The Hundred Reigns 243: The Workshop of Wonders (2) (Patreon)

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The amount of books written on slimes Simon could gather within half an hour and a narrow budget amounted to three, which Jym Coil devoured in an instant.

Simon couldn’t describe the process any other way. The inventor simply looked at a page, blinked, and then flipped to the next so fast he ran through hundreds of them within minutes while sipping his tea. 

“He has perfect memory,” Magda explained. “He sees something once and can recall it forever afterwards.”

Once he had burned his way through all the books, Jym Coil noted a list of alchemical ingredients and the quantities needed on a piece of paper which he handed to Simon. “I need them by today at seven.”

“I need to check if the ingredients are within our budget,” his wife replied. “I should show Simon his new residence too.”

Her husband frowned in annoyance. “Fine, today at ten then.”

Simon checked the list in awed silence. He knew from experience and Devil Forgemaster that the quantities were off, but the actual ingredients were correct. It shouldn’t take more than a few attempts to narrow down a workable recipe to create a sentient ooze creature. Most importantly, he was pretty sure no book on sentient slimes included this list.

“He doesn’t have a Class,” Simon muttered to himself upon following Magda to the third floor.

“I know,” Magda said with an amused smirk. 

“He built all those things, and he doesn’t have a Class.”

“I know,” Magda replied with a chuckle. 

“He extrapolated a semi-workable formula to create a sentient slime from three books read over lunch, and he doesn’t have a Class.”

“I know!” Magda let out a laugh. “He’s lightning in a human-shaped bottle.”

Simon didn’t believe it. There was no way this man didn’t have a Class or Perk of some sort to improve his intelligence. That wasn’t how things worked!

The house’s third floor was the actual living space, which mostly consisted of a kitchen and dining room, a bathroom, the bedroom Magda shared with her husband, a storage room, and an extensive library. 

“That’s where you’ll be staying,” Magda said upon showing Simon’s new home: a tiny room with a narrow bed, a dresser, an empty rack, and a single barred window. “My husband usually wakes up at dawn, so I make breakfast slightly earlier.”

“I can help with the cooking,” Simon suggested. 

“No, no, Jym is paranoid about germs and poisoning, and he follows a very strict diet. It’s better if I take care of that and bring him the food. Just focus on keeping the workplace clean and doing whatever he asks of you, and you’ll be fine.” Magda studied Simon for a second. “How did you know about the slimes?” 

“I’m something of a bookworm.” Simon coughed. “And I have a passing interest in monster breeding.”

“Truly?” Magda looked delighted for some reason. “Tell me, do you know the difference between a basilisk and a cockatrice?”

“It’s a trick question, since they aren’t actually related,” Simon guessed. “Basilisks are related to dragons and gorgons rather than cockatrices, but ancient scholars believed they were cousins of the latter since they can both petrify targets.”

“Very good. Wild cockatrices still have their stone glare, but we bred that out of the domesticated kind. Realizing that they and basilisks both developed that ability independently of each other is what led researchers to come up with the concept of convergent evolution.” Magda blushed slightly. “Sorry for rambling there.”

“Don’t be, I didn’t think anybody else was interested in those things besides my own sister.” Simon hesitated a second before asking a semi-bold question. “Actually, do you have books on the effect of miasma on living beings? Most specifically, livestock?”

His question amused Magda for some reason. “I do have a comparative study on the effects of miasma and mana exposure on chickens.”

“I’ll take it.” Simon raised an eyebrow. “You don’t look at me as if I were strange.”

“My husband rests in a bathtub to find inspiration because he thinks it improves his concentration and blood flow. Nothing you’ll say can surprise me.” Magda’s smile faded away. “One last thing. When you make purchases, don’t say you work for my husband or me. If anybody asks, you’re on a personal errand.”

Simon frowned in suspicion. “Is it about this Bert?”

“It’s just… better for everyone,” Magda replied evasively. “Trust me.”

It was about Bert. Simon would have Shabram investigate these people for certain. 

