Chapter 43: The Soul-Bound Machine

[ August 27, 1973 ]

I looked in the mirror and saw a two-and-a-half-meter giant with blondish hair and an equally light beard, and I had only one thought — the same thing my grandmother used to say in moments like this: "Well done, Hayato, well done, you son of a bitch!" How could I have missed the obvious, right in front of my face?

Okay, sure, height — there are plenty of half-giant hybrids in the world. But when all my mana wasn't enough to embody his appearance, whose matrix he'd let me take, I should have started thinking. As it turned out, just the embodiment alone required ten times my usual reserves. Only twice less than it took to embody a dragon's body.

I sent both forms to the spatial fold bound to my soul — something I'd wanted to create for ages, but never got around to. There was always something more important, or just more interesting. Not because the ritual is complicated — not at all. It's just that in such a pocket, besides flesh and forms for metamorphism, nothing else can be stored.

But with Black's help — who had devoured the dragon's space — and the finally completed magicomp, we managed to rework this binding ritual, creating a universal storage based on a soul-bound bubble. Energy is only spent on putting items in and pulling them out. First thing I did was learn to quickly summon my wand to hand and dismiss it — but more on that later.

Back to Hayato. Even when he told me he'd never lost in his life, I thought he was joking, or that he'd only fought weaklings. But no — he really had never, not once, lost to anyone.

Height, mana costs for transformation, invincibility, and the title of the world's strongest human should have long ago led me to one simple thought — Hayato isn't human. And his internal body structure, which only resembles human, proves it.

Bones several times stronger and more massive, tough skin, monstrously strong muscles, two hearts, and more perfect internal organs. These aren't the results of martial arts or yoga — those only let you control what you already have, not fundamentally improve it.

Only one race from the legends I know had such a strong body — titans. No, the Ryōzanpaku elder is unlikely to be a titan, but some part of that race's heritage must have awakened in him.

Honestly, I feel sorry for little Miu's boyfriend, because as Furinji told me — when he got drunk at the wedding with the veela — he'll only let someone date her if they can defeat him. Poor goddaughter of mine — she'll never find herself a guy.

And if you remember her dad and mom, who are also not of simple blood but from a clan obsessed with the superiority of superhumans, who through natural and artificial selection sought the best and infused into their ranks the blood of the strongest yokai, mages, and martial arts masters, then... yeah. Against their background, I don't look impressive at all.

But let's go back a month and a half of real time ago — for me, much more time had passed — when I went on my first hundred-day stint. Devouring salamander souls every ten days, by the sixth time I was fully restored, since by calculations I should have been "eating" much weaker salamanders.

And first of all, I had to relearn how to dose strength in all spells, since I'd become several times stronger. This took the rest of the days until the end of the first hundred-day period.

And then, as they say, I got carried away. I already had a completely ready theoretical project for the magicomp, which consisted of five ritual wooden boards glued together, each layer with a dozen quartz crystals soldered in, all united into a common network through my hair.

Control of the magical computer, which outwardly looked like an ordinary wooden box, was carried out through a mental amulet — a thin metal circlet on the head. Only two questions arose: how to train summoned spirits, and how to control them?

The answer to the second question was the usual — enslavement and a self-destruction system based on a powerful obliviate and subsequent detonation of the artifact. Fortunately, my conscience didn't particularly torment me here, since lower spirits don't have self-awareness in the full sense.

The answer to the first question, and at the same time the reason for such harsh precautions, was the implementation of my own edited mental matrix. After all, who can do your work better than yourself?

But even this wasn't enough for me, since not using the already perfected local time acceleration would be simply stupid. And now, even if calculating complex rituals requires days, weeks, or even years, you pour in more mana and get the result immediately. 

At this point, I thought it might be possible to accelerate ordinary computers too, but still decided that simple paths weren't for me.

***

And on June 20, Magister Richard von Mayer arrived. This was a man of forty to forty-five in appearance, with a crew cut of coal-black hair, a smoothly shaven strong chin, and an icy-gray gaze of seemingly always squinting eyes.

He was dressed in a black, movement-unrestricting long doublet with a battle mage's magisterial cross on his chest. The magisterial cross deserves a more detailed description — this artifact looked impressive and frightening. It hung on a red ribbon and was black as night, making the uncolored platinum edges and skull in the center stand out even more, under which were crossed a wand and sword. The skull's eyes were made of rubies and seemed to glow from within.

