In the laboratory, Viltz sat at his desk as he read through the various papers he had obtained in Geofrey Monck's laboratory.
Besides the plethora of magical theories, brilliant research and quite varied magical spells, what excited Viltz the most were three documents.
The first was a scroll describing the ritual used by the ancient sorcerer to trap djinns inside anaphorae to grant him three wishes.
The second was a scroll that contained the method for separating a soul fragment to create a clone that was essentially an extension of yourself.
The great thing about such a technique was that it allowed one to re-merge with their clone and directly absorb all of their memories.
The main problem with such a spell was that the clone's soul was too weak to reside in a human body.
Monck apparently encountered several problems in implementing such a spell on living bodies.
The main problem he found was that it had to be a still living body with a soul but the main problem was that, the body already had a soul and the clone could not simply swallow said soul for two reasons, firstly because being only a soul fragment it was much weaker than a normal soul and there was a risk of it being swallowed by said soul, secondly because even if the clone could swallow said soul by some stroke of luck, there would still be a risk of the clone developing an ego of its own, getting out of its master's control.
Monck speculated that even if he found a way to seal the soul to allow his spirit clone to control the body, it would still prove nearly impossible since it would be like asking the soul of a baby to move the body of an adult.
In the end Monck gave up on such research and instead preferred to place such clones in an inanimate vessel connected to a constant power source that would function as a guard.
"I guess if my guess is correct then the picture of Monck I saw earlier that happened to be connected to the capsule must have been the spirit clone. I have to admit that using such a method as a surveillance system is quite ingenious. I guess he must have noticed me but since I only stole some insignificant things for him he preferred not to waste his energy on me."
Smiling, Viltz kept the scroll next to the night elf memory crystal.
"If I combine this spell with the night elf spells, I'll be able to make up for all his shortcomings."
Finally, Viltz looked at a thick book with sparkling eyes.
"Hahahahaha! I guess great minds think alike eh old man!!!? Who would think you'd use a method so similar to mine to transcend your mortality!"
Viltz laughed out loud.
"But your approach is too simple, if you're going to implement a plan like this, you should go big!"
The contents of the book were basically Geofrey Monck's most ambitious project.
It contained the plans for the machine that Viltz saw in the lab.
According to the book, what the machine would do would be to turn Geofrey Monck into a half-flesh, half-energy being.
And what Monck used as a base was the genetic material of an elf Aen Saevherne and a Djinn. The machine would not only create the perfect hybrid, but would also provide the body with enough energy to become an elemental king, the highest peak among elemental creatures.
Obviously, said hybrid would be made up of Geofrey Monck's soul, allowing him to be reborn in a certain way, changing his old, weak body for a new one with unimaginable potential.
"It's a pity that Monck is missing too much key information. Although this method will revitalize his soul to some extent, it is still not a true rebirth and his soul will still be human so it would not be entirely compatible with his body.
Besides, 1000 years to complete his transformation is too long.
But with this data, I can save myself many years of research and avoid making the same mistakes as him while improving my own technology using parts of his ideas."
After thinking for a while about what he could do for the rest of the day, Viltz decided to try to improve the clone spell.
A month later, Viltz opened a portal to the subway where he had captured the doppler village and grabbed one at random.
After a surgery in which he had to use the soul-eradicating flames to weaken the doppler's soul enough, Viltz finally activated the spell, causing 10% of its soul to form a kind of lump before it seemed to be cut off by invisible scissors.
An excruciating pain he had never felt before raced through Viltz's mind.
He fell straight to the ground and his eyes rolled back as white foam came out of his mouth.
Magna, who was standing next to him, quickly grabbed a chair and helped the trembling Viltz sit on it while still shaking.
Viltz was barely able to lift his hand, where a flickering blue sphere hovered calmly, and place it over the doppler's head before he fell into a coma.
A strange little diagram lit up on the doppler's glabella before absorbing the soul fragment before disappearing.
It wasn't until ten days later that Viltz awoke with a sharp pain in his head.
Looking where he was, he realized he was in his bed, while to his right slept a little girl hugging his hand.
Magna was asleep on a chair on his left side while Sasrir slept at his feet.
"Good thing I warned magna that the experiment could be dangerous otherwise I couldn't have imagined what these two children would have done out of panic."
Smiling wryly, Viltz closed his eyes, noting that he could now feel a sort of bridge connecting him to another existence.
