Bertram’s soldiers were the first ones to co back to life. Naked, they stared at .
“I am Percival, thirty-seventh [Prince] of the Empire. For the cri of following my idiotic brother against , you are sentenced to die until I grow bored of you. You already died once, as you can see on your notifications. Pretty neat, the red ssage in giant letters, eh?”
They knew they were at my rcy. It was unfair of to pin the bla on following my brother on them as they had no other choice but to be killed by Bertram if they didn't obey. While all of them stared slack-jawed at nothing in particular, reading their notifications, one of them knelt. “Your Highness, please have rcy.”
“And rcy I shall have. I have a new project. I want to create silk cattle, dairy cows to harvest milk from. Whoever among you don’t wish to fight and die and be reborn to further my goals, you can volunteer to beco a [Silk Dairy Cow].”
Silk-folk won lactate actual breast milk and they could breastfeed any child of any species. The logical conclusion was that I could create other kinds of creatures made of living silk, like dairy cows. Or [Silken Sheep]! It would be wonderful, I could even imagine them happily bleating as they went around grazing on cloth and grass alike. Sheep made of Living Silk whose wool was actual thick silk. Sotis I wove the silk strands to look thick and coarse like wool but still retain the softness of the silk. Maybe they would mutate just like the silk-folk, to other types of cloth, like the satin girl I once loved.
The soldiers didn’t answer. “C’mon guys. Fight and die until you can’t be brought back to life, or live a peaceful life as a cow made out of silk. No violence and you wouldn’t probably be butchered for at because who would eat cloth?”
But I could imagine the silk cows being butchered for their cloth.
“Look, if I get a group of ten volunteers, you can draw straws, and two winners will be [Cloth Bulls]. You’ll get all the cows for yourselves.”
How to identify sick bastards. Propose so kinky sick shit. See who grins. But I would need bulls anyway if I wanted to breed the silk cattle. Let’s see who would be willing to gamble on the rodeo lottery.
A few soldiers walked forward, hands covering their unntionables. “We’ll take your offer.” These were the sickos, the ones too queasy to die again writhing in agony, and the gamblers.
“Good, good,” I crowed. “Twelve volunteers, more than enough. You guys will do a mock fight against my soldiers. Then you’ll die in battle, and I’ll grant you a new life as silk cattle. Let’s go. The others, stay in the room, and please don’t die. It would be a waste of Exp.”
I equipped the twelve soldiers and let them fight my loyal guards, to the death. I stood as the general of the ho team, granting them my many leadership and inspirational boosts and buffs. The result was the guards wiping out the prisoners with only minor injuries. I collected the bodies and souls, then told them to debrief themselves as to what they did wrong and how could they help each other not get hurt in combat. None of them leveled up because everyone was on manual allocation. They didn’t need the extra levels and it would hurt their Proficiency progression.
Fast growth was a huge boon. The difficulty to increase Proficiency was quadratic after the fiftieth point. Which ant the difficulty of acquiring the hundredth Proficiency point was four tis as hard as acquiring the fiftieth point. Fast growth halved the Proficiency score for purposes of difficulty, making it four tis as easy to gain that point. And each level granted one point, plus one Fast growth. By that logic, on which point should you use the Fast growth? The first of the thousandth one? Most people didn’t have the choice as Proficiency was allocated automatically as they leveled. They wasted their points on the lower levels, crippling their ability to advance their Proficiency later in life.
That’s why the girls were still stuck on level zero, grinding away on the training grounds. They would beco very powerful thanks to that. But they were growing impatient and I knew I would have to let them get so levels, spend so points, earn so Perks.
I withdrew to the workshop side of The Secret Garden and prepared the calf bodies for the silk cattle. The process was familiar now, after creating thousands of silk-folk. I just needed to focus on the bovine anatomy instead of a human’s as a template. After the bodies were ready to co alive, I prepared the souls by removing their human life mories and blended body and soul together with Pandora’s help.
I didn’t create them in adult bodies because they needed to adapt and learn how to move around in their new forms. The souls were reborn just as if they’d been reincarnated by the System, without any mories or traits from their forr lives. Unless they acquired so level 200 capstone perk, which I doubted.
I also enchanted for each one of them the sa item I had on the Peapura, a necklace with a tiny Core sliver enchanted and engraved.
[Necklace of Livestock Sustenance]
Value: 35 gold coins
Effect: Livestock wearing this necklace from early age gains 10 Endurance and requires only a tenth of the normal food and water, and produces a tenth of the normal waste. They also grow 20% faster and produce 50% more resources.
