After I was done creating the prototype soldier, I began testing its intelligence more. First, I would ask it simple questions such as, ‘What is one plus one?’. However, I soon discovered that it lacked any talent for math. While robots may be able to perform thousands, or even millions of calculations in a single second, my elemental soldier could do no such thing.

What he could do, however, was what it was designed for. When I created a clay pot in my grove, and brought it into my hand, I ordered it to copy that object. To my surprise, it did not simply create a clay pot in its hands. Rather, its entire body began shifting, rounding out and emptying until it became a clay pot itself. I thought that this was a rather useful ability, given the circumstances.

If the soldiers could reshape their bodies at will, and were outside of the system’s control, they could be considered effectively immortal. The only way to take one down would be to either cancel the negate the magic consciousness inside of them, use a powerful druid to destroy them, or to destroy every scrap of their body at once. “Lex, do you think you’d be able to copy what I’m doing to create these creatures yourself?” I asked, looking down at the ring on my hand.

“Sorry, John…” The ring replied in a small voice. “My control isn’t that good… I can’t even see what you’re doing to make them able to think like that.”

“Ah, no worries.” It seemed like his ability to monitor mana wasn’t quite refined enough to handle the more complicated tasks like that. There was one way that I could get them to multiply, but it was beyond my control right now. From what I heard over my years with the Qu’Lopti, there is a planet of naturally occurring slimes, rather than monsters. Though, they are often called gels instead of slimes due to their differences.

Unlike slimes, gels have no core, and can only be damaged with energy attacks. However, the part I was interested in was their ability to split themselves apart after they take in sufficient nutrients. If I was able to get a gel sample, I might really be able to adapt that aspect to my army. Until then, however, I was stuck doing this the hard way.

After I confirmed the soldier’s intelligence, or lack thereof, I had Lex absorb it into the ring. Then, I began making the second one. This one had a metal skin, but its insides were made entirely of fire. When it was done, and its sentience was obtained, I waited. I wanted to see if it would be able to hold onto its non-solid body parts.

Sure enough, the consciousness merged with both the metal and flame, resulting in the same state of unintelligent awareness that the rock soldier had. At this point, I was thinking that the prototype soldier’s choice of words might have actually been a mistake, and that it did not even mean to use the word ‘born’. That, or it was able to recognize that it had just been born, but was not able to tell what it was, so that was the only answer it could give.

After the second soldier, I began pushing out more and more. Each one I would spend roughly ten minutes to craft the body, and ten minutes to test the mind. I didn’t want to let one slip into the army if their personality was uncontrollable. However, after the first few, I came up with an idea for how to communicate with them.

That idea was to use Lex. By having Lex act as a translator, he could project anything I said to the elementals by communicating through mana. Then, if someone other than myself were to wear the ring, he would also be able to translate the response. Of coure, I was still able to understand what was being said while I was the one holding it, so there was no risk of betrayal.

I continued like this, making three soldiers an hour, for the next two days. Although I had stopped to eat and sleep, there had been little else to worry about for the time being. As such, soon I was able to create a total of fifty elemental soldiers.

While it was less than what I planned to make for the final product, it was the most that Lex could support. With fifty soldiers constantly absorbing and generating mana of their matching elements, Lex’s grove was being taxed quite a lot. I even had to let him tap into the energy I passively absorbed in order to allow the grove’s mana to regenerate at the same rate that it was absorbed.

It was on the third day that I received a message from Celeste. “Maeve just called, wanting to speak with you.” Okay, so it was a message concerning a message I was getting from Maeve, close enough. At the time, I had been playing Monopoly with Tokemi, and losing rather badly. Part of me suspected that she was using her magic to rig the dice rolls, but the other part of me didn’t care, as long as she was having fun.

Seeing the look on my face, the silver haired fox-girl frowned sadly. “Business?” She asked, looking up to me with wide eyes.

I nodded my head, laughing lightly as I reached out and stroke her furry ear. Although reluctant, she allowed her expression to melt into a comfortable one at the touch. “I’ll be back soon to finish. It’s probably just a report I was expecting.” Tokemi nodded her head with a complacent smile, still enjoying the attention she was getting. At least until I stopped to get up, then she turned her head cutely to try to bring her ears closer to me.

I could only let out another laugh as I walked over to the desk in my room. This report was likely nothing too confidential, or she would have reported that fact when trying to send me the message in the first place. As such, I had no issues with taking the call in front of Tokemi. Once I sat down, a holographic Maeve sitting atop her throne appeared on my desk. To my relief, she was NOT wearing the skimpy bikini from the other day, and was back to a form-fitting dress.

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“Thank you for taking my call, John.” She said with a light nod in my direction, though really she was just nodding at a screen that happened to be placed opposite of her throne on a high wall. I had the chance to see that a while back, so I knew of its existence. “Is now a good time?”

“Is there something the matter?” I raised my eyebrow curiously. Asking if it was a good time, was there perhaps some emergency I was unaware of?

