sure, they could whisper into their creator’s consciousness, guiding them through the meandering paths of magic, but that was a reserved function only for their masters.

Yet here they were—on this rather enchanting moon—hearing her voice as it vibrated through the non-existent air, finding its way to Morgan, Burn, and Isaiah’s ears.

Oh yes, she could, of course, learn how to do it. Repeated observation of such ability could help her understand what she needed to do.

The problem was that artificial intelligence usually learned new skills differently from humans. They were typically fed specialized information until they could replicate it well enough, but not through understanding. Not because they wanted to, either.

Speaking, for one, was something Nemo shouldn’t be able to replicate because she never needed to or was told to. Why? Well, because she only ever needed to communicate with her creator, Morgan, and no one else.

The kind of communication a programmed construct used with its creator’s mind was not like human speech patterns—it was simplified and result-based.

Another example would be when two constructs communicated with each other. They didn’t even speak like humans. They spoke through codes and patterns they made up themselves using the program they were made from, in a much simpler way than humans.

Like if code was made by a toddler, they communicated through their own little symbols and patterns, vastly simpler than the convoluted mess humans call language.

Thus, not only had Nemo done something she should never have been able to do, but she also fought through the contradiction of Morgan’s command to try and find a way to communicate with Burn.

She talked.

She offered Burn a contract.

She created a solution Morgan had failed to provide, a solution unheard of before.

She brought her memory to the past for Morgan to read.

And she took the initiative herself.

“Mama? Proud?” Nemo asked.

Of course, her language wasn’t as complex as humans’, but this...

A miracle.

“I’m proud of you, Nemo, yes,” Morgan said, her smile warm and genuine.

Burn narrowed his eyes, glancing suspiciously between Morgan and Nemo. The man hummed thoughtfully, his expression shifting.

“What are you thinking, Caliburn?” Morgan sensed some disturbance the moment the man’s expression changed.

“It was just yesterday you asked me for a child, but apparently, you already have one more,” Burn said. It was astounding how quickly one could graduate from singlehood to a father of two. And she still wanted him plowing her with his seed on top of that.

And assuming she wanted more than one of his blood and flesh—

Burn was about to say something when he stopped himself. Different from Yvain, a 12-year-old teenage boy who was also a king and could handle one dirty joke or two, Nemo sounded and acted like a child.

The man closed his mouth and didn’t continue with his usual shameless sarcasm.