With that, the peapura farm was a huge success. The hens laid three eggs every week instead of just two. A peapura egg weighed as much as ten chicken eggs and the ones I fard were considered a delicacy because of the [Harvester] bonus. I hoped to achieve the sa with the silk cattle.
I showed the silk calves to the girls in the Secret Garden.
“Dear Matriarch, they’re so cute!” Mona cooed as she hugged the silk calf. “It’s like a living stuffed doll.”
The calf mooed happily as Mona fed him her own silk. As a priestess of the Matriarch, she gained the [Spin Silk] Perk. It wasn’t [Living Silk] like mine, just ordinary silk.
“Well, these guys will grow and produce a lot of milk for us,” I said. “And they can graze old clothes or well, you can feed it with your MP.”
She grinned, “Can I keep it?”
“I don’t think so. I’ll get so silk sheep next, I can let you have a lamb.”
“Where do you get all these animals from?” Madge asked. “I never heard of silk cattle. There’s the exotic silk-folk from Auvanini, but silk cattle? What’s next, cotton birds?”
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I chuckled. Cotton birds, not a bad idea.
“But changing the subject, who was at the gates yesterday? You never told anyone.”
Now I sighed as my mood soured. “It was my brother Bertram.”
“His Highness Bertram? What did he want?” She asked, worried.
Mona was in a world of her own with the silk calf. I t Madge’s eyes and almost gave in to the temptation of forgetting the world, the Empire, and all that shit outside these walls.
“Please, tell ! What did Bertram want?”
I reached for her hand, and she did the sa. “He wanted this Palace. Sohow he got the bureaucrats to declare dead and he ca to take over the Palace with everything inside.”
“He didn’t, so what happened?”
“I showed him his mandate was invalid as I was pretty much alive, and he didn’t like it. So we fought.”
She lowered her head, “He’ll co back with more soldiers, more people. Bertram is quite influential with the knights.”
“Was. He won’t bother anyone anymore.”
She stared at and opened her mouth. I needed to refrain from diving in and kissing her. Madge approached and hugged .
“How are you feeling?” She asked with her head against my shoulder.
“Relieved, actually. We have fewer problems now.”
I caught Mona stealing a glance our way, her expression betraying the envy she was feeling. I let go of Madge and went to sit next to her and the calf. “Hey, are you sad you won’t get to keep her?”
She stared at and clicked her tongue, as if she’d given up on , “You’re clueless, Your Highness.”
I kept my face impassible.
“I have a question for you,” Mona continued. “How did you get these silk cuties? And how could you ordain us priestesses of the Matriarch? I’ve been reading the sacred litanies, and… Don’t you dare make that face, mister! I do read books, okay?” She pouted.
I swear I kept my face impassible.
“Answer !” Madge glared and cleared her throat. Mona softened her tone, “Would you please grant this boon, Your Highness? What’s your relationship to the Matriarch? You have Lady Nenandil’s favor, so I believe you are very close with the Goddess. Is it true that she walks the land among us mortals?”
I had to laugh, which made my twin sister’s cheeks puff even more. “Yes, she walks among us mortals, for she too is mortal. Like everyone else, she dies and cos back to life all the ti. Now, playti is over. I’m taking you guys back to the surface, I have work to do.”
“Wait but...”
I teleported them back to the tree in my apartnt. “See to the construction of the corral for the silk cattle. I’ll be working downstairs until tomorrow.”
“They are figuring it out themselves. You have to tell them!” Nenandil urged.
“After I fix things here, I’m going to request our Labyrinth pass. Once underground, I’m going to ditch the escort with the two of them and tell them the whole truth.”
With my tails exposed, I started to draw the spell diagrams for the sex change spells on stone slabs, adding runes. This way, I could make the best of my affinities and make sure the spell was right before I activated it. I could even test the ritual slab with a “volunteer” to see if it was working properly.
I had four slabs, one for each operation. Remove or add for each of the female or male organs. Since they would be permanent, I could make good use of them later and spare the trouble of drawing them again. I filled the etched ritual circle with silver and powdered Cores, polishing the surface so nothing could damage the diagrams and runes.
Then I went to the room with the captured soldiers. “Another offer for you guys. I am doing so experints to change people’s sex. Who is up to try how is it to be a woman? I need three volunteers. Each will receive five kingtal coins and I’ll drop you off at Cyria far in the barbarian lands, away from the Empire.
This ti they volunteered quickly. I brought the three soldiers back with and placed them on the slabs. Activating the rituals, the Flesh magic did its thing, extracting the n’s genitals one by one, turning them into Barbie dolls. I experinted with the other slabs, reattaching the organs, adding female ones, and so on. It worked without a hitch. In the end, I returned them to what they were born with and gave them clothes along with a coin pouch.
