Chaotic Craftsman Worships The Cube

Ben didn’t know how far they were going with each jump, only seeing the change in scenery each time a portal was opened while the full group filtered through. What he did notice was that Pato wasn’t taking as many breaks as he’d expect from Steph, initially impressing him with his mana pool until he noticed the band on his arm.

One of the mana bracelets he’d made had clearly been supplied, either because the man held an awakened magic or because he was acting as the form of transportation, and it wasn’t until he spied the same bracelet on Fone’s wrist that he got his answer.

It seemed that after going to the various healers of the world, they’d been distributed to some of its awakened skill holders, all while the planet waited for Ben to create more. A task that would become significantly quicker the moment he finished putting so much of his mana to soul production and would hopefully be speeding up significantly in only a few days once he was finally free of not only that job but every other one as well.

Just gotta finish this first.

He couldn’t help but eye Vividus’s experiments as he thought it, already designing the report before any fighting had begun as he gauged their mental states, trying to sort through what he was seeing in their minds to determine what was coming from the trauma of their loss and what was coming from their physical change.

While a handful of them seemed mostly fine, his expectations when it came to the mental health of anyone who’d lost everything and had their bodies radically altered had proven justifiably low, the changes needing more time than they’d gotten to adapt to that already left him questioning the overall validity of the attempt. Saying you’d be willing to do anything for power and revenge was one thing but seeing a face that wasn’t your own in your reflection was an entirely different psychological blow that he felt uncomfortably sure might rear its ugly head, either sometime during their observation or during something far more important in the future when they’d be sent out to fight.

Still, with the former prisoners on the planet to worry about, he wasn’t going to invest himself in a completely different group that needed some mental help, all he could do was point it out to the best of his ability when his reports were submitted as they finally ended up near their first destination, Fone holding up a hand for silence.

“This should be the approximate location. Are any of you picking anything up?” He asked, addressing the chimeras specifically to get a feel for their own tracking ability, with about a quarter of them nodding.

Most interesting to Ben was that their success didn’t seem to hold any correlation with whether they held a partial or an integrated body skill, nor the level in the case of the latter, meaning it was either coming down to differences in the way Vividus had modified them or else was connected to their base biology, perhaps even being enhanced in some way by their modifications.

It was another thing to take note of and Ben made sure to pay attention to which ones said they could pick up signs of the demons to compare against their skills once he recorded the results as the group moved, off to fight the first of the hordes.

All of them tried to keep as quiet as they could to not draw any unwanted attention, no matter how unlikely that was to succeed. There were too many of them to be truly silent as they moved through the woods, with even footsteps making a noticeable noise when there were so many of them, but another issue came back to the ones they were supposed to be observing.

It was clear that even if they were comfortable, they weren’t all entirely used to their new bodies and peeking through the memories of the closest ones within his range, it seemed the answer as to why was clear. They had only been altered a few short weeks ago, near when the second wave had ended. That simply wasn’t enough time to get used to such a major change, another thing that was going to make it into his report with a special emphasis going to be placed on the need for some sort of physical therapy to adjust to the physical alterations on top of the mental strain.

Vividus’s lack of care for mortal life beyond what she could get out of them was clear to see through their creation, focused on power and performance but nothing else and with the sound of pounding feet rushing towards him, he was finally going to get the chance to watch them in that regard at least.

With the results being an undeniable success. He knew they were chasing down one of the larger groups of demons that needed to be hunted but as they rushed at them, the chimeras reacted just as swiftly with all of their violence and hate behind the act, with their side outnumbered at least four to one but tearing through their attackers like they were made of paper, ripping through flesh and snapping bones as they moved in a hateful swarm to kill all they could.

It wasn’t instantaneous but it was enough to tell that no matter what the end results of their recommendations were going to be, more chimeras were going to be made. Be it hundreds or thousands, there’d be plenty of nations that would want to encourage their people to submit to those changes if it meant getting that much power in a fighting force and there’d be plenty of people who’d want it no matter what it meant going through. If they won then the great life spirit really would be leaving her genetic legacy on the planet.

He and the rest of them didn’t need to do anything from there as the rest of the demons were hunted down. There was no room for them to get in the way. All they could do was watch as they slowly regrouped once the battle was done, all of them covered in blood while so little of it was their own as Thera turned to Fone.

“Can I start healing them?”

“I’d say only the most severely injured but I’m not sure if any qualify. All of you, if you have a wound you think will impede you for the next group we’re attacking then come here for treatment but otherwise, if it’s only cuts and bruises, hold out for now!”

“You don’t need to worry, I have more than enough mana, even if it means healing smaller wounds.”

“It’s not that. These are a group that are being tested to fight against the next wave, we need to see how well they hold up. Add in the time it will take to treat them all then even if it’s going to be small, it will delay us.”

“Will we really be delayed after that?” Ben asked. “I didn’t get the impression we expected it to be so quick.”

The question got a thin smile from their leader, impacted by what he’d just seen as well. “No, I suppose with how things went we’re currently ahead but the first point still stands. We don’t want anyone dying, nor do we want them too injured to fight, but we need to see how well they’ll all stand up to everything they’ll be expected to go against. Even if it feels cruel to hold off, it's better to understand what they can stand up to now rather than allow things to be too easy and risk them crumbling when the third wave comes.”

It seemed none among them were injured enough that they felt they needed any healing either so the two let the matter drop, understanding the point enough that they weren’t going to try and fight it, especially not when all parties were still in shockingly good shape.

He could see it made Thera uncomfortable too. By all accounts, her aunt had taken advantage of people so she could experiment on them but as far as preliminary results went, it had worked and there’d be plenty who’d say it had been worth it, especially if it saved the planet in the end.

While having his own complicated feelings on it all as well, with his chance acquisition of his demon body skill acting as the inspiration for the line of experimentation that had ended with the people he saw before him, he at least was less against it in theory. A group of fifty at every gate wouldn’t be anywhere near enough to stop the invasion alone but it would be able to take a comfortable bite of anything that came their way, even if another thought was whispering in his head.

The third wave is going to bring their awakened skill holders.

It was a point he was trying to ignore for the time being. After all, it wasn’t going to be nothing but awakened skill holders and no matter the level of the skill itself, lower tiers could still kill them through any number of ways. Even if things would be worse than what they were currently seeing, any bit of extra help they could get would be something worth taking.