As far as I know, healers have the symbol of a crossed wand and bone against a snake coiling around a cup, and necromancers have two bones and a skull. Under the skull was written the motto of battle mages, preserved since Roman times: "Virtus et Honestas" — strength and honor.

Under the doublet was battle gear made of dragon leather, similar to Quidditch uniforms, reinforced with metal inserts throughout the body but not restricting movement. His arrival and conversation were epic.

Let's start with the fact that he broke through the anti-apparition barrier on our property and, deflecting all protective spells in the house, ignoring our raised wands, delivered this speech:

"I don't have time to mess around with snot-nosed brats, but I was asked by a good friend to whom I owe a debt. So listen carefully — I won't repeat myself twice. I'll come every day at two PM and we'll train for three hours. If you're late and you're not in the yard at three zero-zero, I'll simply leave and consider my task completed. And I don't give a damn about your excuses — stomach ache, hamster died, overslept, or the apocalypse happened. Is this clear?"

He looked at me sternly, releasing an emotional wave that martial arts masters call ki. Not bad — about half of what Hayato put out when he came running with his dead daughter-in-law.

"Clear. When do we start?" I asked calmly, understanding that arguing with such a person was useless, and I needed the training more than he did.

"Not bad, usually recruits..." But here Ariel gasped behind us, apparently hit by the ki wave, and I didn't let him finish, putting half my reserve into it from anger and smashing into that insolent face that knew neither etiquette nor tact.

However, this bastard was worthy of his rank and a moment before my strike, defended himself with some kind of rainbow shield. Though he did break through our house wall and crashed into the next one surrounding our settlement.

"Mom, how are you?" I rushed to her with concern.

"Oh, I got a bit dizzy. Must be the hot day." My heart felt relieved, but I simultaneously felt ashamed that I hadn't figured it out immediately. "And why did you hit that mage?"

"Yes, I'd like to know that too," said Richard, having apparated back, unharmed, standing next to us. And Ludwig was behaving very strangely, looking at Richard with huge admiration and at me with surprise.

"I apologize for acting so thoughtlessly," I bowed deeply, having really made a mistake. "I thought your emotional wave harmed my mother. Still, you entered quite unceremoniously and..."

"Stop, enough," the magister grimaced. "It's my own fault and I apologize to everyone in this house. Decided to test you, but picked the wrong time when your mother felt unwell. However, your strike isn't bad, kid — we can work with this. Where can we train around here?"

Naturally, I wasn't going to take him to Avalon. The fewer people who knew about it, the better. So the right place, after mutual apologies, was found thanks to a portkey to the Sahara. I had a whole bunch of them accumulated thanks to Black, who had been everywhere.

That's where they brought me down from the clouds, because von Mayer wasn't even going to compete with me in speed — he simply put up some cunningly devised prism-looking shield into which he poured a bunch of energy, against which I bruised my hands even with a piercer, and pounded me with area spells.

No, I'm not bad myself, I put up shields too, but the magister simply changed attacks on the fly — I'd put up a steel shield, he'd hit with fire; put up a spirit shield, he'd hit with blades transfigured from air. Sometimes it seemed to me that he predicted my attacks and defenses.

The only time I almost got him was when I hit with a fireball hiding a bombarda maxima inside, because Richard, though he put up an elemental shield, still couldn't hide from the blast wave. But that was it — after that he saw what I was capable of and calculated me easily.

After the battle, which lasted only about twenty minutes and completely exhausted me, he spent two hours telling me what I did wrong and what I did incorrectly. He explained how to properly create combinations, how to break the rhythm of battle or force the opponent to follow it and calculate him.

How to supplement and debug my fighting style, consisting of using Sumerian spells at long range, volley fire with wand spells at medium range, and fire with martial arts techniques in close and ultra-close combat, as well as constant use of my speed and blink, which made me an inconvenient opponent according to Richard, though this didn't prevent him from catching and beating me.

He didn't give me any of his own spells, saying they were his bread and guarantee of survival. But he gave me invaluable experience in magical combat, which Hayato couldn't provide, and Black wasn't a fighter.

Fortunately, I could sleep and recover in Avalon, so I always met von Mayer at peak strength and made maximum use of our sparring sessions. I understood how much I'd underestimated, for example, magical swords.

 After all, the farther a spell is cast, the less energy-saturated it is. Shields have a different problem — they're usually stretched over the whole body. But you can put much more energy into a sword and its attack area is minimal, meaning the strike itself will be maximally effective.

