I spent most of the next day deeper in the caves near the blocked tunnel to the second floor transmuting rubbled and excess granite into layers of short walls leading toward the steppe. The walls were only about six feet high so the rock terrors could easily strike from over them and they were broad enough that Sili could stand and climb on them. The spaces between them could comfortably fit and hide water terrors to strike opponents down from the walls.
I only made a few hundred feet of those walls but the materials alone were enough to clean a path through the cavern from the next floor tunnel all the way to the steppe. The rest of the rubble on our side was spent making bridges to cross the river further back beyond the walls I erected only to them completely wall off the other side ahead of our obstacle course.
Bugs caught crossing the low bridges would be easy marks for human archers and magic but the swift current would make water attacks from the serpents too troublesome.
After a couple of hours spent transmuting defenses I returned up front to the steppe where my wisps had just returned. From there it was time to clean and organize the herbs that we brought back into my personal stock of medications. Some of the herbs were valuable enough to sell and many of them were low enough in grade that they were not too useful to me.
However, I turned everything I could into dried powders or mashes to be cooked and distilled and enchanted into decent quality goods. This surplus of medium-grade potion stock could be given to the bridge village for emergency stocks and training purposes. Some of the better quality excess was also put aside for Gryn and his team.
After only a few hours spent processing herbs into curatives and restoratives, I spent the rest of the evening using my wisps to educate Sili on intermediate psychic abilities.
With a wisp inhabiting her body, I could have the wisp produce a mental connection from her to one of the serpents and let her explore the process. With her ample magical energies from evolution, it would not be impossible for her to eventually do it on her own. Despite the fact that she could use the connection to somewhat control a serpent she still did not learn how to make a connection the first evening.
Because of how naturally smart she had become, I sent the wisps out herb hunting for a few hours the next morning and worked on Sili's 'communication skills'. This mostly involved having her use body language such as gestures with her tail to direct groups of serpents and her hands for more personal directions.
For the sake of an expedient process, though, I had to organize the serpents into groups of strongest to weakest in clusters emulating the insects. In this fashion, clusters can be deployed for attack, support, and defense in response to insect deployment and tactics. We might not have had the same numbers to work with, but the tactic to conserve our numbers was best for us anyway.
With villagers and the like supporting from the wall on the opposite side, hundred combined troops could be held off with minimal losses.
At first, the serpents were surprisingly open to suggestions and would follow the waves of Sili's tail. However, they would only travel short distances and the hand gestures for singling out smaller groups of units were confusing. I could really only hope the desire for communication would help her pick up psychic abilities sooner.
After a few hours Sili was so frustrated she would walk up to clusters and single out serpents with her fingers before 'gently' guiding them out of the cluster with her tail.
I was honestly surprised by how intelligent and expressive she had become. Not only was she smart enough to understand the intent behind everything that was going on but she was also smart enough to be angered by lesser intelligence. It was almost laughable.
When Shade and Grimm finally returned with a haul of herbs that was no smaller than the last, I sent the serpents out hunting and fishing with a strong intent to bring their land catches back home. Fishing serpents could really only carry a few fish at a time in their mouths. Rock terrors could carry a few constricted animals up and down the mountain.
While I set about processing materials both by hand and by magic, I had the wisps rest in Sili's body while she practiced her patience fishing under the altar. My intentions were that the wisps would help her learn to regulate her personal mana while the presence of religious power would help instill inspiration. Or some load of crap like that.
All of my attention for the time being was spent on helping compounds form between different plants and chemicals. After I was done building different stockpiles I could afford to put more effort into Sili's magic training. For now, she was smart enough that she needed to learn some things for herself.
A sudden memory of a certain stone set in the back of Sili's neck an hour later while powdering crystallized mana encouraged me to speed up my work.
Just another hour after that I was checking the contents of Sili's digestive track to see how many fish they had actually caught before calling them back up to the surface. Now I decided to use the wisps to teach Sili simply how to reach out with their mind. This was the equivalent of my sending out a probe but without the sensory relay.
Sili barely even noticed it at first until her I drew it out toward a nearby serpent and her currently mana charged eyes caught sight of it. She the recognized the feeling of the psionic energy being used and concentrated on the serpent in question. Almost as if she was anticipating it.
However, I stopped the link of energy from reaching the serpent's fainter life aura and tried to see if Sili could complete the connection.
Even though all of the work was pretty much done for her already it would justify every effort if she actually proved capable of that last bit of effort. Any manipulation of mental energy and she would eventually be able to use magic telepathy. In a group setting such as with the cave terrors, she could learn to control large numbers of lesser creatures at once.
Having her on the front line with me at such a time would mean using the enemy for a meat shield.
I was ready to give up and move on to another exercise but as soon as Sili felt my will taking control over the psychic energy she released a low and deep guttural hiss like a giant crocodile that stopped me in my tacks. She knew what I was about to do and probably knew what I had been doing. She knew what she was trying to do, too, and was far from ready to give up.
I had no choice but to back off just for my own sake. This creature would eventually see its birth through my eyes and I needed to be seen as necessary at the very least. For now, I could only try to busy myself with other things.
After two more hours my amphibian dragon's mana was depleted in their efforts to establish a connection with the closest serpent. Sili was tired and grumpily defeated, simply lying on the steppe in the fading evening light and sighing deeply every few seconds. I, on the other had, was not displeased with the results.
With her level of power it was not impossible to maintain such a small probe for many hours still. The reason he mana wore out was because she was actively spending it trying to stretch out the probe. This alone showed that she had established the use of mana.
Tomorrow she might just be able to stretch those last few inches. Or the day after. It was just a matter of time at this point.
Taking a back seat in her head, I did my best to explain everything that she had done and how to make use of it while also demonstrating different aspects of mana. It felt like I was explaining to my infantile self how to make use of magic. However, in some regards, Sili actually comprehended a lot of the crude information I was relaying.
This actually worried me about her current and future levels of intelligence. She had maybe ten times the problem solving capability of a crow but an undeveloped ego or personality. After her next evolution her Intelligence stat, which was currently around sixty, would probably be higher than mine.
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