They rested for a little while and then started training. Although they didn't level up, they were still getting stronger. Leonel was training them in multiple weapons so that they could choose the most suitable one for themselves. While they were training, Leonel made some calls so that he could give the promised Angels and Demons to the boys. It would take a few days for the subjects to be delivered to their lab.
A few days later, a truck full of sedated Angels and Demons arrived at their facility. Leonel personally received the delivery. He and Alexi moved all of them to a dungeon below the lab.
Leonel headed back to the house. He and Zeke needed to brainstorm some ideas. Experiments are supposed to verify ideas and theories and without something to start with, it would all be pointless.
They sat in the living room, just shooting any ideas that came to mind. As they had named the technique, Supreme Conduit Codex, they decided to call the circulatory systems Conduits.
Leonel said, "The Body Vessel Conduits would still be easier to create. The Soul Vessel Conduits on the other hand, now that's where things would get complicated. We not only need to create the conduits inside the soul, a part of them also needs to manifest in the material world, so that they can connect to the mana centre."
"I did not think of that."
"And are we really sure that the Mana Vessel doesn't need its own set of Conduits? Will the leftover mana from the other two Vessels really be enough?"
"We need more ideas, not more problems. Let us start with one problem at a time. We'll focus on the Body Vessel Conduits first. Maybe we can get inspiration for the others from it."
"Alright. Let us focus on the Body Vessel Conduits. They need to be created from a fusion of Solar Light and Life attributed mana, that is something that we already know. But how do we create them? There is also the matter of where to create them. Your bodies don't have the space for a new circulatory system."
"I don't know. What about an external set of conduits instead of internal ones?"
"What are you talking about?"
"External conduits. The Faes have something similar in the form of their Ancestral Glyphs. Bloodline strength and purity matter to those colourful bastards and-"
"Wait a damn minute. What the hell are Ancestral Glyphs?"
"You don't know about Ancestral Glyphs? Wait, this is 1223 AA (After Awakening). Of course, you don't know about Ancestral Glyphs. My bad. In the other timeline, Cass completely eradicated a clan of the Faes. The purple fucker that killed me was the only survivor. Anyway, Cass, found a lot of records there and that's when we discovered the truth about the Ancestral Glyphs.
The tattoos that they have on their bodies are not a Racial Trait as we thought. Although they are the manifestation of their bloodlines, they are not natural. They are the result of a sick and perverted ritual. It is disgusting even by my ethical standards and you know that the only bottom line I have are the citizens of the Earth Federation."
"You're telling me that Cass massacred a whole clan of the Faes? And what ritual is so cruel that even you find it disgusting?"
"Yep. They killed someone that they shouldn't have. Our little sister. Uncle Alexi was MIA and Cass, well, let's just say that the rage inside him terrified me. He went there alone with just a halberd and killed every last one of them. He even destroyed their Ancestral Tree."
"Ancestral Tree?"
"Every Fae clan has their own Ancestral Tree. It's how they reproduce. A male and a female Fae separate some of the equivalent of their sperm and eggs and inject it into a flower on the Ancestral Tree. If the fertilization is successful, the flower starts transitioning into a fruit.
The parents have to constantly nurture the fetus fruit with their mana and a little life force. When the fruit matures, it develops a hard shell around it, like an egg. Then, the baby Fae emerges from inside. If the baby fails to emerge or dies midway, the fruit wilts and the Ancestral Tree absorbs it."
"They don't even let go of their children?"
"It gets worse. Halfway through the gestation, the Ancestral Tree seals the baby's bloodline. According to the records that Cass brought back, they get transported to another Dimension similar to the Spirit Dimension for their first Ascension Trial. We couldn't decipher its name but it had something to do with bloodlines, so we just named it the Sanguine Dimension.
Maybe, me and Cass will visit it once we're strong enough. According to their legends, all the Fae clans are the descendants of the eight Fae Lords. Before the King of the Fair Folk killed them and ascended the throne, he granted them an act of mercy. Well technically, they killed themselves but it's the same thing.
With his help, they opened a door to that Dimension and entered it with their physical bodies leaving only a small piece of their hearts each. Those pieces germinated into eight Ancestral Trees in the material world. In the Sanguine Dimension, they sacrificed themselves and created eight Ancestral Idols.
These Idols connected with the Ancestral Trees and gave birth to the ritual. After reaching the Sanguine Dimension, the Fae kids go through a ceremony. There weren't many details in the records. We just know that only 60% of the kids survive. The rest are devoured by the Idols of their respective bloodlines."
