Darius then began bu using the combination of Bones to Stone and Flesh to Stone to sculpt a human-sized block into a human body. While it might be a Master level spell, he no longer had the shackles of the system binding him.
Not only that within his mentalscape, he had long mastered the path for these two spells - obviously - and had also forcefully raised his circuit to the master level using the Dragon race's 'cheat' ability.
In other words, he was able to craft a new specimen with ease. This one was in the form of the most attractive and well-built male he could think of. He did not have fine control so as to manipulate late genes, but he could handle most fundamental structures at will.
Darius kept the specimen soulless because it did not need a soul for what came next. He snapped his finger, which shifted the experiment table into a family device that Darius had used before, the Medipod.
The futuristic device from Gravitas wrapped around the specimen and coated them in nanobots that were grey in color. As such, Darius had no problem bringing out a vial of fiery red blood.
[True Phoenix Blood - Unique
Durability: 40,000/40,000
Description: True Blood Essence from the heart of a natural-born Phoenix at its prime. By injecting it, one can become a Fire Phoenix that can grow up to the Elder stage.
If one applied it over the skin, one can become a Firebird, a humanoid birdman with the ability to control potent fire. If one chooses to ingest it, one can become an Adult Phoenix without the ability to grow further.]
Darius chose the Phoenix race over his own Dragon race for obvious reasons. He didn't want there to be any connection between the Lord of Safemoon and the Ancestor Dragon fledging wreaking havoc on Faust.
Secondly, his CP could not pay for a vial of True Dragon blood, even when he used the best material. Even if he used his own blood, the conversion was terrible because Ancestor Dragon blood was far different from mere True Dragon blood. He would be better off using dirty water even.
Thirdly, he wanted something stable and hard to track. Phoenixes were fewer than Dragons and even rarer. They also did not have a habit of spreading their blood around, so it would be extremely hard to trace the source of it even if Darius was questioned.
Darius placed the blood in the docking station of the Medipod, watching it bleed into the device. Them, various needles injected themselves into the specimen, pumping the blood into their body slowly.
After a few seconds, the specimen began to react with pain, twitching and spamming as their body temperature rose drastically. Darius only watched coldly, remembering his own experience with replacing his heart to become the entity he was now.
The nanobots regulated the specimen's body temperature and used all means to keep them alive until the assimilation process was done.
Darius watched as the fellow began to shift from a humanoid into a bird, growing a beak, a tail, two claws, and feathers all around. Darius had homegrown his own legendary fire Phoenix!
"Miranda, extract all lifeforce and blood essence from the specimen after one week. In the interim, supply them with the purest Lunar Dew we have in order to nurture it." Darius instructed calmly.
Miranda acknowledged his order and the Phoenix was soon taken away. Darius stood there, pondering how things would go. The plan was to turn a random humanoid into a true Phoenix, nurture them to tip top shape, extract their everything, and then inject it into the reproductive organs of various humanoids.
Those that didn't have their genitals explode would not gain any power, but would not be able to produce sperm that contained the full DNA traces of both humans and Phoenixes.
Merging with Medea, who was a Demigod and human, the Phoenix blood would be further augmented, allowing the offspring to retain mostly human characteristics without losing the powers that came with the Phoenix bloodline.
Sort of like Darius himself, who was perfectly humanoid despite no longer being human in any sense of the word.
This could have been shortened of course, if he just injected the blood into this humanoid specimen, but he wanted more Phoenix blood essence in case he had other plans later.
Producing it with CP was not easy, even with his limit of 2,000 daily.
As he was temporarily done with this task, Darius decided to head out of the Mage tower and check on Foldo and co. He noticed that the core area hadn't changed much, as no new members had been introduced and there was already space for more of them.
He then teleported to the meeting room where the executives of his faction often met and discussed various matters. As you could expect, they were currently in session, discussing whatever information Jorge seemed to have acquired from that fellow she had 'interrogated' when he called her.
Darius appeared in the head seat which was always clean and empty, reserved from him whenever he deigned to attend. He appeared so instantaneously and silently, that no one noticed except three burning gazes that landed on his body.
They were the eyes of Jorge, Portia, and Jeanne. All three of them had noticed him immediately, not because their senses were better than others, but because a part of them always longed for the figure that sat in the head seat, so a part of their attention was always fixed on it.
Darius smiled bitterly. Those eyes were piercing and filled with heat that felt like it was more scorching than the Phoenix blood he had led previously.
It was clear to him that the three ladies had not given up. Rather, it seemed that absence had truly made the heart grow fonder, as they had affirmed their resolve and decided on their path.
Darius felt sad for them, not only because those feelings were one-way, but because Deia would never share. After years of suffering under the hands of men, he was the only man she trusted truly.
She was not sympathetic or needlessly kind to other girls either, and she wouldn't pity these three if they got hurt. After all, no one asked them to fall in love with her soulmate, and on her mind, they should be lucky she didn't take offense from that.
However, Darius would leave it for Deia to say. It would be more final and absolute coming from her mouth, and he would finally have peace.
"Carry on." Darius said gently, leaning into his seat.
The others paid their respect and greeted him solemnly before carrying on with their discussion. In the meantime, Darius checked the statuses of these fellows and compared them to what he had seen before.
…Was it surprising that Portia, Jorge, and Jeanne were the ones who made the most progress? They were now qualified Adepts, the top echelon of the former Andrato when it was a weak Kingdom without any backing and suffering under the pressure of the rest of the continent.
Now that it had Safemoon as its backer, it had long flourished into a Master-level Kingdom, with assured growth to the Grandmaster level. This was likely why Fraterina was taking drastic measures, as they were likely panicking, seeing that their chance to acquire Andrato was declining by the day.
Speaking of Fraterina, it seemed like the spies Jorge had sent had discovered that they were subtly mobilizing troops for war, not even using just the Kingdom's troops, but had solicited the help of numerous kingdoms who want to raid Andrato for the benefit Safemoon had given it.
Oh, they definitely did not dare directly attack Safemoon as they were a power that even Gods and Demons recognized, but Andrato? Pfff!
They had long formed an opinion of that poor and shitty kingdom, and that would be hard to change. Even if Safemoon was the suzerain of Andrato, once a just war was launched, they could not interfere, otherwise other parties would also throw in their weight.
So right now, what these fellows were hotly discussing was the formation of an army, how tot rain them, how to allocate them, who would lead them, etc. After every party had chipped in their opinion, they naturally turned to Darius for the final verdict.
"No need to worry, I have been on this before I left. I already have a plan to draft an elite force that should number around a hundred million. Our basic soldier force would number 10 trillion, and I shall have both of these forces ready in a month's time." Darius revealed with a sot smile.
The bodies of all those gathered couldn't help but shiver with horror at what they had just heard. Why did it sound less like Darius was talking about fellow human beings, and rather than he was talking about plants he could raise and farm at will?
