Sitting hunched over her workbench, Emily adds the final touches to Mensacus’ almost finished body. The metal frame is already fused into one piece around the cursed tooth, and the tentacles in place of his limbs are wound tightly together and sitting idle.

Emily slips her fingers into the weave near the base of his right arm and slowly pries the metal tendrils apart, exposing an empty socket for her to slot in a refined greater darkness crystal, covered in delicate runes and reshaped into a smooth teardrop with the help of a mana compressing array carved into a new chamber beside her alchemy lab. She repeats this with his other limbs before taking a greater light crystal, formed into a perfect sphere and engraved using the powder of a mental crystal, in her hand and staring into her son’s empty eye sockets.

“Ready?” Emily asks, resting her empty left hand on his arm and letting out a stream of machina, watching Mensacus’ internals closely.

She feels him let a drop of mana so small it’s barely noticeable slip from his circles, directing it through a premade energy channel into the miniature Steam Source beating in place of his heart. The mana cycles through the small generator, passing through several runes charged with Emily’s energy signature and changing into a weak stream of electricity that shoots up to the logic chip in his head to be processed.

Less than a fraction of a second after Emily questioned him, the charge flows back down Mensacus’ neck and into the servos at its base, making him nod in agreement.

“Good,” Emily hums, pressing the engraved light crystal into a socket on his forehead and pouring most of her remaining resources into it as she activates Mother’s Blessing. “I’ll be right here, so relax and let it happen.”

Without responding, Mensacus immediately begins drinking in her blessing, drawing in extra atmospheric mana and forming a vortex of power in the process. Emily stands up and slides her arms under her firstborn, lifting him as if he weighs nothing, before turning to the workshop’s window and opening it to step out. She kicks off and flies away from the cliff, coming into view of Pod, Silica, and Calypso’s crew waiting by the cliffside.

Emily forms small footholds of solid air one after the other until she comes to stand over the open ocean, a few kilometres from the shore, where she finally releases her child. Mensacus' untethered body floats away from her, suspended by the powerful flood of mana rushing to gather around him, forming into a large dark cloud.

The energy condenses into dark vapours that seep into every crack and orifice of Mensacus’ body, gathering into a particularly thick stream around the crystal in his forehead. Emily stands just beyond the growing black cloud, taking the old Needler from her belt as she watches the process without blinking, holding it out and letting the ascension rip it from her grip.

The small railgun is ripped to pieces as dense malice begins to ooze from Mensacus, and the shards it breaks into seem to sink into his left arm, vanishing among his tentacles. The air around him appears to distort, forming into screaming faces that leak ink from their empty eye sockets, sending shivers down the spines of the spectators watching on through binoculars.

Dead fish begin floating to the surface of the sea below, rotting and bloating at a visible rate that only accelerates as the ascension continues. After nearly an hour of cycling between drawing in and releasing mana, Mensacus pulses one final time, drawing the entire cloud of dark mana in through the crystal on his forehead.

Emily can feel his fourth circle stabilising moments before his new form is revealed, solidifying his place as one of the strongest beings on the planet, mere years after the birth of his consciousness.

When the cloud of mana finally fades, Emily’s attention is immediately drawn to the closed, vertical eyelid in the centre of her son’s forehead where his light crystal should have been exposed. The black metal cover has been tainted by a streaky red hue that wraps Mensacus’ entire being, flowing across his armoured skin like waves swirling on the shore.

He’s standing on a thin, almost invisible layer of water vapour, and the moment the gaping black holes in place of his eyes meet Emily’s gaze, he takes a tentative step forward. She doesn’t speak, watching him place one unstable mass of metal tendrils before the other while keeping himself afloat, slowly getting used to his limbs as he walks through the air towards her.

He drops to one knee as he steps within an arm’s reach and lowers his head, parting his mechanical lips and unhinging his jaw to expose the razor-sharp, needle-like teeth inside.

“I’m finished, Mother,” he whispers in an unnaturally crackling, guttural tone.

“Congratulations,” she responds, reaching out to affectionately run her hand down the metallic scales covering the back of his head. “It looks like the power balance for your artificial voice-box is a little off and needs a tweak, but other than that, what do you think of your new body?”

Mensacus shivers beneath her touch, sending an electrical signal shooting down his spine. His tightly-wound tentacles separate, swaying as if pleased by the contact, and hundreds of tiny, bladed spines extend across the limbs attached to his right shoulder. The tendrils fixed to the left crackle instead, with small vents opening along their lengths to expose their electrified internals to the air.

The vertical eye in the middle of his forehead also opens ever so slightly, letting out a bright, milky-white light that shines on the water below, drawing the few creatures that survived his ascension to the surface.

“It’s perfect,” he hums with satisfaction, quickly regaining control of his limbs as a buzzing purr rumbles deep in his chest.

***

“You told them I’m coming?” Emily says into her communicator, tightening the bolts holding together one of the automated engravers she’s setting up in a new production line.

“Yes. After hearing of your part in our victory, Mr Salvia expressed a keen interest in your next move,” Max replies. “I told him the truth like you asked and, almost immediately, he left to go inform his royals. Are you sure you want to return alone? We’d be happy to support you, and both Silver and Gem have already expressed an interest in leaving our borders.”

