Idarran of Ulivo opened his eyes and found himself tied to a chair, unarmed, unclothed and with Dimeritium chains around his body.
His mouth was gagged so he could not even speak.
Looking around, he noticed two men, one tall and handsome but unkempt and the other rough looking staring at him.
"Idarran of Ulivo, the apprentice of the legendary renegade sorcerer Alzur. Your fame as a genetic expert precedes you! Your genetically mutated monsters are scattered across practically the entire continent! And unfortunately you fit all the requirements to be the perfect assistant to help me perfect my project!"
Viltz put a finger on the forehead of the confused Idarran, who felt unimaginable pain an instant later. He tried to resist but being bound with Dimeritium chains not only could he not mobilize his magic but he couldn't even mobilize his most basic physical strength.
A few minutes later, Idarran's eyes seemed to spin in their sockets for a moment before suddenly opening, but this time there was a fanatical glow in them.
Viltz untied him and he fell directly before his feet.
"Master! Your most faithful servant is at your beck and call!"
The new enslavement spell not only planted a seal deep within an individual's soul but distorted his will so that he would become unconditionally loyal to his master.
Although Viltz theorized that a being with a stronger soul than his own would not be affected by the seal.
"From this day forward you will be his assistant and help him with all his experiments. If you think you can contribute any ideas then talk it over with him directly."
"As you command!"
Idarran got up and the research Viltz took him to start a new project while the Viltz prime went back to his bed to finish his sleep, ignoring the three unsatisfied succubi who started to play with each other seeing that he would not give them any more action for the time being.
The investigating Viltz questioned Idarran about Alzur's secret laboratory since for the last few years they were unable to trace it.
Idarran informed him that Alzur's original lab exploded while he was doing an experiment and before he could do a new one, the series of events happened that led to his death.
The good part of the matter was that Idarran knew by heart the procedures for creating the original witchers, who despite being more mentally unstable, their skills and abilities far surpassed those of those who came later.
The investigating Viltz led Idarran to the subway, where there was a cell whose bars were made of reinforced steel.
On one side of the cell could be seen the inert corpse of a tattooed man with horns and goat's feet.
Out of the darkness, a creature two meters tall emerged.
It was in the shape of a muscular goat with a third eye on its forehead.
"An incubus in the same cell as a Fiend?"
"That's right! Look at its stomach."
Idarran followed with his gaze where Viltz pointed, immediately noticing the Fiend's bulging stomach.
"Don't tell me you..."
"Aha! It took quite a bit of effort and a lot of experiments but I finally got both races to be able to sire offspring. Your next job will be to subject the offspring of this and other future hybrids to the herbal test and put them through witcher-like mutations."
"May I examine it?"
"Sure! She's chained and drugged so she's pretty tame."
Viltz opened the cell and let Idarran go in to examine the female Fiend for a while before stepping back and closing the cell again.
"I want you to record the various abilities of the offspring this female will give birth to and compare them to the abilities of a normal Fiend and incubus."
"Understood."
"Good! Now I can concentrate on my next project."
Viltz entered another cell in which rested the same Wyvern he captured three years ago.
It had now grown to almost twice its size but still looked bored and out of energy.
Viltz pierced his skin between the scales with a syringe and drew a blood sample and went to his lab to analyze it.
Several months later, while Viltz prime was in one of his alchemy classes in Oxenfurt, suddenly a distress call came to him from the connection with the researcher Viltz.
A few minutes ago, somewhere in the void, a beautiful young unicorn with white fur was happily roaming the astral plane, until suddenly a small crack appeared in front of him out of nowhere.
Smelling the odor coming from the crack, his nose wrinkled and his beautiful eyes turned red with fury.
At the same time, it seemed that the smell that entered through his nostrils went straight to his brain, clouding his mind.
"This smell... Big brother! It's the smell of big brother! Also...I smell the smell of death.... My brother is dead? Who dares to kill my brother!"
Letting out an enraged bellow, the unicorn touched the crack with his horn and it expanded to form a portal that allowed him to reach the other side of the crack.
In the void, only the rapidly closing crack remained.
A sigh sounded amidst the silence of this void.
"I only hope you can take advantage of this opportunity I gave you."
With those words, the void returned to silence again.
The first thing the unicorn saw was a small broken horn inside a jar.
Upon seeing the horn, the unicorn seemed to go into a rage as it smashed into the glass case, breaking the jar containing the broken horn, at the same time, the fog that entered its brain further clouded its mind, causing it to focus only on its rage and forget about anything else.
The research Viltz was stunned to see the intruder who had entered his lab without warning.
Unlike the original Viltz, his body was not trained for combat and could only rely on his spells but before he could do anything, the unicorn looked at him with its red eyes and charged at him at full speed.