However, she simply shook her head. “Nothing like that. I simply imagined you might be busy tending to your ship and crew. I wanted to give you an update on the technologies being developed by the allied races for your ship.”

Once again, I was relieved to know that nothing major happened. “Alright, you can go ahead and tell me.”

“Very well.” She began. “I only have received reports on a few of the plans, so I can only tell you that much. From the elves, we are preparing a life support system. This is our most advanced system, serving as both support and defense. While active, it passively releases an immunizing agent throughout the ship. This agent will make anyone that stays on the ship for more than one solar day immune to the ‘defense’ protocol for a limited period.”

“The defense protocol activates when the ship is placed under alert, and releases a nerve gas throughout the entire ship. For most races, this nerve gas will simply render them unconscious, only serving as a real threat to those with less resistance to such things. Of course, regular crew members will at that point be immune to the gas, and able to clean up any unprepared invaders. Given our technology, this was the best we could offer you.” As she finishes, she shakes her head sadly, as if she wished she could do more.

“Next are the kleptids. Their technology focuses on medicine even more heavily than our own, so they are working on a redesign for your medbay. While I am not privy to the more sensitive details, I can tell you a few things. The cloning technology of the kleptids far exceeds that of any other known race. With their help, you will likely never have to worry about running out of clone bodies. If I were to bet, they will likely also include better surgical equipment for you as well.”

“Now, the drakes. Their technology is largely incompatible with our own, because they mostly use organic technology. However, they are designing a neural cluster for you to use on the ship, that should vastly increase the performance speed of the main computers. This was the easiest technology that they could convert to a machine interface, so it was all that they could offer up.”

Taking a deep breath, Maeve continued. “Lastly, I have information about the dwarves. Using the data provided by you and your crew regarding the defense systems of the Empire, and the technology developed by the Qu’Lopti over recent years, they seem to believe they have designed a weapon capable of breaching their shield ships’ defenses.” After saying that, Maeve had a weary smile on her face for a moment. “That’s all the information I have, I’m afraid. The rest of the races are keeping rather quiet about their plans. Likely, they are afraid that any information might wind up in the wrong hands, which is why even the ones I have knowledge on are so little.”

I nodded my head in understanding. “It makes sense. I’ll be waiting for the rest of the reports.” I already knew what the Deus Ex were working on, as I myself asked them for it. Now it was just a matter of sitting still long enough for the ship to get fully upgraded, and hoping that the New Human Empire isn’t ready to make their move yet. With how split their attentions were, and how few their original numbers, we should be safe for a while yet. However, I could never be sure with them.

Maeve gave a slight nod, and we said our farewells. After the holographic screen disappeared, I heard Tokemi’s voice calling from behind me. “So, can we get back to the game?” She asked in a pleading voice. Mostly because she was close to winning, but still.

I laughed, nodding my head again as I turned to her. “Alright, alright.” I moved back to the bed, where we had laid out the game board. “How’s it going with you and Tessa?” I asked as I picked up the dice.

She perked her head up slightly, though I could see her ears drooping. “What brought that up, dad?”

Well, that was slightly worrying… “Nothing really. There’s just not many people around here your age, so I wanted to make sure that the two of you were getting along well.”

While I moved my piece, Tokemi sighed sadly. “It’s… okay. I mean, she’s cool and all, don’t get me wrong. And, her mom is fun to hang out with too. But…” As she spoke, her eyes fell more and more, until she was looking down at the bed.

“You wish you could grow up like she could?” I asked curiously. Tokemi didn’t say anything, but slightly nodded her head. Even though she was still so young, she was already starting to feel the pain of her friends growing up without her. Especially for a young child, I couldn’t imagine how much that must hurt. “Well… maybe you can?” I saw her ears twitch as I said that, while I handed her the dice.

“Dad? What do you mean?” Although she took the dice, she didn’t roll them, looking at me with unmasked curiosity. In her eyes, I could see a faint hope. Hope that maybe she could stay with her friends longer, without a growing age difference separating them.

So, I told her the thought I had. “I’ve been thinking about your situation… I might be able to help you grow older in short bursts with my shapeshifting magic. It wouldn’t be as natural, or as fluid as normal aging, but it would still let you grow up with your friends.” As I spoke, I watched the light in her eyes growing brighter, as if she had found the answer to her questions.

“Would… would it hurt?” Now, that part I didn’t know for sure. I had only rarely done shapeshifting changes to other people, and I always made sure that they were unconscious for it.

“It shouldn’t, but I’m not sure. If we put you to sleep for a few minutes, we should be able to fix it and wake you up in a slightly older body each time.” I really didn’t want to do anything that would hurt Tokemi, as I did consider her more like a daughter of mine. Although I never really felt that attached to Yo despite her insisting on calling me her father, Tokemi was another story altogether.

Tokemi thought about it for a few moments, and then smiled brightly. “Please help me grow up, dad!” How was I supposed to say no to that?