Chapter 41: Six Elements (3)

“To put it simply, it is a component in the womb that joins together with semen to form a baby. They become stale after one month so they are replaced with a new one during menstruation. ...I wonder why this isn’t taught during physical education. Weren’t you guys taught when you were children?”

“Master, this knowledge is only taught at the alchemist class at magic academy. The healing classes ignore it, assuming that it is all superstition.”

“Oh, you are right. Those people from healing classes don’t have experience with dissecting humans. I see. Ah, and there’s the church covering up such knowledge too.”

Cough. Tullius then cleared his throat.

“Returning back to the main topic...when ova were used, we were able to create the homunculi. Then I realised. With just semen or ova, it was not sufficient to create living beings so we have to provide magic support to complete the baby. So this might mean that their lives were greatly shortened because we overused magic to supplement what they lack. As Charl would say, their spirits were dilute.”

“Ah, I see...”

Drei clapped her hands.

“...If that’s the case, then what happens if we put both semen and ovum into the cultivator? Are the EE-series from experimenting on that?”

“50 points. I wouldn't handle it as randomly as that. What I did was to use semen fertilised ova from elves.”

“Semen fertilised ova, you said?”

Once again, it was an unfamiliar term for Due and others. Though they were able to vaguely guess what it meant.

Though he didn’t feel too good about it.

“Exactly like it sounds. It is the state of the ovum after it accepts a semen. Another way of putting it is the state of the baby after the parts of the baby come together.”

As Due had expected, he couldn’t look straight on hearing that.

The state before it becomes a baby? To use that in an experiment? It was repulsive. Something was definitely wrong about using a fetus in a human experiment.

Several times he almost wanted to speak his honest thoughts but Due never opened his mouth. He knew that it was futile to do so nor did it seem like the rest would pay heed to him. He was the only person here enduring the discomfort.

Tullius continued triumphantly.

“And so, we obtained stunning results from the use of the fertilised ova experiment. The ova rapidly multiplied and with the aid of the homunculi cultivation technique, their growth was further accelerated. And just like that, they grew to the size of an adult. The key was the cultivation. And we were able to achieve growth that would normally take an elf hundred years, in a span of just ten days!”

“Y-You mean...the EE-series are not homunculi but growth accelerated elves!?”

Drei leaned forward in excitement. That was to be expected. Elves that were demi-humans blessed with extremely long lives could be created by man. Furthermore, they could be fully grown with less than 1 in a hundredth of the time normally taken.

That would be preposterous ordinarily. When he first heard about orichalcum, he thought it was already pretty unreal, but today, it far exceeded that.

Surely this level of achievement, which rivals even gods’ achievements, was unheard of.

“Exactly! So homunculi making technique is actually just a technique to cultivate lifeforms. Somehow, it was treated as a way to create magic lifeforms. Why is that so… I am rather intrigued by this mystery but that could be left for later. What I desire is the real technique and researching the history behind it might shed some light on that.”

Tullius spoke as if he was a child that had found a new toy to play with.

Well, that was fine. Nobody expected Tullius to have the nerves of normal people and be afraid of the gods.

“And that they have proper souls had been confirmed by the expert, Charl, yes?”

“Yup. Compared to the homunculi, these beings hold long-living, beautiful and strong souls. They would probably live much longer than the average human. But, y’know, they are waaaaay too innocent to be my playthings―”

“Even if you didn’t say so, there is no way I would give them to you. I have many uses for the EE-series. Replenishing the dwindling number of E-series, or perhaps use them for high level magic research...Anyways, aside from elves’ semen, we are limited by the difficulty of extracting ova. We could of course mass produce it, but the costs would add up quickly. They would be too wasteful to be used as your toy.”

They were describing the elves as though they were a set of exquisite tea cups. The disrespect they have for this long lived race may not even be found at slave markets.

And then, Due, who was just staring in wonder, was even more shocked by what was said next.

“And that’s just for starters.”

The air grew colder.

Even Drei, who was filled with enthusiasm, Charl who was boastful of his contributions to the research and Due, who was bored, had to second guess what they just heard.

The only ones unperturbed were Fem, who either had no emotions or her emotions could not be read, and Uni, who always acted together with Tullius.

“Wait, Oubeniel...The EE-series are just for starters? Such a great accomplishment is just starters?”

“What is it... that you plan to make?”

Their master smirked.

“Ah, it isn’t that special. You see, now that we have the EE-series, we are able to obtain a steady supply of elves, which would normally be expensive. Then I would like to have at least one...one which I can spend some time modifying without too big of a demerit.”

Tullius stood up from his chair and proceeded deeper in the room. There were glass cylinders near the wall. A total of 9 cylinders. They were probably cultivators for the EE-series.

Charl seemed to realise something suddenly.

“Wait a minute, only 9…? There should have been ten of these cultivation cylinders―”

Unconsciously, Due took a closer look at the cylinders.

He quickly found the tenth cylinder that Charl was talking about. It had been concealed in the darkness but was actually placed right at the center.  It had the same size as the other cylinders.

“Uni, please unveil it.”

“Yes, as you wish.”

Uni began to act upon receiving her master’s command.

And what appeared was,

“......”

A young girl that was immersed in an orange liquid. No, perhaps a young infant or a toddler was more appropriate. She floated in the cylinder while asleep.