"That is disgusting. But how would the external Conduits work? And how do we create them? We know nothing about the ceremony and even if we did, we don't have an Ancestral Idol."
"How about we use the subjects' Vessels as talismans and enchant them? We can create an ink from Null Slimes that inherits their Racial Traits and tattoo the Conduits on their Vessels. If that doesn't work, we can try tattooing their Vessel cores."
"Not a bad idea. But what about the Soul Vessel? The ink won't work on it."
"We'll work on the Soul Vessel in the Spirit Dimension. It's time I made use of that Innate Skill. It is tailored for interacting with other Dimensions, especially the Spirit Dimension. I'm sure that we can find something similar to Null Slimes there. After all, other Dimensions partially mirror the material world."
"Lets do what we can do here first. We are going to need a lot of Null Slimes. We should build a Null Slime farm. It won't be difficult. We just need a large area rich in mana."
"I'll talk to Alessio about it. Meanwhile, let's catalogue our subjects and start designing the Conduits."
Zeke contacted Alessio and told him the requirements of the farm. Alessio told him that it would take a month to complete the farm. He also told Zeke that he would post a task of collecting live Null Slimes for the Nephilim Mercenaries. While Zeke was doing that, Leonel went to the dungeon. He was able to get a total of about five thousand subjects in a 1:1 ratio of Angels and Demons for the boys. He started by creating a database of the different sub-species of the subjects that they had. Zeke wanted to help but Leonel refused because he didn't know how the subjects would react in his presence.
It took him a whole week. By the time he was done, many Null Slimes had also arrived. During this time, Zeke also thought hard about how they could create the ink. They started creating the recipe for the ink. They needed the ink to inherit two of the Racial Traits of Null Slimes; Absolute Adaptibilty and Mana Devour. They would allow the ink to adapt to any attribute of mana and boost mana absorbing qualities.
They got to work. First, they simply tried to use the slime body as ink but the results were subpar. It took a long time and an astonishing amount of attributed mana for it to adapt to the mana. And, it didn't inherit the Mana Devour Racial Trait. Of course, they knew that the ink would only be able to inherit a very nerfed version of the Racial Traits but they wanted to make sure that they used the best version. They named this version Ink#1.
Ink#2- They blended a slime in different ways. First, it was a whole living slime. When it had turned into a slime smoothie, they strained it. This was Ink#2.1. For Ink#2.2, they blended them separately and mixed the two. They both were better than Ink#1. They concluded that it was because of the slime core.
Ink#3- First, they boiled a slime body. Then, they turned a slime core into a fine powder and added that to the boiling slime body. It exploded. They tried again, but this time, they gradually added the slime core powder to the slime body while slowly heating it. This time, it didn't explode. But they felt that it was too weak. So they changed the ratio of slime body to slime core from 1:1 to 1:5. Any more slime cores and the ink would explode.
It took a lot of trial and error but after two months, they finally did it. Ink#20.7, their latest ink almost perfectly inherited the Null Slime's Racial Traits. They took inspiration from the last step of the recipe for Sanguine Tears of Demonic Angels. They took a mana insulation flask, added a Null Slime to it, and sealed it. After that, they didn't do anything to it.
Due to the lack of mana, the slime slowly devoured its body. When only the core was left, it started struggling. Slowly, the core started evaporating. The vapors had nowhere to escape and started condensing into a liquid at the bottom of the vial. When only a small bit of the core was left, it devoured the condensed liquid. This cycle went on until only the condensed liquid was left in the flask. The whole process took 86 hours.
This was the most promising version that they had created until that moment. They started experimenting with the ratio and finally found the perfect one. The golden ratio of slime body to slime core was 2:7. They had completed phase one, creating the ink.
Now, they could begin phase two, designing the Conduits. For that, they would need to conduct some trials on the subjects. They decided that they would carry out the trials for the Body Vessel Conduits on Angels and the Soul Vessel Conduits on Demons. They also separated a batch of 500 from both Races in case they needed to create Mana Vessel Conduits as well.
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Author's Note:
Hey guys, I hope you like the novel.
The official art will take some time because, one, I don't know any illustrators. And two, I am broke. But I would love to see your fan art. Who knows, maybe I'll choose the official art from them.
Happy Thanksgiving to you all.🦃
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Shout-out to @Suctiom, @romance_guy, @ASURA, @Unrexl and @Yuuuleer for being the first five members of the Discord server.
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