"Where the hell is all the blood going?" Alex wondered as he watched the Pillbugs drown in his blood, still drinking away everything as though they had been thirsting for this their entire life.
They stopped drinking after a while, but only because they needed to absorb what they ate, and not because they were satiated. They took a day or two to digest everything they ate, and then they began everything again.
Alex wasn't sure how the Pillbugs functioned, so for now he fed them as much of his blood as he thought was needed. Just 10 of them were consuming so much, so he could only wonder how the situation would be when there were thousands.
He had checked the insects, and from the looks of it, only 4 of them were females, so only they could lay eggs. Still, since each insect could lay up to 1000 eggs, he would have many mouths to feed in the coming days.
He could only hope that they satiated based on the quality of the blood, which he would certainly improve in the coming days.
Aside from feeding the Pillbugs, Alex absorbed the Yellow Fog and Blank Canvas Pill during his free ti. He also tried learning Sunfire when possible.
When he wasn't free, he was shadowing Blueflake as she went around, taking care of her Serenading Cicadas. Blueflake went through the sa scenario of making pastes for the cicadas as food, and then sitting around them while they digested it, letting them understand her aura.
As the cicadas grew stronger, they would also learn her aura at the sa ti, allowing her to beco their controller very easily. The process was what they called Fastening, and it had only taken Blueflake half a month to fasten her first cicada.
The first of the cicadas had learned to trust her and consider her as their main reason for survival. In a way, what Blueflake did was make herself the Queen of the hive and have the other insects follow her command.
Doing so didn't take from one's Soul, but because the cicadas were Fastened to the essence of her Soul, it held a slight burden now, which was similar to forming a real bond, except one didn't suffer any backlash if the insects died.
In a way, Fastening was a temporary alternative to forming a bond, and it only worked with insects.
Alex remained by her side for the next few days, watching the remaining insects beco familiar with her.
Blueflake ntioned that she could tell when the insect relied upon her out of its own volition. Despite being temporary, the burden on the soul was always there whenever the insect was brought out. That was a fascinating scenario for Alex as he ca to understand that the Soul was only burdened when the insects were out and working. If they were kept away or docile, they did not affect one's soul at all.
That ant if there was ever a situation where a Fastened group of insects were out and active, and one were to get hurt in their soul, they could simply take away the insects and regain so of their spiritual stability.
That was helpful to know.
Each insect was also different in terms of how much it burdened a person's soul, and on its own it was usually nothing at all. It was only when there were thousands of insects that it reached the point that was similar to a beast's bond.
It took a few more weeks before all 60 or so of the cicadas were fully under Blueflake's care, and she wasn't the least bit affected by them despite all the Fastening. It was going to take a lot more cicadas for
her to worry about them.
Around the sa ti, the cicadas began listening to her. By just manipulating her aura slightly, she could get the beasts to act in accordance with her will and make them perform various things.
To test this, she had the 60 cicadas simultaneously let out their sound, causing a small ntal pain to blossom inside Alex. What had been a discordant ss without Blueflake before had now gained so coherence.
She was still only just starting, so it took a bit for her to fully understand how manipulating her aura led to the cicadas acting differently. In no ti at all, she improved and learned enough to start getting the cicadas to react imdiately to her commands and fully attack soone when she directed them to.
Because of that, the attack was now being directed to a single person of her choice, causing the cicadas to do nearly double the normal ntal damage. Alex was quite surprised how much the young woman had managed to do with her cicadas in just a little more than two months' ti.
Alex had now seen Blueflake from the start where she got the cicadas to the end where she was now controlling them. All that was left was for the cicadas to lay eggs and birth more cicadas, but that would co naturally in so ti, and then the process would be the sa
in the end.
As such, he believed he had seen all that he needed to do.
"Thank you for the ti," he told her in the end. "Thanks to you, I
should be able to do well with my insects."
Blueflake smiled. "No, it was my pleasure to have you around, senior. I look forward to hearing about your achievents with your Pillbugs. No doubt you'll beco very popular with them."
Alex nodded and pulled out sothing from his robes. "Please take this as a token of my gratitude for allowing to learn from you."
The woman took the storage bag without much thought and looked into it. As soon as she looked inside, her eyes widened.
"So many pills," she said, her eyes shooting back up at Alex. "I can't accept this. It should have cost you way too much."
"Cost ? I made those myself," Alex said with a light chuckle. "Didn't you know? I'm an alchemist."
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