Arthan Griffon had been a monster, but also a genius who had reached an understanding of the healing arts that still baffled even modern mages.

Vastor believed that once he mastered the Madness, he would be able to set the foundations for new branches of Light magic and become a Magus just like Menadion did after improving Silverwing's work.

Alas, there was only so much that he could understand with the few fragments and blueprints of the Madness still available. On top of that, his ignorance about the Forbidden Arts made everything even harder.

To devote all the time that he could to Arthan's Madness, Vastor became a Professor at the White Griffon academy. Improving the teaching textbooks was child's play to him and gave him the perfect cover to look for people who might make up for his shortcomings.

Then, Vastor knew Duke Marth. Even as a youth, the future Headmaster of the White Griffon showed a talent and ingenuity like Vastor didn't have even during his heyday.

On paper, with just the Healer specialization, Marth was an average student. The truth, however, was that he not only aced every single class, but he also created and shared groundbreaking spells even during his fourth year.

Since their magical strength was similar, Vastor thought to have found a kindred spirit and waited for history to repeat itself. Yet even though Marth's bright blue core limited him, his brain made up for it by never running dry of new ideas.

He invented the Blood Resonance discipline that allowed to identify corpses on the battlefield and to recognize someone's bloodline. He perfected the regenerating arts and created new spells that made newly formed limbs able of adapting to their body.

Unlike Vastor, Marth's rise never stopped, allowing him to become an Archmage at twenty and a Professor soon after. To make matters worse, in the short time after his graduation, Marth had also learned Forgemastery and become a Royal Forgemaster with an ease that left everyone flabbergasted.

A few years later, when Manohar arrived at the White Griffon, Vastor knew he was facing a monster in human guise. Unlike everyone else before him, Manohar started the fourth year of the academy while barely twelve years old and gave lessons to his Professors more often than he received them.

He took the Battle Mage specialization only because it sounded cool and even though he soon got bored of it, Manohar still aced every one of his classes by barely skimming the books and with no practice.

After his graduation, he revealed to have also learned Forgemastery on his own. As a hobby, he said, because the academy's tools were too primitive for his taste and he couldn't trust idiots to do things properly.

Manohar's endless talent was only matched by his rudeness, yet despite the countless humiliations Vastor had to endure as Manohar dwarfed him on a daily basis, the two became friends.

Being a true genius, Manohar become engrossed by the mystery of the Madness and managed to fill many of the gaps in the blueprints. Unbeknownst to Vastor, Manohar discovered Light Mastery thanks to their work together.

Unbeknownst to Manohar, even though Vastor's understanding of the light element wasn't as deep, he still managed to improve each of Manohar's discoveries beyond what the easily bored genius could think, becoming the leading figure of the Body Sculpting field and even learning how to Shapeshift.

The Abomination's enthusiasm only lasted until the memory reached the part where it discovered that Manohar didn't mention such techniques solely because he had learned them on his own as a student by reading Vastor's books.

Then, the creature fell into desperation at the memories of how Vastor had been forced to become a Highmaster.

They were the secret weapons of each of the three Great Countries. Mages so powerful that they could start or end a war on their own. There was no honor in being chosen as the only Highmaster of his generation for Vastor.

The Royals didn't ask Manohar only because he was pathologically unable to follow the chain of command, let alone orders. Marth, instead, was in the middle of an important experiment that couldn't be delayed.

Vastor knew that those words were all polite excuses. That the truth was much crueler. They had picked him for the role only because they considered Vastor expendable.

Manohar and Marth were too precious to risk their lives in squabbles along the borders of the Kingdom. As a Highmaster, Vastor prevented countless wars by showing the prowess of the Griffon Kingdom to their neighbors.

He slaughtered entire villages overnight and thanks to Shapeshifting, he took down fortresses before their soldiers could even understand what was happening. All those feats reinforced the Kingdom's borders and damaged Vastor's mind.

His superiors in the army and the Association justified those murders with the greater good, but it was Vastor who had to raise his hand against helpless children, he who had to live with the images of the carnages burned into his eyes.

It was then that Vastor understood that the "greater good" was nothing but a lie invented by mediocre men just to keep their privileged positions of power. Life in the academy reinforced his convictions every day.

Those from magical bloodlines and even commoners would give their all to achieve greatness, whereas nobles would take everything for granted and put minimal effort into their studies.

'Nobles suck the blood of their subjects without giving them anything in return. They are useless parasites whereas, with those same sacrifices, a mage fueled by the Madness would live long enough to achieve great things.' Vastor said to his double who was wailing in pain.

The Master had spent years overcoming the traumas that the creatures now experienced one after the other. The Abomination relived all of Vastor's failures, his guilt for all the people he had sacrificed for years to no avail.

At least until he had met Xenagrosh. She taught him about the existence of Awakening and of what laid beyond: Abominations and Guardians. Abominations were similar to undead, but their potential was unlimited.

While undead would rarely achieve Awakening and be bound by Baba Yaga's faulty design, Abominations were the natural evolution of those who had reached the peak of existence through hard work.

Abominations were beings of pure mana, eternally young, and capable of accessing to Chaos Magic, something that no one else was able to do, whereas undeath was just a perversion of life.

Vastor despised the Guardians for not sharing their knowledge, considering them akin to the nobles who forced their subjects to live abject lives just to feel better about themselves.

Guardians protected an unjust balance and he knew that sooner or later his Organization would clash with them. To learn more about Guardians, he gathered their offspring and worked to restore their ancestral powers.

Together, Vastor and the Eldritchs progressed in restoring the Madness by leaps and bounds often with the unwitting help of Manohar, then of Balkor, and then even of Thrud.

The Blood Magus was a plague to the Kingdom but a source of inspiration for Vastor, who learned from him how to connect Abomination tissues to living beings and how to safely establish a hive mind.

His initial project involved the merging of several Abominations to form a creature with their collective wisdom and powers, but without a hive mind, there was only madness.