Viltz tried to call the other party using said connection and was surprised to realize that it was some sort of telepathic link.
A blue portal opened and a small 1'3 meter doppler came out of it.
"Did it work?"
"No apparent problems."
"Were there any problems in the process?"
"No, the doppler's soul was almost shattered thanks to the soul eradicator and its ego was fragmented enough for me to get rid of it, the only problem is that part of the doppler's original memories were scattered and I was only able to absorb the equivalent of two thirds of them."
"That we can work out in the future. What about the soul energy?"
"I absorbed it completely, thanks to it I can use this body without any problems."
"What about your innate abilities?"
"I just woke up just like you so I haven't checked it out yet."
"Hmmm. It seems I'm sort of the core program while you being an extension of me, you depend on whether my soul is active in order to function perfectly."
"That's right. That means if anything happens to you, I'll be paralyzed."
"I'll put that down on the list. Now let's try using your new abilities."
At Viltz's command, the doppler stared at him for a while but strangely nothing happened.
"Strange, I feel a kind of block."
"I guess you can't copy yourself, the doppler ability is about copying the appearance but also the mind, essentially we are one mind so you can't copy me."
As they chatted, Magna and Sasrir woke up.
"Master!"
Magna walked over and checked that Viltz was okay.
Sasrir got up and started licking his face.
Viltz played with the wolf for a while before passing it to the half-awake Lena, who let out a high-pitched cry at the sight of the ugly doppler in front of her.
"I have to admit, I'm rather offended."
Letting out a resigned sigh, the Viltz doppler looked Magna straight in the eyes and her appearance began to change.
His height grew about five centimeters and his skin became smooth and his hair turned golden, transforming into a copy of Magna.
Magna was startled and looked at her clone with confusion, not knowing what to do in this situation.
The doppler Magna pointed at him and shouted while imitating the Spider-Man meme, "This guy is an imposter!"
Magna was surprised and responded almost instinctively while pointing back at him, "The imposter is you!"
Viltz and the Magna doppler started laughing loudly as the others looked at them in confusion.
Sasrir began to shake his head from side to side, not understanding which of the two was Magna.
"What's so funny?" Lena asked in confusion.
"Nothing, it's just my usual silly humor."
Viltz and doppler Magna replied in unison.
"Well, we need to get you a new look, you can't go around wearing Magna's face."
Opening a portal to Lan Exeter, Viltz grabbed a random guy who looked pretty ordinary and dragged him back into the room.
The doppler looked him straight in the eye and his appearance began to change again, becoming a guy who would go unnoticed anywhere.
"How about using a Djinn to optimize my doppler genes to make me immune to silver?"
"That's what I was thinking."
Due to their limitations, dopplers couldn't control the power of chaos naturally so even if they wanted to mimic a sorcerer they couldn't mimic their magical abilities plus they had a fatal weakness.
Although their transformation was flawless, copying not only the physique but also the voice and memories of their victim, their transformation could be seen if they were reflected in any silver items such as silverware or behind tools. And such transformation was completely nullified if they were to touch silver directly.
Viltz opened a portal to his laboratory and the doppler grabbed one of the four clay amphorae, opening it and letting out a breeze of air that turned into a floating green head wrapped in gusts of wind.
The doppler wasted no time and asked the Djinn directly to remove his weakness to silver at the genetic level.
The Djinn vibrated for a moment before a strange light enveloped the doppler, causing his entire body to glow.
The doppler sensed that the wish had been fulfilled so before the Djinn could escape, it closed the amphora, forcing the Djinn back inside it.
"Well now there are two wishes left inside the amphora.
How do you feel?"
"Strange... I feel like I've lost a great weight off my shoulders."
The doppler reached over to a silver knife in the lab and took it in his hands, without his skin starting to burn.
The doppler did not let go of the knife and transformed into Magna's appearance with the knife still in his hand.
Through the reflection of the knife, the doppler saw his grotesque appearance change to that of a beautiful blond-haired elven boy.
The doppler transformed back into the ordinary man from before.
"Your mission will be very dangerous so you should take the best weapons from here."
The doppler nodded and put on Geofrey Monck's armor, the second staff Viltz got from the ruins of loc Muinne and the sword of the Vran.
"I guess I'll see you when I'm done with this big to-do list you've given me."
Waving the magic staff, the doppler teleported to an unknown location.
"I just hope you don't run into any snags on your journey.
Much of my plans depend on what he can accomplish."