Moreover, swords can be controlled at a distance, though their effectiveness decreases. Unfortunately, I can only use the fire sword well and the ghostly one decently.

In general, it was precisely aura spells, not wand spells, that proved most effective in battle, since I can control them without any movements or signs of their activation. Except perhaps summoning a lesser fire elemental — hellfire — that's one of the masterpieces of modern magical science. Requires little mana, summons easily and quickly, and its power is beyond praise.

For anyone else, controlling it would be difficult, but with my experience in mentalism, astral magic, and most importantly, inclination and experience in fire control, it obeyed me. Though you can't relax here — any spells are dangerous, and such ones especially.

***

Ludwig later told me that von Mayer is a celebrity back home. Though he was a half-blood, he was a real genius of battle magic. And moreover, instead of siding with his family in supporting Grindelwald, for which he was promised considerable preferences in the family, including marriage to the third daughter of the house, he opposed him.

He fought against Grindelwald's minions, met him in battle more than once and not only survived, but gave a worthy fight. Moreover, he earned his sincere respect, and earning an enemy's respect, especially such a one, isn't easy.

After the war, his family didn't forgive him for "betrayal" and tried to kill him, and when that failed, they attacked his "muggle" part of the family, for which he slaughtered the entire clan. Since then, people in Germany are really afraid to touch him.

And I punched him in the face. Yeah. However, for this he began if not to respect me, then at least didn't call me a snotty weakling like the rest of his students from his stories. I grew up to "kid."

However, as unexpectedly as he came, he left just as unexpectedly, having fulfilled his duty, saying we'd meet again. Strange mage, but not without his rough charm.

Another event was that Dorothea was able to take her true form.

This happened on the morning of August 8 inside Avalon. I woke up because someone's hair was tickling my nose with a sweet floral aroma, and someone heavier than Dorothea was lying on my chest.

Opening my eyes, I saw not sun-yellow hair, but blood-red, and below them, proprietarily throwing her leg over me, lay their owner — a green-skinned beauty of about nineteen or twenty in appearance. The desire to get revenge on the girl I'd mistaken for a nymph upon waking immediately disappeared, because the bond clearly said that Dorothea was lying on me.

"Dora," I shook her, "Get up, you're all green."

"Huh, what?" Seeing herself, she screamed in fright upon seeing her hands. "Arthur, I honestly-honestly didn't touch any green paint!"

"I know," I said, holding back laughter. "Everything's normal with you, you just finally took your second form. Or first, doesn't matter much. Or did you forget you're actually a nymph?"

"Um, well..." Did she really forget? "And how do I look to you? Am I not scary?"

The appearance was certainly exotic. The combination of green body, brightly glowing green eyes, and red hair was unusual, but only a blind man or a sodomite could call her ugly. Because wide hips, narrow waist, and full, perfectly shaped breasts, as well as a face as if carved by a genius sculptor trying to create an ideal, aroused in me far from paternal or master-like emotions. And Dorothea liked them.

I just need to remember that her emotions affect me, and mine affect her, so she might well confuse my arousal as attraction to another person. So while we're alone, everything's fine, but in public I need to put up an emotional block.

"You'll always be the most beautiful to me," I said. Well, what else could I say? Especially since you can't fool emotions.

"Arthur will always be the most handsome to me too!" She rushed to hug me.

After this, the whole day was spent practicing form changes. In general, all beings with two forms find metamorphism easier in the future, since they get used to this process. The exception is werewolves, since their transformation is connected to lycanthropy, a curse, and therefore the process happens unconsciously and extremely painfully.

***

The last major event was the activation of the magicomp, and I can say only one thing — if I ever make such a complete version for someone else, it will only be under magical oath and with my own hands. Not only because creating its consciousness requires a mental matrix, or because I make it using my own hair. All this can be replaced and solved if desired, but the main thing is the truly monstrous capabilities it provides.

Need to translate Sumerian magic into wand magic and vice versa? You're welcome. Calculate a ritual from scratch? No problem. Create a matrix for metamorphmagic with given parameters? When do we start?

This is exactly what my comp in Avalon, feeding from its heart, is working on under acceleration. I currently have matrices of a rooster, Alan — Patrick's father and adult werewolf, dragon — opal-eyed antipode, acromantula, Hayato, Dorothea in nymph form, my human appearance and in second form.

I'd like to find a nundu or basilisk, but both are even harder to find than to survive meeting them. And I'm not exaggerating — expeditions of experienced mages went after both under cover of magisters or masters and rarely managed without losses.

