Soon after Kaden had made his stance very clear, Emina left. Kaden assumed to most likely report to her people. He wondered for a moment, if they would attempt anything to force his hand, but Kaden figured it didn't matter. He was still constructing the formations for Nosran.

The biggest one was nearly complete. Nosran had also managed to acquire the remaining materials. The necromancer himself was very pleased. The formations were already functional, but just lacked the power the finished product would have.

Kaden himself was also pleased. He was able to show his skill with formations. He had never made any of such larger and permanent formations, but now he could see his work quality was even pretty high. In the future he could sell his services, if he really needed crystals or anything else, such as the black fragments in Nosran's case.

There was also another matter that Kaden was happy about. He had been struggling with adjusting Devour. Any extra concept, more specifically the more intanglible ones, concepts of ideas, like mana types of choose, test or something were difficult. A little bit could be easily used, but to have the actual effect quickly increased the complexity. More so to use it with rest of the spell concepts. Kaden found himself entirely incapable of casting the spell. He wasn't sure, if it was due to his affinity or whether he just was unable to cast the modified spell correctly.

Nosran happened to give suggestion that solved the problem and, even better, without any extra concepts. It was merely clever method of mana channeling when casting the spell.

Kaden wasn't sure where Nosran's zombies had dragged in the man or why Nosran had felt safe to do so, but one night a soldier belonging to Sacronan was dragged down into the lab. He assumed the soldier was a scout or something and had offended Nosran somehow. As to how he hid the fact from rest of the soldiers, Kaden didn't know.

At any rate, Kaden ignored the screams and acted as if the man was already a corpse as he tied the man on the working table as by Nosran's instructions.

"Want to try separating the pieces?" Nosran casually spoke to Kaden as the soldier screamed in terror on the table and being completely ignored. "Separating good parts is usually what more advanced necromancer apprentices do. As far as I can tell, you have a bit of life mana in you. Unless you learn to convert it to death, you won't be much of a necromancer so you need not think of being apprentice or anything, but otherwise you have good mind for the job and eye for precision."

"Sure", Kaden replied. He ignored Nosran's mention of life mana. People at Kaden's level should only rarely have that kind of mana. Death mana that necromancers used could be usually generated by causing death or some other means, but to create life? That was another thing.

Usually only those who worshipped Emmiah had some that they could use to heal. At least below certain level, that is. Kaden surely wasn't worshipper of Emmiah. His source of life mana was clearly something else. To begin with, he had not been able to use it directly, but its presence did make his body extremely tough. Worshipper of a god should be able to use mana that was given to them. In fact, Kaden was pretty sure, if Nosran hadn't discovered his background related to a phoenix, he was pretty close.

Then again, at some point Nosran had simply stopped observing him in detail, but did occassionally reference something like the life mana. Nosran was a necromancer and would sense death and life easier and that was as far as the man was going to speak of it. It did made sense. Phoenixes usually involved at least True Magi or at least strong Condensation stage expert who managed to run into a young phoenix. Nosran probably didn't want to get involved in any of that. It was out of his league.

If Kaden hadn't made this assessment of Nosran about his behavior, he would have considered killing him, but he chose not to. Instead he concentrate on his work.

Nosran still ignored the screaming soldier on the table as he instructed in detail on how to separate the body parts and organs and showed the right tools to do so. Kaden did the same and ignored the pleading and screaming as he prepared for work.

"A question", Kaden said just as he was about start hacking the horrified soldier into parts with a specially prepared meat cleaver. "Why don't we just, say, pump out all the blood in his body. Then fill it with your alchemical concoctions and as such ensure immediate preservation and a perfect body to reanimate?"

"Thats a good question!" Nosran replied and arranged storage containers for the parts that soon would fill them. "It would, in fact, result in acceptable quality zombies. In a large scale combat, it is a good idea to just reanimate corpses that are generally intact to replace lost or damaged minions." Nosran was silent for a moment. "But thats all they will be. With proper methods, a construct or a zombie can even be more powerful than the original source of their parts. You cannot add mana streams or extra functionality, if you just reanimate a corpse."

"Makes sense", Kaden said finally silenced the soldier on the table by separating his head from his shoulders. Nosran had his way to contain the spewing blood easily into some of the jars he had brought.

"For example, you can add a mana stream into a zombie, that, when cut or weakened enough, will flip a sort of switch within the zombie that alters its automatic behavior", Nosran continued explaining as Kaded continued hacking the body into parts. "If its damaged or low on mana, you can make it automatically go aggressive, rush to your opponent without any sense of self preservation and trigger, for example, a self destruction. You can even add some poison containers within the zombie causing toxic explosion."

Nosran stopped for a moment and rubbed his chin.

"Wonderful!" Nosran said then. "I just had a good idea to fix that spell of yours that I also want to add on my minions. Once using Devour, have the material and mana stream pass through a thin part of your own flesh. Have it be fragile, but strong enough to allow accetable amount of mana and materials to pass through. Now, if its harmful to you, this weak part should be damaged and break. Its only minor wound to you, but it will cut the spell mana stream and have it ground to halt. Also a minor backlash is to be expected, but better it than to absorb poison or harmful mana, yes?"

Kaden stopped hacking the soldier into pieces and thought about the idea. It was so simple. Why had he not thought about it earlier. There was no need to even use any strange mana types. Perhaps in the far future when he was much stronger, more robust mechanism could be arranged, but right now it was a very acceptable solution.