Completing Coil’s task didn’t take that long after following Magda’s instructions. Lampwick had plenty of magical item shops and alchemical reagent sellers to supply local inventors and factories. However, Simon decided to make a few alterations to the purchase after some thinking. 

“Those aren’t the quantities I asked for,” Coil complained when he assessed his purchase.

“I figured there was too little sulfur and too much mercury to stabilize the creature. Considering the limited budget Miss Magda provided and the financial burden a failure would put on you, I thought it would be better to avoid wasting money.” Especially if they couldn’t even afford to pay an assistant. “I’m sorry if I overstepped.” 

Coil stared at Simon. “Why are you here?” 

Simon had faced demons and dragons, but the sheer intensity radiating from this man’s eyes put them all to shame. “I simply want to work at the Pl—”

“The real reason,” Coil cut in. 

He’s sharper than a knife. “I want to meet the Crafter, maybe secure an apprenticeship with them, and working at the Planetary Exposition seems to be the easiest way to do that.”

“Pursuing an apprenticeship with the Crafter is a waste of time. They won’t teach you anything interesting.” There was no arrogance in that incredibly audacious statement. Jym Coil truly sounded like someone reciting an obvious fact. “Either way, you’re hired.” 

“What?” Simon blinked in surprise. “Even after I disobeyed you?”

“It was a test. I put in the wrong quantities to see if you would try to beguile me and delay my research. One of Bert’s spies would never let me complete a machine capable of potentially replacing them, or would have been afraid to correct me.” 

How paranoid. “What happened between you and—”

“How long do you sleep?” 

This guy just didn’t do small talk. “Seven hours at most?”

“Make that six and work your way down from there. That improvement is easily achievable with a healthier egg and vegetable-based diet. Magda will help with that.” Coil then began to mix the chemicals without waiting for Simon to answer. “Now clean and sterilize the equipment. I have a brain to cook.”

—---------

Simon spent the better part of the evening cleaning the workshop while Jym Coil meticulously brewed a sentient slime in a glass jar. An outside observer would have thought he had performed the procedure a thousand times before. 

He had to have a secret Class. Nobody was that good. 

Simon didn’t mind the menial labor since it helped him familiarize himself with the equipment. He had already used many alchemical tools in previous reigns’ bootleg laboratories, but Muse used more advanced, steam-based boilers and instruments than those used in Endymion. The chronometers in particular were expertly made.

What surprised Simon the most, however, was that very few of them involved enchantments in their design. The materials they were made of were also of unusually low quality for what should have been cutting-edge tools. Either his new employer had built them himself, or he had purchased the cheapest available products; likely a mix of both. 

He was convinced his new employer had either built or customized nearly every single piece of equipment to his personal specifications. 

“You may go sustain yourself upstairs and sleep,” Coil said in between two alchemical concoctions exactly one hour before midnight. “Six hours. No more.”

Simon was half-convinced that the man was a secret Chronomancer of some kind. “Yes, sir.”

Magda was true to her word and provided food on top of the lodging upstairs, alongside some company for dinner. Simon had to admit her soup was pretty good. 

“Mr. Coil is not eating with us?” Simon inquired. 

“He only eats once a day to avoid wasting time,” Magda replied. “It’s nice to have someone to talk to again. Most candidates usually run away before the day’s done.”

Simon could understand why. No normal person would ever work with that kind of man for nothing. “He’s… intense.”

“I know. I wonder if he’s human at all sometimes.” Magda winked at Simon. “He is, though. I’ve checked what’s beneath his underwear.”

Simon didn’t need that detail, but nodded politely. “Good to know.” 

“Did you have a sweetheart in Endymion?”

“I… I had.” Recalling Anna left Simon feeling rather morose. “We’ve… split up for good.”

“I see…” Magda wisely didn’t dig any deeper, for which Simon was thankful. “What made you decide to immigrate to Muse?”

“I felt I had to come here. See what this place was like, and if it lived up to the tales.” Simon thought of it as his penance for destroying Lampwick once before. “It’s not that different from my home in some ways.”