“You make ugly won,” I remarked. After I placed a Geas and a ntal compulsion spell on them to forget and ignore anything about , I sent them to rest. “Here’s your reward, and you can go into that door. I’ll take you to Cyria later tonight.”
They bowed profusely. “You are most generous, Your Highness!”
“Are you doing it on yourself? I think it is a waste,” Nenandil said once we were alone again.
I crossed my arms, “Explain,” I requested.
“You need to fix the penis anchor and the testosterone production, just that. I don’t think you should remove anything you were born with. Think of it. You can use your shapeshifting to beco 100% female at any ti. You can even swap parts of your body to add the curves, chest, and remove the stubble you call a beard. In your future lives, it will be another option. I bet sothing will co up where having the ability to have fun both ways will be useful. Even if it is just to win a bet.”
“That’s weird. And unnatural.”
“Yeah. And so is people with horns, wings, and magical dusters hanging out from their butt. I’m asking you to keep the option in your repertoire.”
“And what if soone cos to inspect ?”
“Who can force the current you to show your unntionables? The only Attribute below two hundred you have is Soul, and that’s by three points. And I know how you can have a perfectly fine and working set of male organs right now, without any of this Flesh mumbo-jumbo.”
“You have my attention. How?”
“Use {Suppress Curse} on {Feminization}. Then you’ll be able to shapechange into a man, any man, for an hour. Since you can change only parts of your body, you can change it just down there. And an hour a day is more than enough.”
“Or I can just break that curse.”
“Or that. Gotta spend all that wealth you stole from daddy.”
She was right. How didn’t I think of that? {Feminization} was just (uncommon) by whatever standards it was asured back then, thousands of years ago. It should be easy to break or even convert with my current Status. I had 265 Magic, with a 127 bonus from [Spellcaster]. I had grown used to it and didn’t even bother to check {Erode Curse} after losing my previous [Spellcaster] Proficiency. It was still set to {Major Magic Deficiency} and it was at thirty-seven percent to break.
I took a small pile of assorted low-level Cores and started pouring Energy into breaking that curse, draining the Cores as needed. Several hours later, I’d broken and reversed the curse.
You gained the Perk,
Pleasing Physique (uncommon): Add half your Endurance score to Charisma tests when attempting to allure or please people with your sensual prowess. You can control your arousal on-demand, either keeping it in a resting state despite stimulation or getting ready for action in just a few seconds.
It was one of the base Class [Prostitute] perks. Lorna had it.
I stored the ritual slabs and fed the soldiers, then knocked the three volunteers unconscious and took them to an inn in Cyria. Back at my lab, I felt stupid for not rembering I could break the curse. But what Nenandil said was true. If variety was the spice of life, why would I squander the opportunity? The equipnt was already there, it just needed minor repairs.
To operate on my own person, I shapeshifted the stomach region into a lamia’s, leaving the hips and legs intact. The snake-like body allowed to bend over and face my own nether regions.
My problem was that the suspensory ligants that should pull the penis erect didn’t exist. Buscalpaun probably would use the female version of these, who pulled the clitoris and labia during arousal and attach them to the penis once he was done. He hadn’t made any note on the matter and the reason he took so long to cast the spells was that he was improvising on the spot.
He had a multi-purpose spell that allowed manipulation of the subject’s physiology on the spot. This one was even slower than assembling an improvised spell on the spot but it granted fine control, almost like a surgeon, so I used it.
So I took the ligant from a donor and added them in parallel to the female one, fixing it above the penis shaft and anchoring it to the pelvic bone. I also closed the urethra opening on the female side, connecting it to the penis. I didn’t have to pee but if I did, doing it as a male was objectively better. If the girls envied anything about being a man, was the ability to pee from the penis.
Using my newfound Perk, I could check if everything was working as intended. It was strange to have control over it on demand, but it made sense for the Class the Perk was intended to.
After everything was in order, I cast another spell to make the changes permanent. Flesh magic could permanently alter a person’s template. For example, even if I cut off my penis, it would regenerate just like an arm or eye would. I undid my transformation, then shapeshifted my hips into an ordinary man, with ordinary genitals.
So much trouble with such a simple solution.
Thinking on my new magical specialty, that ant I could use Flesh magic to add permanent scars or injuries to my enemies. Like removing soone’s arm and having them live with that until they found another [Fleshcrafter] that could change it back. Good luck on that one. Or I could make Frankenstein’s monster. Wouldn’t that be cool?
Maybe. But not right now.
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