Lucius drew out his crux to inspect the changes that had occurred to his body and found that he now had a new tail, identical to his first.
However, unlike his initial one, he didn't have a direct link to it. Although he could feel it was a part of him, he could not feel any sort of control system in place for him to communicate with it.
"Interesting..." he whispered to himself before testing out a theory.
He used Elmando to send a small ping towards the tail, and it replied in kind with a stronger pull using its own Elmando.
~Hmm, so this is how it's going to work, huh?~ he thought to himself before walking out of the dark room toward the chieftain.
"Was it to your liking, Lighted One?" the chieftain asked, staring up at Lucius expectantly.
"It seems I may have ruined your experiment," Lucius replied, as his new tail wagged in synchronicity with his old one.
"However, it's clear that the work you have done here will be very useful to the advancement of the commune," he continued.
After all, if this thing worked as he thought it did, it would imply that Elmando could evolve into a more effective combat tool. What with this 'second tail' being able to use Elmando on sentient beings without a problem.
Besides, there was a chance that it could do much more than just that.
At first, Lucius had assumed Elmando was restricted to vegetation, but after seeing the scale at which the mole creatures could create tunnels, he theorized that they had their own type of specialized Elmando that dealt with rocks specifically.
It was likely that the True Elmando -that the fae were capable of using- was spread amongst their children, each version being a limited variant of the true form.
That's to say, this new tail or... 'sapling', could hold the key to gaining access to the complete version, or at the very least come closer to it than all the versions that most other creatures had.
~I suppose research will have to be done. But for now, there's already so much we have to do,~ Lucius thought to himself.
"I want you to continue with this experiment. I'm not sure how many more of these plants we have at our disposal, but whatever resources you need, I will personally make sure that they are seen to," he said after some thought.
He would try to oversee the experiment whenever he had the time to, but between the magical weapons and setting up a new base, he doubted he would have enough time for it.
"Then does that mean—" the chieftain was about to ask.
"Indeed, I'll recommend your rank up to Asclepius and the others. If you need help, feel free to reach out to me," Lucius replied.
"Oh, and your crux. I'll be going to the surface for a photosynthesis session later today. One or two sessions should be enough to have you evolve... if you have the mental strength to see them through of course," he continued.
The chieftain nodded happily, before bowing.
"I will try my best," the chieftain said after.
"We should head back. There's a lot I have to do. I'd recommend preparing everything you need to continue with your experimentation before you have the photosynthesis session. I know all too well that evolution can set you back a couple of days if you go into it unprepared," Lucius warned, to which the chieftain nodded in reply, clearly still excited at the prospect of evolving.
"And if you need anything, just come look for me. I'll stop what I'm doing to make sure you get what you need," Lucius said finally, as the two began walking back to the main part of the underground camp.
"If that's the case then... there are three other plants like these; however, Asclepius has stored them away. Perhaps she plans to run other tests on them herself," the chieftain said.
"I'll speak to her," Lucius replied.
*
As they were walking, Lucius ran a few tests on his new tail. He used various intensities and approaches with Elmando to see how the tail reacted to the different pings.
And after a few cycles, he found that it had seemed to lose its ability to manipulate solar energy and share images due to their symbiosis. However, in return, its strength and range in Elmando had increased.
In fact, he found that when paired with his earth sense, he could reach out to creatures far in the distance.
For instance, he was slightly pulling at the bear-man standing guard a few tunnels ahead, and as it reacted to this, he could kind of feel its response. The same way one would feel a piece of metal trying to move away from a magnet.
Although the strength of the force reduced drastically past a certain distance, just being able to scout out enemies far ahead was a powerful weapon on its own.
And once he mastered it, there was no telling what he'd be able to accomplish.
However, that seemed to be a distant dream.
It required a very intricate understanding of Elmando to properly get the tail to do what he wanted.
It was sort of like training a dog. Making it go out and tug at a distant object was much like throwing out a stick - but in this case, an Elmando tug - and telling it to go fetch it - in this case, directing Elmando towards the direction you wanted to scout.
If he wanted to do things like say; moving a cart, or picking things up and placing them somewhere, he would have to find similar commands. Which would no doubt require some very fine handling.
*
Well, it's a work in progress, but it's still useful, he decided to himself once they finally reached the main camp.
After parting ways with the chieftain, Lucius quickly returned to Asclepius's lab, to survey the materials she had collected.
He was searching to see if any of them would be suitable for use in Grenovarish's weapon.
He needed something sturdy, able to withstand both the energy of the runic circuits, and whatever force Grenovarish might place on it as he used it.
Of course, if he found a way to convince Geyron to enchant it, this wouldn't be much of a problem. Though with their current relationship, he doubted that this was even a possibility.
Though he had a plan in mind to deal with that.
