CHAPTER 383: Testing the Crawler

When I opened my eyes again I felt fluffy fur around me. Garm's right head turned towards me and said: "Ah, you are awake again. The lab did not have proper furniture so when you fell asleep from exhaustion I decided to serve as your chair, or bed, or however you want to call that."

I looked around. I was leaning against Garm who was curled up on the floor. "Oh, thanks. How long was I sleeping?"

"Not too long, perhaps 15 minutes or so. After Hatsumi assured everyone that you are fine they left to prepare some refreshments. I expect they will return shortly. Your crawler is still here and everyone is looking forward to testing it." Garm said.

I stood up and stretched, then I went over to my crawler, who was still just standing there. It seemed fine and the spell animating it was stable. I was just inspecting the filling port when my friends returned.

"You are supposed to rest." Helena said, as she entered.

"I feel fine again, that nap worked great. Garm is a good bed." I replied.

"I am indeed known for my fluffiness." Garm stated.

"We brought some sugary snacks to help you recover." Hatsumi said, while carrying a tray of pastries.

"The cinnamon rolls are great." Cassie added, then she took a bit from the pastry in her hand.

"That sounds good." I admitted and left the crawler.

"You might want to wash your hands before you touch them." Skadi pointed out.

She had a point so I took a moment to ensure my hands were clean before indulging. The pastry was buttery, nicely glazed and full of cinnamon. My friends had even brought some coffee and soon I was feeling even better.

After having our snacks it was time to really check out the crawler, so we went outside for some experiments.

"I don't have anything for your blood compartment prepared so let's just use water for now." Cassie stated.

"You could have added a port for the water compartment as well. Summoning water can be expensive, mana wise." Helena noted.

I pondered that. "It does have a connection to its mouth for spitting it, nothing should stop the crawler from drinking."

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"That should work for the blood as well then, so why did you add the port?" Skadi asked.

"Well, the port is easier to use I suppose, especially in combat. It is also meant for small vials while we want a lot more water than that. I doubt that I would carry a bucket with me." I replied. "But we can improve the design in the future, depending on what works."

Our first test was a simple spit. The crawler filled its tank with water and shot some of it at a target dummy. It was made from wood and straw and we were able to borrow it from the guards. We were running our tests in the courtyard of the Frost's castle and some of the soldiers came to watch.

The spit of water hit the dummy with quite a bit of force but it failed to do any real damage. However, it showed that the spitting part worked nicely. Next I decided to go for necrotic water. It had not planned a very sophisticated spell that would trigger on impact, I just wanted to infuse the water with enough death mana that it would do some damage.

"Ok, let's see if this works." I muttered as I touched the crawler's abdomen.

"Wait, can I, uh, can I observe how you are doing that?" Rose asked.

"Sure." I replied.

Rose had watched the crawler with a lot of fascination and seemed really excited as she placed her left hand on the crawler. "I will try to see what you do with the mana. Maybe I can do something with blood in the future, or learn necrotic water spells too?"

"You have the affinities so go for it!" I encouraged her. "This is new for me as well, I am trying to find the best way to push my magic into the water. It is inside an undead I control so the natural resistance a body has to foreign intrusion does not apply. Now I need to find the best path since I don't want to infuse the entire undead. Thankfully it does not care about death mana so I won't damage it by accident but it would be a waste to randomly push mana into it."

"How do you make the mana stick to the water?" Rose asked.

"Necrotic water is a combination element, like blood. I suppose you have a natural understanding of blood as a vampire, so you are not realising that you're combining earth and water. Maybe you should talk with Skadi and get her perspective on blood magic. Anyway, for the water you need to control the water with your water affinity, then pull some more mana from your core, turn it necrotic and funnel it into the water control rune." I explained.

"Can we control the water if it belongs to the crawler? Would it be easier if it swallowed the water instead of creating it itself?" Rose asked.

"Good question, I suppose once the water is inside the crawler for a while it would not matter. It would naturally become a part of it, being exposed to the crawler's mana for a while. Maybe we need to treat the infusion like a joint casting though? Then again, a tier two can't really do joint casting." I replied.

"When I used Goro's frostfire I was able to connect our elements." Kaito stated. "I initiated something similar to a joint casting and ordered him to accept, then he supplied me with his frostfire to enhance mine. I do admit that some of it was instinct."

"Hm. Let's try the joint casting route. I will try to connect to the crawler and simply order it to accept everything. It can't form spell runes in its mind but all I need is access to the water it stores." I mused.

I used my link to my undead and ordered it to help with the mana flow towards the water tank. While it worked it did not seem too efficient, since the crawler did not comprehend magic, and it lacked any intuition for what I was doing. Perhaps I could come up with a proper command to help it perform more efficiently?

For now it did work but it seemed harder than it should. At this rate I would not be able to use a complex spell. However, after a few minutes I had a crawler with necrotic water inside it!

"Go crawler, show us your necrotic spit!" I said.

The undead complied and spit on the target dummy. Wood and straw turned dark where they were hit. They rotted before our eyes.

"Uh, that worked." I stated.

"That water would seep right through armour…" I heard a guard mutter.

"This is awesome!" Helena cheered. "You need an army of them!"

"And you need one that spits explosives!" Cassie added.

The concept needed some refinement but overall it seemed to work. Now I just had to try the blood compartment, once Cassie could mix something for me. And perhaps I needed to double check that she did not create something explosive.