When the Saintess successfully unlocked this brand-new technique, she sat upright on her mattress and let out a massive, sweeping breath. Her internal emotions were violently swirling with pure excitement! Compared to the highly unreliable strategists running this base, her personal Deity was a beacon of absolute dependability.
"Jeanne, what is happening to you?" little Fafnir chirped, observing her companion's thoroughly irregular behavior. Her immediate instinct was that the constant torture inflicted by the leadership had finally fractured the Saintess's psychological stability! She stared at Jeanne with the wide, anxious eyes of a startled little animal.
Pulled from her spiraling thoughts by the young dragon's movement, Jeanne looked down into the bunk. Seeing the tiny creature looking so deeply distressed and terrified that her caretaker was about to completely break down, Jeanne's heart melted.
How on earth can a living calamity be this incredibly adorable? The Saintess beamed, gently stroking the top of Fafnir's head. Under the soothing rhythm of her touch, the young dragon immediately sensed that the familiar, perfectly rational Jeanne had officially returned to normal.
Though the exact mechanics behind the sudden recovery remained completely beyond her understanding, Fafnir let out a happy little rumble, her tail beginning to sway enthusiastically from side to side in pure relief.
Yet, watching this child look up with Talulah's exact face while wagging her tail like a joyful puppy gave Jeanne a highly strange sensation. She couldn't help but feel that the young dragon was straying further and further down a path of pure silliness, sprinting headfirst into a life of absolute goofiness.
Jeanne continued to pamper her even more enthusiastically. Ultimately, nothing compared to the texture of a small, innocent dragon who understood absolutely nothing about the horrors of the world. She was infinitely better than the fully grown dragons back home, who wouldn't even permit a single person to brush against their scales anymore.
Then again, the adult dragons' prickly behavior was probably entirely Kashchey's fault. Regardless of the actual variables, dumping the absolute blame onto Kashchey's shoulders was a flawless strategy that never failed to make Jeanne feel better. (Kashchey: Allow me to express my deepest, most sincere gratitude... damn it!)
Once the pampering session concluded, the little shoulder ornament announced that she would be skipping her usual hunting expedition in the dining hall today. Instead, she intended to shadow the Saintess all the way to her workstation, determined to watch over her and keep her company through the day's labor.
The tiny creature remained thoroughly unconvinced that Jeanne was entirely out of the woods. Driven by a wave of protective anxiety, she chose to stay glued to the Saintess's side, eager to witness exactly what kind of sinister experiments those cloaked figures were trying to inflict upon her beloved caretaker.
Jeanne paid the hovering guardian no mind, marching straight into the Doctor's private workspace and bluntly demanding a fresh supply of raw Originium crystals. The sheer, manic enthusiasm vibrating from her expression caused the strategist to shift uncomfortably behind her desk. Good grief, the Doctor thought, has this woman finally crossed the threshold into absolute madness?
"Please, let's keep our composure for a moment," the Doctor urged, her hands held up defensively. "Would you be open to a brief evaluation in the medical bay first? I find your current demeanor highly irregular today. Are you entirely certain you aren't experiencing some form of physical or neural distress?"
The strategist spoke with a trembling heart. Her primary anxiety was that the Saintess had succumbed to the exact same mental instability that plagued her own consciousness! The critical difference was that if the Doctor lost her mind, the Saintess possessed the physical output to restrain her. If this celestial warrior experienced a complete psychological break, there wasn't a single soul across the length and breadth of Babel who could stand in her path.
"I am perfectly fine! What could possibly be wrong with me?" Jeanne countered with a dismissive wave. "I simply managed to recall a vastly superior and far more convenient methodology for executing the manifestations. I was merely gripped by a sudden urge to evaluate its real-world efficiency!"
Because the Doctor was permanently encased within her heavy helmet, Jeanne remained completely oblivious to her facial expressions. Consequently, she entirely missed the fact that the strategist was staring at her with the exact look one reserves for an unstable resident of a psychiatric ward.
Hearing the explanation, the Doctor let out a massive sigh of relief. Even though she couldn't definitively verify whether the Saintess's claims were authentic or a symptom of delirium, she recognized that someone of Jeanne's immense stature had zero reason to fabricate a logistical lie.
Still, the underlying anxiety didn't vanish entirely. The Doctor carefully extracted a handful of raw Originium crystals, handing them over before falling into step right beside Jeanne. She intended to closely witness the upcoming attempt, half-expecting to discover that the girl was simply pulling her leg.
Yes, the Doctor remained deeply concerned for the Saintess's well-being. Although Babel desperately required an influx of massive physical muscle to secure their transport route, she refused to purchase that security by permanently destroying Jeanne's physical health.
Even during the previous phase, when they had watched Jeanne swallow those jagged crystals and bitter solutions, the command staff had felt a profound wave of guilt, as if they were actively torturing a guest. They had repeatedly begged the Saintess to take a temporary leave of absence to rest her body, but the stubborn girl had flatly rejected the proposal.
This incredibly earnest warrior might complain endlessly about how exhausted she was and how bitter the solutions tasted, but when it came to the duties she deemed critical to their survival, she had never dropped the ball a single time.
Her flawless, iron-clad work ethic left the Doctor feeling an overwhelming urge to present her with a literal medal of honor. Simultaneously, she had quietly instructed Kal'tsit to keep a medical team and a recovery bed permanently prepped in the background, ensuring that the moment the Saintess collapsed, she could receive immediate emergency therapy.
The Doctor maintained that exact assumption today. She harbored zero belief that Jeanne possessed the sudden intellectual capability to forge a flawless shortcut in the span of a single night. If the Saintess truly owned that level of mystical genius, why on earth had she subjected herself to days of chemical torture?