So now the magicomp is developing a battle form for me and improving the human one without strong external changes. Because if I suddenly become a muscular giant two-and-a-half meters tall, quite obvious questions will arise.

And the second is the most difficult, since I need not just to make a form, but make it compatible with my soul and calculated for further growth. Ideally, create such a matrix binding that it gradually changes my body along with maturation. In that case, side effects will be minimal, and all changes will be fixed as natural.

But this isn't the only reason why spirits work so long even under acceleration. Because they, first, don't have human intelligence, and second, are just learning to work together. So instead of acting creatively, by intuition, they check billions of possible combinations. However, maybe it's for the better, since I'll be sure I have the best option.

***

Besides this, I submitted documents agreeing to transfer by exchange to Hogwarts, in connection with which I had a conversation with the headmistress, Olympe Maxime.

"Good day, Madame Olympe," I said, stepping out of the fireplace in her office and bowing slightly to this imposing lady, whose achievements evoke nothing but respect in me.

Inside, despite the deliberate luxury of rococo style, which abounds in gold, curved lines, and many rocailles and cartels, it was quite cozy. Perhaps this was achieved by wooden inserts on the walls, or maybe the hostess herself arranged the light and interior in the room so that it didn't hurt the eyes. In any case, being here was pleasant.

"Please sit, Mr. Marlow," she said. After waiting for me to sit opposite her in a wooden chair decorated with patterns from the eighteenth century, she continued, "I received your letter with the desire to transfer by exchange for a year and, honestly speaking, was surprised. You must understand that for a person of your background... it won't be easy in England. Especially considering recent events."

"You mean the werewolf attack on the muggle settlement? Or that a baseborn half-blood of a magical creature without a father won't be allowed to live peacefully by pureblooded Englishmen? Especially considering I'm French, whom our neighbors across the Channel can't stand?" I didn't beat around the bush.

That's why I don't strive to be accepted in aristocratic society. Conversations about nothing, exaggerated politeness and flowery speech, and behind your back poison in your glass and a knife in your back.

I perfectly understand all the strong mages who became hermits and don't appear in society. For them, these are all children's games in kindergarten, who don't understand what truly strong mages are capable of. Some magister of maleficium doesn't even need blood — a speck of skin dust is enough to kill not only the mage himself, but his entire clan.

Gaunt is only saved by the fact that in England, besides the obviously murky Dumbledore, there are no truly strong mages. If he'd gone abroad, they would have cut off his head.

Why is Dumbledore murky? Well, if we don't take the obviously strange death of his sister during a quarrel with Grindelwald, who, by the way, was his friend, as well as his very timely appearance and victory over the dark lord, which essentially saved the latter's life from enraged Russian mages, there are other oddities.

For example, he sits on three important posts simultaneously — Head of the Wizengamot (England's magical court), Hogwarts headmaster, Chairman of the International Confederation of Wizards, and also, by rumors, is advisor to the Minister of Magic. That is, this cunning bug essentially, without much hiding, controls magical England.

And this while he's only known as a master of transfiguration and for work with dragon's blood together with the world-famous Nicolas Flamel, creator of the philosopher's stone. Also a murky type, since from what I know about magic at the moment, the philosopher's stone is crystallized prana of millions of people, since plant or animal prana doesn't suit humans.

And here's a surprise — in the same century Flamel was born (he never named his birth year), the Black Death occurs, a plague pandemic that claimed over 25 million people across Europe. But that's just me not hinting at anything. And no one would dare hint at this to an ancient archmage, since everyone wants to live.

And so we have a murky old man with murky ideas of universal equality, only not in the sense that muggle-borns should be brought up to the level of purebloods, but the opposite — ban everything and bring everyone down to "muggles with wands."

And here's an interesting fact, just for fun — after that very joint work of the headmaster and alchemist with dragon's blood, dragon pox returned to England, once defeated, from which the older generation of purebloods began dying. And those who didn't work with dragons at all.

Maybe a coincidence, I don't argue, but somehow too much is suspiciously connected to the Hogwarts headmaster. I wouldn't be surprised if the rise of a new dark lord is also a consequence of his actions.

"Yes, that's exactly what I wanted to say. I love my students, especially such talented ones and, let's face it, widely known in narrow circles," she flashed her ring with a stone of familiar shape to me. Turns out Madame Olympe also appreciated the convenience of my invention. "And I wouldn't want you to suffer or, God forbid, die in a conflict you don't need. That's why I asked you to come for a meeting — to either convince you to refuse, or find out if your reasons are worthy of going?"

