“Mama, can this be Mo Na’s toy?” As she said that, Mo Na pointed at the corpse of the Fire Devouring Fish, clearly excited by the potential she saw. “The pointy things can be daggers and the pretty shinies can be little shields.”
“So you’re saying you want to turn its teeth into weapons and its scales into shields?”
“Mhm, mhm.” Mo Na gave me an excited nod before continuing: “Mo Na’s head is just packed full of things to try out right now.”
“In that case, give them a try then.” Given how the grimoire was when it was with me, it most likely taught her Dark Alchemy as well. With that in mind, I neatly laid out the scales, bones and teeth of that fish in front of Mo Na and said in a voice brimming with expectation: “Sweetie, how about starting off with some daggers and shields for now?”
“Got it, Mo Na will get right on it.” A little proud of herself, she stuck her nose into the air and summoned forth a black mirror of mana with a wave of her right hand; the classic start to any Dark Alchemy, as shown by the grimoire.
With that settled, the rest of the process was basically grunt work and mana channeling. Naturally, I wouldn’t allow my little sweetie to handle such heavy lifting so I had No.3 help her toss the materials into the mirror instead.
“Toys, toys, toys, toys…” Mo Na nodded her adorable little noggin as she continued chanting –was it even accurate to call them toys?
Not too long after that, the black mirror disappeared and was replaced by an extraordinarily diminutive dagger lying on the ground. For the most part, it was an ordinary looking dagger that kind of reminded of a kunai from those ninja movies. At just 10 cm long, thanks to the lack of materials put in, it was the perfect size for a little devil like Mo Na.
“Look Mama, Mo Na made this herself!” As if she was making an offering to me, she handed over the dagger with both of her hands before excitedly hopping back onto my shoulders, legs apart and arms wrapped tightly around my head: “Mama, look at what Mo Na made!”
“Alright alright, Papa will have a look.” As I lowered my not-so-willing daughter onto the ground, I asked, out of curiosity: “Other than a dagger, what else can you make, Mo Na?”
“A shield!” Eager to prove her point, she summoned another black mirror of mana and had No.3 toss the bones of the Fire Devouring Fish into it. Mere moments later, a little buckler, roughly 20 cm in diameter, took shape and was offered up to just like before with two hands and a wide grin. “Look Mama, this is the shield Mo Na made!”
‘I wonder…’
Buckler in my left hand and dagger in my right, I ran the tiny blade across the surface of the shield. The moment they hit each other however, a resounding clang echoed in the air. ‘Don’t tell me those bones and teeth were made from metal?’
“Big 4, come test out the strength of these weapons.” I handed over the items in question for a quick experiment.
Receiving them, Big 4 started off by raking his claws across the shield –he managed to leave a scar along its shiny surface. Next, he gave the dagger a few test waves but soon discovered it wasn’t too suited to him so he just decided to munch on it. *Clink* The dagger snapped…
Big 4 ,slightly red in embarrassment, awkwardly reported the results: “Master, I think it…broke…”
‘What do you mean you think it broke, it clearly snapped in half, with a resounding *clink* no less!’
“Mo…Mo Na’s toys…waaah…bad man…Mo Na’s toys…” Seeing her handcrafted toys destroyed and damaged like that, Mo Na immediately turned on the waterworks and hugged me even tighter: “Pay up, Mo Na wants you to pay…WAAAHHH…”
“Master…” Big 4 groaned, throwing me a look that seemed to say that he had been wronged. To be fair, he was,in fact, wronged. It was me who told him to experiment on those weapons after all; although I didn’t expect them to snap like that either… ‘nice set of choppers by the way.’
Honestly, it would be remiss of me to have my little followers take the blame for me, but if they don’t, who will?
Like a wise man once said, “I’m fine with all my teammates dying as long as there’s still one person carrying the team.” ‘Rest in peace, Big 4, I’ll remember you on this day every year and even burn three sticks of incense for you, I hope you don’t mind this little bit of sincerity from me…’
Naturally, the matter ended amicably with Big 4 promising to find materials for Mo Na to craft more toys.
Having signed that unfair pact, Mo Na immediately broke into a radiant but clearly devious grin, as she went back to hugging me once more: “Mama, Big 4 is going to serve me from now on.”
“…”
‘That little scamp, where did she learn to scam her old man like that?!’
At the end of the day, Mo Na’s little bit of mischief was nothing but a short interlude in our journey. After that experiment with Big 4, I managed to confirm that the weapons crafted by Mo Na possessed a strength rating higher than the materials themselves. Although the boost wasn’t actually much, it was noticeable enough for Big 4.