Yet, in the very next heartbeat, all her assumptions were violently shattered.
With a graceful sweep of the Saintess's arm, the raw Originium crystals within her palm triggered a highly familiar physical reaction. It was the exact same mystical resonance that had accompanied the very birth of little Fafnir!
Indeed, the technique the Deity had etched into Jeanne's mind mirrored the exact process that had gestated Fafnir from a raw crystal cluster. By directly channeling the external energy of the minerals to forge the lesser drakes, the Saintess completely bypassed her internal mana channels, eliminating the grueling toll on her body.
Right before the strategist's unblinking visor, the miniature shells fractured. From the fragments emerged a cluster of entities that instantly expanded like inflating balloons, growing at a thoroughly unnatural velocity until they assumed the massive, towering proportions of mature draconic beasts.
The Doctor was completely drained of words. Her jaw dropped beneath her mask as she stared blankly at the Saintess, her mind thoroughly overwhelmed, as if she were witnessing an immortal divinity weaving ancient miracles out of thin air.
Jeanne, catching the strategist's absolute stillness, assumed the woman was simply frozen in sheer awe of her spectacular display. Just as she prepared to smugly gloat about her newfound divine efficiency, the Doctor's thoroughly perplexed voice cut through the silence:
"Wait a moment... you possessed the capability to utilize this technique from the very beginning, didn't you? I distinctly recall you deploying this exact methodology when you birthed Fafnir. Why on earth did your mind fail to connect the dots until now? If you had simply executed this process from day one, you would never have endured an ounce of that horrific misery!"
The Doctor's words slammed down like a heavy artillery shell, instantly blowing away the Saintess's inflated pride and dragging her right back down to earth. Jeanne stood frozen, her mind spinning as she scrambled to formulate a dignified excuse. How was she supposed to look the strategist in the eye and confess that she had simply forgotten about the most critical asset in her possession?
The shortcut had been available through a single night of earnest prayer this entire time. What kind of madness had possessed her to spend a whole week chewing on foul-tasting rocks like a complete idiot? Had her cognitive functions truly decayed to such an embarrassing depth?
The moment the realization took root, Jeanne transformed from a towering figure of pride into a thoroughly deflated balloon. The sheer, brooding darkness of her sudden emotional collapse left the Doctor wondering if she had accidentally delivered a psychological blow.
Meanwhile, little Fafnir was currently eyeing the newly manifested creatures with an immense wave of vigilance. Her tiny frame vibrated with a touch of territorial dissatisfaction, as if she deeply resented Jeanne taking on additional dragons. Yet, evaluating them critically, she recognized that these lesser beasts posed zero structural threat to her position!
She was the supreme, all-powerful Fafnir! She existed on an entirely different evolutionary tier compared to these weaklings. These lesser drakes would simply be turned loose into the wild terrain to forage for themselves, while she would remain permanently nestled in Jeanne's warm embrace, receiving endless pampering and affection around the clock!
Reaching this glorious deduction, Fafnir proudly puffed out her tiny chest, a look of profound, inexplicable superiority washing over her face. The sudden shift left the Doctor looking back and forth between the two of them with an expression of deep bewilderment.
What on earth is wrong with this duo? the Doctor thought. Their emotional transitions are moving faster than a high-speed racing vehicle! Standing here, I can barely keep pace with their psychological fluctuations. Am I truly getting too old for this?
Nevertheless, the strategist didn't remain idle for long. Noting that the newly manifested titans were so thoroughly terrified by Fafnir's icy glare that they refused to move a single muscle, she sprinted forward. In a single, fluid motion, she began carefully gathering the translucent, glittering Originium shards left behind by the hatching process.
Although their research divisions had yet to isolate a practical application for these residual fragments, the Doctor's sharp strategic instincts delivered a persistent, undeniable message: this glittering ash was a monumental substance—a material that possessed the latent potential to completely rewrite the geopolitical balance of the entire world!
If the Saintess was willing to consistently harvest and supply these residual shards, Babel would gladly provide an unlimited, unconditional stream of raw Originium ore to fuel her manifestations. They wouldn't charge her a single coin!
Through such an arrangement, Jeanne would secure a massive, formidable vanguard of draconic beasts, while Babel would harvest a continuous supply of invaluable experimental material. Every single party would march toward an incredibly bright and glorious future!
Thanks to the sudden manifestation of this divine technique, the tortured Saintess was finally granted a well-deserved window to rest her weary body. The urgency surrounding the mass recruitment of the drakes faded completely; they could simply scale up the deployment schedule once the physical environment demanded their presence.
After all, Babel's current logistics were already stretched to the absolute limit simply trying to fulfill little Fafnir's massive dietary requirements. If they attempted to stable an entire legion of adult earth drakes simultaneously, the organization would slide into immediate bankruptcy, even if those creatures ate nothing but cheap noodles!
Over the subsequent stretch of days, Jeanne began to notice a substantial shift in the camp's atmosphere. A continuous stream of unfamiliar, stern-faced Sarkaz fighters began materializing within the perimeter, arriving in a desperate rush only to vanish back into the wilderness just as quickly.
While individual couriers weren't entirely out of the ordinary for a military command post, the sudden, hyper-dense frequency of these arrivals made the reality glaringly obvious to anyone with a modicum of tactical awareness.
The Doctor and her engineering crews had officially concluded the primary structural repairs on the Rhodes Island landship. Within a matter of days, the massive vessel would fire up its primary engines, break camp, and begin its long, perilous journey back toward the heart of Kazdel!