"They're worthy, Madame Maxime. As you know, my teacher is Mr. Phineas Black, master artificer and respected personality in the magical world. And this is connected to his request. Unfortunately, I can't say more, but I can assure you I'll be able to stand up for myself," I replied.

"I don't want to offend you, but you're only what? Thirteen years old?"

"Fourteen as of a week ago." Actually physically I'm already older, but considering my already quite mature appearance, it's not particularly noticeable.

"Even so. Against an adult mage you have little chance." Here's the bad side of home schooling. No one had seen my abilities.

"Does the name Richard von Mayer mean anything to you?"

"Who hasn't heard of the German magister of battle magic? But what does he have to do with this?"

"He's currently training me. If you need confirmation, I can summon him," I offered. Though he probably wouldn't come, so I was bluffing here. Richard was his own man and only acted as he wanted. I suspect if I hadn't passed his little test at the very beginning, he would have simply turned around and left.

"No!" Olympe answered somewhat too sharply. Is she acquainted with him? "I think we shouldn't distract such a respected person from his affairs. I'll sign your application today."

"Well then, I in turn won't distract you from your affairs. Goodbye, Madame Maxime, it was pleasant talking with you," I said, standing up.

"You're not distracting me at all," she smiled, and judging by empathy, quite sincerely. "It's always pleasant for me to see students of my school making such progress at such a young age. I expect great achievements from you."

"Thank you," I bowed to the woman who came out to see me off. "I look up to such great women as you."

***

I was distracted from thoughts of the past by the circlet on my head. It was connected to an identical circlet inside the magicomp through protean charms, which allowed me to use it from anywhere. The perfect way to connect two or more objects into a single system — that's exactly how they create two-way mirrors.

Unfortunately, for full addressable communication, fireplaces are more suitable — they have common connection and an addressing system, representing not only portals but something like a telephone. A rather inconvenient telephone, honestly, since to talk with someone you need to stick your head in the fireplace.

Though, if you connect specifically to the fireplace and create a convenient artifact for making and receiving calls... but that's future business, and now the main mind spirit of the magicomp was informing me that the task was completed and conductor replacement was required.

Unfortunately, despite durability charms, due to intensive work and time acceleration, it's subject to rapid wear. Built-in "reparo" isn't a panacea, though it significantly extends service life. This is another reason why putting it up for sale would be reckless. 

Unless you remove time acceleration and leave one crystal — then you'd get a fairly simple and durable artifact. But something needs to be done about the hair, or if I weren't a metamorph, I'd be left bald. Unicorn hair doesn't have the same compatibility with my mana and burns out ten times faster. Perhaps it's in Hogwarts that I'll find a solution.

"Studying?" Passing by the living room, I saw Dorothea in the same circlet as mine turning a glass into a squirrel and back. She wasn't just doing this randomly, but trying to achieve greater detail.

"Yes, I just can't make the blood inside flow," she complained, pouting.

"Don't try. Just wish, imagine, command, force — like you do with plants. A mage, with the help of ether, pushes through reality around him," I said and continued on my way, hearing joyful cries behind me. My familiar is emotional. Though perhaps that's good.

In the basement, a circle of runes on the ground had been added to the meter-wide obsidian sphere hanging in the air, which collected mana and sent it through a mana conduit to the magicomp standing on a pedestal, which again looked like it had been standing there for a thousand years. Even the air was unpleasant, stale.

"Hal," I called the main mind spirit I usually communicated with. I couldn't communicate with fifty at once, could I? I named him after the book "2001: A Space Odyssey" that came out five years ago, from which I drew many ideas for the future. It's funny that ordinary people think about miracles more than mages. "How many years passed this time?"

"563 years, master. There were many possible variations and simulations took considerable time," he spoke like me. And this isn't surprising, since his matrix is mine. However, he isn't me, since he only has knowledge necessary for work, and I deleted personal information at the matrix creation stage. "Four variants of battle form and one basic turned out."

"Show me," I ordered, restoring damage and sending cut hair inside. A person not knowing the device would get confused in the intricacies of connections and most likely break the complex device. However, even before that, it would most likely self-destruct. Though I don't consider myself the smartest, and some master artificer, charms expert, or curse-breaker could crack the protection, but would get empty storage with mindless spirits. And without them, the magicomp is useless.