“I see what you mean. Every country has its own issues.” Magda smiled warmly. “Still, I’m convinced you’ll like Lampwick much better than Endymion. I’ll show you around on Magesday.” 

“Will Mr. Coil have no need for me on that day?”

“I’ll officially borrow you for the day,” Magda replied with a wink. “You’re our assistant, after all. I’ll need your help on some tasks.”

“Like what?” 

“Pretty much everything. I cook his food, do his laundry, his accounting, his event planning and publicity… everything required to ensure he can focus on science. I try to balance the books too.” 

Simon’s gut told him the ‘try’ part was the most important one. The couple’s situation didn’t sit well with him either. It sounded like Magda did everything so her husband could focus on his experiments and nothing else. That sounded… exploitative.

But then again, Simon had only been there for a day. He shouldn’t judge them until he had learned a little more. Maybe Coil was affectionate to his wife behind closed doors.

“Can you handle yourself in a brawl?” Magda asked out of the blue.

Simon smiled back. “I’ve been in a few fights.”

“Good.” Magda nodded to herself. “Some usurers and visitors have been… pushy lately, and I would feel relieved to have someone with me.”

“Is it connected to that Ludwig Bert I keep hearing about?”

“It’s… complicated.” The subject clearly made Magda uncomfortable. “All you need to know is that Ludwig Bert is a crook and a swindler who would love to run us out of business. Don’t believe anything his people say. They promise much and deliver nothing, then they discard you once you’re no longer useful.”

“I’ll take your word for it.” Bert had definitely screwed them over, like the Cobweb always did. “I didn’t hear good things about him from Captain Peter.”

“And I’m sure that’s only what slipped through the cracks. He’s well-connected and he’s got powerful friends.” Magda cleared her throat and handed him a pile of paper. “Anyway, here’s the study you wanted for you to enjoy before bed. I’m sure you’ll find it interesting.”

And indeed it was. The study recorded the biological changes in two groups of chickens, each exposed to intense concentrations of mana and miasma respectively since they hatched. The mana-exposed group resulted in bigger and more intelligent animals that showed increased longevity, health, and overall levels of happiness compared to their normal brethren. However, the study noted that these birds grew sick in mana-deprived environments due to their metabolism requiring more energy than they could produce themselves. 

In short, they had become elven chickens. 

The most interesting part of the study was the behavioral impact. The mana-enriched chickens gradually abandoned the usual pecking order hierarchy for something more… communal, for lack of a better term. Roosters and larger specimens equally shared food with the rest of the flock, and they were more likely to cooperate to solve logical problems while avoiding conflicts entirely. They made absolutely no attempt to escape their coop either. This implied that intense mana exposure actually altered minds to a degree. 

The miasma group’s changes were far more radical. Not only did half the subjects die early due to malformations or diseases, but most survivors showed increased aggression alongside a sharp surge in intelligence, strength, and individual initiative. No two subjects were entirely the same, with some developing bigger claws, wings capable of supporting flight, and even a petrifying gaze in one occurrence. Social organization also devolved into a brutal dominance game where the more lethal birds bullied the others for food and nesting, though two of the chickens apparently cooperated to escape confinement together. 

Most importantly, a handful of the surviving specimens didn’t require a miasma-heavy environment to survive compared to their mana-cousins or most of their fellow monsters. The study’s writer suggested that cockatrices might actually descend from similarly miasma-exposed wildfowl that managed to breed, alongside a fascinating hypothesis.

“The most important finding, I feel, is that the control group thrived in an environment fully deprived of either miasma or mana, which shows that life needs neither to survive so long as the soul can produce enough for the body on its own,” they wrote. “The mana-group’s results are especially interesting in that they showed traits similar to elves after exposure to conditions mimicking a manatree. This could imply that conventional wisdom that humans descend from mana-deprived elves has it backwards; that there is a possibility that at least some elven communities could instead descend from humans exposed to a manatree for long periods of time.”