The investigating Viltz only had time to grab the magic staff and conjure the magic barrier to buy time to call for reinforcements.
He first sent a distress signal to the Viltz prime before focusing on protecting himself from the enemy.
The unicorn pointed its horn at the barrier and condensed a cyan light at its tip before a concentrated beam of energy shot out, striking the barrier and blowing it to pieces.
The researcher Viltz seized the moment and pounced on the unicorn, grabbing it by the neck before using the staff to teleport out of the castle.
They both appeared in the garden and the unicorn finally managed to shake the investigating Viltz off, sending it flying with great force.
The unicorn ducked its head and prepared to ram the investigating Viltz while it was still in the air but suddenly a hand appeared before its sight and plunged a sinister looking dagger directly into its eye.
Immense unparalleled pain coursed through the soul of the unicorn, who fell to the ground, writhing.
"Fiuh... Good thing I got there in time otherwise you wouldn't have counted her."
The Viltz prime spoke to the investigating Viltz, who used a wind spell to break the fall, falling gracefully near the Viltz prime.
"I guess you didn't get there fast enough..."
The investigator Viltz touched his chest, where there was a wound right where his heart was.
Viltz prime held him in his arms and watched as the light left his body.
The soul of the researcher Viltz left his body and entered Viltz prime's body, merging back into his soul and transferring all his memories to him in the process.
Sighing, Viltz burned the body of his clone and stared at the body of the unicorn in front of him.
"Sigh. It's a shame, with his soul and brain destroyed I can no longer have my clone possess his body, with a clone able to travel the multiverse I would no longer have to worry about elder blood..."
Freezing the unicorn's body, Viltz teleported it to his lab and placed it in a place filled with magical anti-detection seals before meeting with Idarran and informing him of his clone's demise.
"Who would have thought that a unicorn could detect the horn he had in the lab.... I have to be more careful when it comes to these things."
Opening a portal to Lan Exeter, Viltz sought out one of the local crazies before kidnapping one again and doing the same procedure to him as always, creating a new clone.
Ten days later, Viltz regained consciousness and left it to his clone to investigate the unicorn's body. He also ordered Idarran to dedicate himself to helping his clone with this new project and to put his previous work on the back burner.
After thinking better of it, Viltz decided to get his clone more assistants so he called his old friends.
"So, it's been years since anyone has heard from you. What have you been doing all this time?"
At a fancy restaurant, the trio of Sorel, Algernon and Harlan met with Viltz at the latter's request for dinner and to reminisce about the old days.
"Nothing in particular, exploring some interesting places and doing some research or two. What about you guys?"
"We worked as assistants to the wizard Ortolan, Sorel even became his personal assistant!"
"Haha! It was just a lucky thing."
"Hmmm. If by luck he means sleeping with an old man at death's door..."
Viltz thought to himself.
A waiter came over and served dinner accompanied by an exquisite wine.
A couple of hours later, the three wizards began to feel dizzy.
Viltz pretended to be in the same mood and between hiccups said to the others: "It seems that the alcohol in this wine comes in large quantities...Hip!"
The others were so dizzy that they couldn't even register his words in their minds.
Half an hour later, the three wizards were asleep on the table.
Viltz carried the three of them and opened a portal to his lab, where he placed them on wooden chairs before shackling them with Dimeritium chains.
Viltz began by placing his hands on Sorel's head, who was awakened by the sudden headache.
Fifteen minutes later, the three sorcerers were now kneeling in front of Viltz.
"Sorel, I want you to seduce Ortolan and get him to sleep. When you do let me know.
As for you two, you can go back to Sorel for the time being and I'll let you know when I need you."
Viltz finished speaking and dismissed the three of them before flipping through the list of experiments he still had left to do.
"List of projects."
1: King Phoenix Project.
Status: In progress.
_Achievements:_Egg of the reborn demonic phoenix, Rarog, has been obtained.
...
2: Dragon King Project.
Status: In progress.
Achievements: The eggs of the black, green and brown dragon have been recovered.
_Observations: Still pending to get the eggs of a stone, red, white, gold and silver dragon.
Still pending to create a potion of atabism to improve the lineages of the dragons.
...
3: King Fiend Project.
Status: In process.
Achievements: It has been possible to create a healthy hybrid by crossing Fiends and incubus. The next step is to mutate the hybrids using the method to create witchers.
Remarks: Crosses between a male Fiend and a succubus are apparently impossible since the fetus ends up killing the mother from the inside.
...
Viltz set aside the list of projects in progress and looked at the list of pending projects, causing his forehead to throb.
"I need to build a large enough research force to deal with all these projects otherwise it would take me a lifetime to finish barely half of the things present here."
Putting the list aside, Viltz opened a portal and returned to Oxenfurt.