"Battle form type one, destroyer," a colored illusion of a dragon appeared before me, only without wings. It could be rotated, enlarged, or even viewed from inside. "Maximized ability for fire, size, strength, and defense. Thickened dragon scales, under them acromantula chitin, dragon muscle structure but Hayato's fiber ratio. Bones strengthened and now completely cover chest and back, overlapping. Internal organs duplicated, including heart. Can release not only fire but web from mouth. Disadvantages — size and speed, wings removed due to great weight."

"Not bad, but the disadvantages are serious. What's next?"

"Battle form type two, titan." This time a dragonized Hayato spun before me, which looked quite frightening. "Balanced form in strength and speed. Skin reinforced with dragon scales, claws grown on hands, legs bent backward for greater speed."

"Wait, which creature did you take this from?" I was surprised.

"From werewolves."

"Good, continue."

"That's basically it. Other parameters are average."

"And what's the third battle type?" I inquired.

"Next is speed type. Also bipedal, since you can manifest your martial arts master abilities so far only in humanoid form." A creature similar to me appeared, only lean on top, with quite muscular legs bent backward and long, needle-like nails, as well as partially covered with chitin, partially with small scales.

I understood why all forms didn't have six arms or five eyes — how would you use them? No, you could get used to it, but in the dragon's case, at least flying ability and moving in a dragon body came with his matrix, but here I'd literally have to relearn. "Incredible speed is achieved through leg structure, light weight, and chitinous exoskeleton. Also, all types have the ability to feed on sunlight thanks to nymph chlorophyll."

"That's why they're all green," I nodded.

"Fourth battle type, in our opinion the most successful. Incubus." The speed type illusion disappeared and a new one appeared, similar to my harpy form but green, with red hair, more distinctly defined muscles, green snake pupils, and more predatory wings burning with fire. Really beautiful. " Is a continuation of your second form's development. Maximized abilities to control fire, veela aura, and plant control. Improved flight ability and added claws with acromantula poison. In theory, there will be better interaction with abilities received from your familiar."

"So you're not sure?"

"We haven't tested it in practice."

"Well, that's fine. What about the basic form?"

"That was the most difficult, since if an unsuccessful metamorph form will simply consume more magical energy to exist, any addition of foreign genes or different structure brought discord to the well-tuned structure. So you understand, of the 563 years of calculations, we only spent two months calculating battle forms, and the rest on this one. We also had to calculate your familiar's future influence on you, which simplified work in some places and complicated it in others."

An image of me appeared, but only externally. Revealing the body layer by layer in the illusion, Hal began explaining, "The base is taken from Furinji, who by default has two hearts and a doubled circulatory system, strengthened ligaments, bones, and muscles with one type of fiber that has no human analogues."

"What about pink ones?" I inquired. I hadn't read many books on medicine and biology of not just humans for nothing before creating the matrix. And scanned twenty times more into the magicomp.

"Pink ones aren't as enduring as red and not as strong as white. Hayato's fibers are both extremely strong and extremely enduring."

"That's understandable. What else?"

"His bones consist of light and flexible organic metallic alloy, which, strangely enough, his organism creates itself. In your form, we reinforced them with acromantula thread, which doesn't yield in strength and in some ways surpasses it. We did the same with ligaments, skin, and muscles. Also ribs now completely overlap both hearts and lungs.

We also managed to change chlorophyll color, so your organism will partially process CO2 into oxygen and send it to blood. You can also forget about lactic acid in muscles — it simply doesn't have time to accumulate, breaking down instantly. From werewolves we added better immunity against poisons and diseases, as well as regeneration — everything else in them was worse. From dragons we only managed to insert improved lung structure and more perfect six-chambered hearts."

"You've piled on too much. Will I even be human after this? And will I be able to have children?" I felt somewhat scared.

"This is also thought through. In case of danger, your reproductive organs can completely go inside and not suffer from impact. All changes will be passed to your children, since they'll be built into DNA. But I must warn you that for the fixation ritual, blood of all used creatures will be needed, though not necessarily the same ones."

"Well thanks, you've cheered me up." I had to postpone joy for now and, having fixed the magicomp, went to think.

Well, suppose I can easily get Dorothea's and Alan's blood, as well as acromantula — there are plenty of them. I can even ask Hayato, but where do I look for a super-rare opal-eyed dragon? A puzzle, since I released the only one in the reserve, and he later showed up in Australia, where he chased kangaroos after a female's refusal.

However, little time remains, so I'll decide what I can manage, and finish the rest already in England.