Now that piqued Simon’s interest. Conventional biology posited that humans descended from elves, yet this study suggested that the reverse could be true; that elves were the result of human communities exposed to manatrees. Simon wasn’t sure what to make of this information and how it fit with what he knew of the Mana Goddess, but he was definitely curious. 

The impact of miasma exposure on the chicken also worried him. Intense and prolonged miasma exposure had already been proven to increase risks of psychosis, as shown with the likes of Lorimor. It just didn’t look like the Dark had any positive influence on those it touched beyond making them bigger and better monsters…

“There’s a minority movement among Musan academics that supports the Ultrabrimirian Hypothesis,” Magda explained over breakfast after they discussed the study. “It posits that non-sentient life arose on Brimir before the Worldtree first bloomed, and that primitive lifeforms were instead altered by its mana through a symbiosis process. The Manatrees harvested nutrients from dead creatures and fostered the growth of living ones in return, which eventually resulted in the birth of things like souls, sentience, and self-awareness.”

“But if so, then life should survive without any mana at all,” Simon countered. “And a body fully drained of its mana dies.”

“That’s the main argument against the theory. The normal chickens from the control group grew sick when the researchers drained them of their mana. It’s just that their metabolism evolved to sustain itself on what the soul can naturally produce through emotions and memory accumulation without relying on external help.” 

And even soulless anomalies like Gourmand needed to feed on others’ souls to maintain their personalities. Still, there were lifeforms without souls like viruses or bacteria, and thus no mana…

Magda gestured at him with her finger. “Come, I’ll show you something.”

Magda took them outside and into the windmill, whose door was unlocked. Simon heard cockatrice noises inside, and realized he was half right when he walked inside to find himself in a coop.

However, the creatures cooing inside the nest boxes weren’t exactly cockatrices. They were smaller and fluffier, with white feathers and a bulky mass that made the adults look bigger than dogs yet still smaller than their domesticated cousins. Simon counted half a dozen of them, with Jym Coil feeding a small flock of hand-sized yellow chicks gathering around him. 

“Morning, Jym,” Magda greeted him. 

“Morning,” her husband responded without looking at her, instead handing the chicks some grains. Simon understood enough of their clucking to tell they loved him very much.

“What’s this breed?” Simon inquired as he examined the birds more closely. “I don’t recognize it.”

“I call them chickatrices,” Magda explained. “Cockatrices-chicken hybrids.”

“Really?” Simon had never heard of a successful case of interbreeding before. “Where did you get them?”

“I raised them myself,” Magda replied proudly. “I used to be a Rancher, though I don’t use my Class much nowadays.”

“And you’re better for it,” her husband replied sharply. 

Simon recognized Rancher as a Vassal of the Ranger, one which focused on livestock rather than crops compared to its Farmer cousin. “How did you raise these creatures?”

“Through plenty of selective breeding and accidents.” Magda petted one of the beasts. “Between us, it wasn’t worth the effort. The eggs are so full of iron people said they tasted like swords, and they never sold well. But it did prove that chicken and cockatrices share a common ancestor.”

“The eggs are excellent for your health,” Coil said. “You should eat two to three each morning, Simon.”

“I guess I could try,” Simon decided before glancing at Magda. “This study… it’s yours, isn’t it?”

“It is,” Magda replied proudly. “I would like to do more of them once…” She cleared her throat. “Once we refuel our treasury.”

Simon wondered if he could help with that. Having an expert on animal husbandry could help him refine his own experiments with goats and cows. He hadn’t given up on breeding the perfect cattle minion army. This stay in Muse was sure to be interesting. 

However, his good mood faded once he emerged from the mill-coop to go clean up the laboratory. The dawn hadn’t yet risen, but his Dark Visionary senses and Perception had improved his eyes enough that he could see through the darkness easily enough. 

He caught it near the cemetery next to the house, a soundless and furtive shadow that vanished the moment Simon spotted it. Their steps produced no noise and they were gone in an instant, but he was certain of it. 

Someone was watching over the Coil estate. 

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