"There! Finished!" Oz marveled at the young woman in front of him as she pulled herself up from her hunched over position on the ground. For a second, the image made him chuckle as it made him imagined what he must also looked like back in the day. Was he like this once? A figure hunched over the floor, fingers tracing lines of colored mana like a child playing on the floor...
Honestly, he felt jealous that he could not physically join her in this task as it seemed like fun, judging from the broad grin on the stretching over the girl's perfect teeth.
After a few chants, the mana from the magical blueprints ran down through the interlocking circles like a stream, feeding into Oz. For the sentient mana core, it was like he was reading lines of code like a computer program given by the blueprints streaming into him. However, the code only made Oz felt disappointment and he would have grimaced if he possessed a face.
This is a Iron-Scaled Komodo? When he first heard of it, he had assumed it was a new species of beast. After all, he has been absent from this world for almost four centuries. Wasn't it possible for the beast engineers, during that period of time, to had innovated and created new lines of beasts?
His excitement was dashed from the information though and he could recall a certain template from the recess of his mind. Is this not just a Furnace Komodo?
The basic structure inscribed in the Spell of Form was roughly the same as the template in his mind, but in comparison, it is less robust in the number of 'markers' in the helix. In addition to that, the Spell of Function was incomplete in its inscription. The connecting Iron rune was incomplete and would end up diluting the beast's affinity to the element... Plus, in comparison to the Furnace Komodo's template, it was severely lacking in the other runes.
Oz stopped processing the instructions from the code, contemplating dourly. Oz knew that Jessie was lead on this and he was simply observing the refinement of the beast. However, this was simply an affront to his pride as a beast engineer. Before Oz was conscious of the action, he was already revising the code.
He added on to the 'markers' on the helix, improving the bone density and the elasticity of the sinew of the Komodo as well as boosting its overall intelligence. In the Spell of Function, he completed the Iron rune and added the additional runes to bring up the specifications to match the template in his head.
When the code started to parse again through his mana channels, he started to become aware of his intervention. 'Oh, no,' he thought with a tinge of horror.
Though by then, it was too late. The Komodo was beginning to form in front of him, the glyph swirling in a rapid pace. It lifted itself off from the circle to shrink and embed itself into the newly created Furnace Komodo's chest.
Oz stared as the Komodo scratched itself on its neck with its hind legs before brush its lustrous hide against Jessie's leg.
"What happened to you?!" She cried.
The mana core cleared his throat, feeling quite humiliated. <<... It seems that I might have a hand to play in this, Jessie.>>
The glow in his core dimmed as his personality retreated into his shell.
The girl absentmindedly bent down to scratch the beast on its head while still staring at Oz in shock.
"You did this? What did you do?" The astonishment made her voice seem weak and high-pitched as if she was still processing the shock.
Oz let out a sigh before saying, <
Unlike the Iron-Scaled Komodo, the Furnace Komodo was built to be stronger on the whole and smarter – the latter quality making it as intelligent as a five-year-old child. Its attributes were dual-aligned with Fire and Iron, making it a bigger threat as the two elements had a synergy to make the Komodo spit out magma when in times of conflict. Unfortunately due to its initial tier upon creation, it could only do so three times before its internal mana runs dry.
However, even without the magma spit attack, its claws and bite made it enough of a threat to be wary of regardless.
<
At this time, Jessie's eyes were only focused on the reptile in front of her. She was huddled down as one hand continued stroking the jaw of the Komodo dragon while the other was running down the sides of the beast to catch the feel of the scaly hide. The beast itself looked satisfied as its eyes were closed and one of its hind legs started thumping on the ground in rapid succession.
"One. Don't call me Lady Dee. Just call me Jess," she said, her eyes glaring sharp at Oz. "You have nothing to apologize for, for second."
Her face lit up with glee and an ecstatic grin plastered itself onto her face. "And dude! This is awesome! You just brought back a template from the Raedian days! Holy shit!"
She bit back on her lips. "Sorry for cursing." Then she practically burbled from the glee. "Dude, if you can bring back more templates! Holy sh-- Crap! You could bring beast-engineering to a whole 'nother level!"
Oz bit back a comment about being called 'dude' and let the budding curiosity come out first.
The young girl was silent, but the grin on her face became stilted. Her hands still spoiling the beast, she said, "We had to make do with what we could when the settlers were running from Raede. Some designs were lost or fragmented. This brought down the field of beast-engineering down a peg. Don't get me wrong. We still doing great as more and more improvements are made to beasts, but they only pertain to the beasts higher than Transcendent level since that's what the investing cultivators want. Anything below that is still kind of a mess.
"I hear that some of the old families have complete designs still in their private libraries, but those are just rumors on my end. Only selected cultivators of the new generation could be given access to them, I guess." As she said this, her hand movements dulled and her face grimaced.
It was only there for a second before she shrugged it off and went back to petting the Furnace Komodo.