Simply put, Mo Na had a bright future ahead of her.
Following that, I had Big 4 capture another Fire Devouring Fish which I used to craft a buckler and dagger. However, the results weren’t as stellar as Mo Na’s. Furthermore, because I no longer had the grimoire with me, I ended up spending double the amount of mana I usually would have…
‘Awkward…looks like I have to rely on Mo Na for the crafting from now on.”
Because we had no particular destination in mind, we could only proceed aimlessly for now.
My original goal was to find Yi Yi but because of a sudden forced change in plans, I ended up in Purgatory and my new goal was to, once again, find my way into Abaddon. After all, until I find Yi Yi, the issue with my gender would never get fixed. That was definitely the biggest problem facing me right now…I honestly don’t want to hear Mo Na call me Mama anymore…
Having wandered around for quite a bit, we managed to confirm that we were in a deserted region. In the week since we came here, we found no signs of other devils and our lives basically revolved around living off the lava lake and its creatures. Red Lotuses were hard to come by, as expected; other than the seven we found on the first day and the three we found the day before, we found no more.
For the most part, the creatures on the surface of the river weren’t too much of a threat, seeing as the majority of the creatures we encountered were Demon Fire Worms. From time to time, we would spot a Fire Devouring Fish chasing after said worm. During such situations, I would often have No.3 and Big 4 catch that fish, skin it and then reserve the materials for Mo Na to play with.
The fishes we encountered so far were mostly at the level of Two-stars though there were some One-stars. Because One-stars were considered infants, we rarely saw them loitering around.
Naturally, those weren’t the only creatures we encountered, we found some salamanders as well.
The Demon Fire Salamanders were the evolved form of the Demon Fire Worms and looked remarkably similar to the Chinese Giant Salamanders back on Earth. However, they weren’t as pudgy looking as those lizards, in fact, they looked almost slender in comparison. Their skin was the color of the lava and magma, making them really hard to spot while they swam around in the lake. Another striking feature of theirs was a pair of horn-like objects that grew backwards in at a 45 degrees angle, and were covered in tiny spikes.
The first time I laid eyes on their impressive appearance, I couldn’t help but wonder exactly how did that, that being those earthworm-like Demon Fire Worms, turn into that…however, the moment I remembered those ancient Chinese myths about snakes turning into dragons…it suddenly didn’t seem all that strange anymore.
‘The world is truly a wondrous place…’
The salamanders were a hardy bunch of creatures, being at least as strong as those fishes. However, they didn’t possess the body splitting ability of the worms, though they possessed a powerful regenerative ability of their own as well. As long as they were given enough nourishment, they could basically recover from anything, even from losing their lower half.
By now, I had already experimented on these lizards thanks to that salamander Big 4 brought back a while ago. It was a newly evolved salamander and wasn’t really all that different from a worm. Thus, Big 4 was able to easily capture it along with a Fire Devouring Fish.
As for why he had a Fire Devouring Fish, that was because the two were duking it out when Big 4 stumbled upon them.
The two of them ended their fight in a pyrrhic victory for one side. The salamander’s teeth weren’t any worse than the fish’s teeth in terms of attack power. However, the salamander didn’t possess those tough scales the fish had. Still, it made up for that by being stronger and having a much more advantageous body shape.
In the lake however, the fish was a better swimmer than the salamander though its lack of strength still caused significant problems for it.
For our experiments, I first had Big 4 rip off half of the salamander’s body, causing a waterfall of blue blood as he did so. However, mere seconds later, the bleeding miraculously stopped and the wound even began regrowing before our very eyes. Perhaps it was merely my imagination, but while it was regenerating, the salamander seemed to be almost shrinking.
“Throw the fish into its mouth.” I ordered.
Big 4 dutifully obeyed and tossed the fish into the injured salamander’s mouth. Clearly not possessing much intelligence, the salamander merely chomped down on the meat, not paying us any heed at all. In fact, it didn’t even bother spitting out the fish’s teeth and bones, choosing instead to swallow them whole in a bid to fill its own belly as soon as possible.
Seeing that, I couldn’t help but wonder if their bellies were made of iron or something.
Upon devouring the fish, the salamander underwent an astonishing change. Its regeneration rate sped up to the point where I could see the meat reforming without any effort at all!
“Look Mama, that thing can grow itself.” She gleefully stared at the salamander as if it was a toy. As for what she planned on doing with said toy, I had no way of knowing.
“Go fetch some meat, any kind of meat.” I had No.3 fetch more meat for the salamander in order to further test out its regrowing powers.
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