While Kaden knew he was good at manipulating the mana types he had affinity for, he actually did not have a very wide experience on spell construction. Nosran, as a necromancer, likely had far more extensive understanding of such matters.

"I will try the idea", Kaden said and continued his work.

Kaden tested the idea with mildly harmful things and the trick did work. Before he was able to absorb much of anything at all, the pathway, that the mana and material stream was forced to pass through, snapped and the spell did indeed end instantly. Kaden was originally somewhat questioning whether it would hold on when useful things passed through, but with some adjustments he was able to reach functioning state. He assumed he would have to adjust it over time until he was able to solve the problem entirely, but for the time being what happened with Nelsen shouldn't happen again.

An extra month passed until Kaden was done with Nosran's formations, who was more than happy to have his laboratory enhanced in such a way. As agreed, Nosran gave Kaden his two black fragments. To Kaden, in his mind, the entire transaction was an absolute win.

Kaden examined the parts by himself for a lengthy period of time. Nothing happened when Kaden put the pieces together. As far as he could tell, there should be between one and three parts. One, if it was larger than the rest and three, if the parts were very small. Thus, he expected the number be two more. The shape was a circle with edges that made it seem more like perhaps a cogwheel.

Otherwise Kaden found no extra functions or any other relevant discoveries no matter what he tried. The fragments had always been mysterious and seemed to work on their own. Not even material was something Kaden could say anything about.

Still, Kaden expected the parts, now put together, would be stronger whenever it did trigger and do something. He still hoped to discover more once he grew stronger. That they worked at all was already a good thing.

Even if Kaden's work with the formations was complete, he continued working with Nosran. His wounds had been slowly healing and they should be gone entirely in a few extra months.

Emina came once with some offers that Kaden expected were supposed to entice him. Indeed, the elves didn't want to even chance that their interest would be discovered. Even anonymous message to saints would eventually result in them likely discovering who sent it.

Kaden wondered why the elves trusted him to be the middle man. Emina should have described his unscrupulous personality so he wasn't sure where the trust came from. Perhaps he was just the least likely to leak anything. He had made it very clear what he thought of churches and the empires. If that was the case, elves were in the right. Unless there was some clear benefit doing so, Kaden would not speak to anyone.

He still declined Emina yet again who left without saying anything.

Kaden had gone to give a look at the remnant site a few times and the Sacronan's military was building some kind of construct there. Kaden had not seen anything like it before, nor was he familiar with anything similar from saint side, but the function was clear. It was some kind of a drill. It seemed the remnant outer walls were extremely tough material and Sacronan wasn't just going to give up.

Yet, due to this activity, Kaden saw no chance to attempt go in. If Sacronan had not found a way in and had seen best to construct a drill there just to punch a hole through, there was probably no way to enter anyway.

Perhaps the elves did know of such way? Or perhaps they were just laying their plans ready for the right moment? Let Sacronan get in, have Kaden inform saints. Start a fight. Use chaos to advantage.

Kaden wasn't certain of that either. Only one thing he was certain was that he would not get in nor would he gain anything by acting early.

There was another thing that concerned Kaden. Why didn't the saints notice anything? Sure, Brit was a fringe location, but surely at least some people from Saint Empire passed by and also by the ruins. With the drill there, it would surely be noticed. However Sacronan had discovered the remnant remained a question, but perhaps saints just never came because Weils, whose job was to search that remnant and come back with information, was quite dead. Saints just may not have gained the information at any point.

It might be that Sacronan also patrolled the area. Kaden himself was able to look from far further than probably anyone else of his level so he would not be within patrol range. Elves were talented with magic used for stealth and they knew the land perfectly.

Kaden wondered for a moment, if thats where the soldier he had hacked to pieces came from. A patrol that went a bit too far and attacked Nosran while doing so. That would only leave question as to why no one came to look for missing patrol. Maybe someone did and didn't just care? A local that happened to just be relatively near, but wasn't going to be a problem. Killing such local would likely cause far more attention than to leave it be. A few lost soldiers might be an acceptable price.

Suddenly Kaden felt extremely dizzy!

His core pulsed in almost random manner for a while. Lights flickered and some of Nosran's nearby zombies walked against walls or acted erratically. Kaden heard a small explosion from the cellar where Nosran's lab was and a few curses after it.

What was happening! Kaden had never experienced something like this! It continued for a moment like wave after wave. With each wave Kaden felt his core pulse and mana around him behave chaotically.

Nosran came up from the laboratory. There were some burns on his robe, but he seemed fine. He also apeared to be unaware what was happening and gave a look towards Kaden who shook his head in return.

Eventually whatever it was quieted and Kaden's mana attuned senses could finally feel something he could understand.

"Its coming from the direction where the Sacronan's people are", Kaden said to Nosran. "Something has happened."

"I recommend we go see it", Nosran said. "I believe what we felt was enormous pulses of mana. Everything went haywire. I cannot say what could have caused such a thing, though. I doubt Sacronan brought an Archmagus."

"I would assume they finally did what they were doing and messed up", Kaden added. "Probably dug up something that probably should have been buried."

Nosran nodded.

"I hope it isn't some kind of mana storm that will lay waste to the entire area", Nosran said. "I don't want to have to leave everything behind just to survive."

"Indeed, we need to go there now", Kaden agreed.