“Me and my own will be enough. I’m expecting a warm welcome, and I’d rather not send the wrong message by bringing too many high-level combatants into the country.”

“Understood.”

“On that note, though,” Emily says, stepping back and activating every machine along the line with a spark of machina, “If Silver and Gem are interested in stretching their legs, they could always lend their strength to Modo. We all know the peace on Keban isn’t going to last long, and Modo have already lost one fourth circle mage, so I’m sure they’ll be more than happy to accept your help.”

The pieces of a metal soldier flow down the line, reaching the engravers in front of Emily, where they pause for a few seconds as several small work heads with chisels attached whirr away, carving runes and traces into the metal.

“I’ll pass the message along, but it’s up to them,” Max responds with hesitance in his tone. “You know that quite a few of Modo’s nobles were friendly with Denros, so I’m sure you understand.”

“I do, but I don’t think you’ll have to worry about that soon.”

The engraved parts are passed to a set of machines that inject them with a blend of powdered elemental crystals.

“You’re planning something big?”

Next, a set of rotating mechanical claws gathers the pieces and rapidly assembles them around a small magical core, made from several crystals fused together and delivered from a different line of machines.

“Not particularly,” Emily says, glancing at the quest waiting for completion upon her return. “I just think it’s about time the masses knew the truth, and I doubt those who supported Denros will let that happen quietly.”

A logic chip and bank of batteries vanish into the forming soldier before the assembly arms finally pull back, revealing a naked humanoid covered in glowing tattoos with gaping holes in its palms leaking mana.

“I see,” Max responds with a thoughtful pause as Emily wordlessly gestures for the completed soldier to approach her. “I’ll relay your words to the rest of the Council, but it sounds like change is coming.”

A tap of her finger and a quick scan with machina confirms the android’s dual existence, with a mechanically controlled skeleton wrapped in the shell of a magical golem.

“That it is.”

Emily says goodbye and ends the call as she instructs her droid to demonstrate its attack capabilities. The soldier raises its palms before channelling mana through a specific set of runes carved into its skin, lighting them up and releasing a mist of red and green mana. It quickly forms into a disk of burning air before shooting out and gouging a deep groove across the floor.

Emily nods in satisfaction, judging the attack to be equal to an above-average second circle mage, and turns to start the next soldier’s production line.

***

A few days later, Pod, Emily, and her children board Elisime again and set off towards the continent’s western border. They reduce the ship’s speed to allow Calypso to keep up, and Emily heads to her onboard workshop to make the most of the trip with her youngest hot on her heels.

Now that her factory is set up to pump out magical units for her army, she turns her focus to one of her recent observations made in the battle for Rizenford. Emily clears off a workbench and sits down, letting Silica take her place beneath with her head resting in her mother’s lap, before carefully setting out several potions.

“Potion absorption test one,” Emily mutters, uncorking the first vial and bringing it to her lips. “The baseline: oral consumption.”

Tossing the shimmering green liquid back, she swallows and waits, feeling the smooth, magical liquid break apart before even reaching her chest, spreading a warm sensation through her body. Emily tenses her muscles, feeling out every fibre before releasing a right hook, listening to it cut through the air.

“A ten per cent increase in strength.” She twists, thrusting her left arm forward instead and feeling the servos in place of her muscles scream with exertion. “With an eight per cent increase to my mechanical arm.”

After five minutes, the effects fade, so Emily notes down her observations before uncorking the next vial.

“Test two,” she says, pulling her right sleeve up and undoing the Claw’s fastenings to expose her forearm. “Skin absorption.”

She pours the vial over her arm, going slowly to ensure as much is absorbed as possible. The same feeling of warmth spreads from her arm this time, with a noticeable difference as Emily tenses her legs, feeling them out before standing up and bouncing in place. She throws a few punches as well, feeling her right arm straining more and more.

“Ten per cent increase in the biological limb of application, but only eight in the rest of the body, and five in the mechanical.”

She settles back down, and the effects soon wear off, so she tries the same thing on the left, pouring another glowing green vial over her metal skin.

“Ten in the mechanical limb, but eight for the rest of my body, including my other arm.”

For the fourth test, Emily stabs a needle into the potion vial, drawing out the green liquid within before injecting it directly into her bloodstream through her right arm. The effects are the same as oral consumption, but she feels the warmth of the potion flow directly into the metal veins woven into her flesh around her left shoulder, flowing smoothly into the limb and giving it nearly the full boost.

“Nine per cent in the mechanical limb,” she says with a hint of surprise, waiting for the potion to run out before filling the syringe again. “Test five, injection near connection point.”

Emily pulls back her body armour and stabs the needle into the top of her shoulder, injecting the solution just above her left arm’s mounting cuff. This time, as the warmth spreads, Emily feels a perfectly even increase in her strength.

“Looks like an injector in the arm is the best choice after all.”

She begins drawing up the design for another arm module as the potion fades, before picking up two more vials.

“Test six, double dosage, oral consumption.”

The heat spreads as a burning pain instead of a comforting warmth, and Emily grits her teeth as her veins bulge, glowing a dangerous green hue. She swings her fists despite the pain and carefully updates her notes.

“Thirteen per cent flesh body, twelve mechanical.”

She hits The Clock’s rewind, instantly saving herself from the discomfort and travelling back to recover the spent potions.