Chapter 2156: A Living Cauldron

Like a Necromancer raising the dead into undead slaves, or even a soul eater using her phantom magic to extract and devour the souls of people!

There were many ways Phantom and Death Magic could go terribly wrong, but puppet mastery remained among the very few relatively inoffensive ways to use those powers.

And yet it still felt kind of like Necromancy, did it not? She had befriended the ghostly souls of many different creatures, which she carefully stored inside her own soul and then used both for her threads and to give "life" to her golems… or puppets. Whatever one preferred to call them, both were kind of the same thing in the end.

"I built this with the help of Mister Teddy and Mister Dragon and Mister Jester…!" she said with a bright smile. Her three golems appeared by her side in their small, toy-like forms, floating gently in the air. "They imbued pieces of their souls inside! So it ended up being extra powerful as a cauldron. I think I can make the best golems with this!"

"That's cool!" I said with a matching smile. "I'm really glad it worked out so well for you, Celica, and for your pals too!"

"Hm!" Celica nodded happily, Zephyrus standing right by her side. "Do you like my cauldron, Zephy?"

"It looks… really cool!" he nodded with clear interest. "I wonder if I can make my own someday?"

"I dunno," Celica answered honestly. "I can help you though, if you want."

"Sounds like a plan. I want to get better at Alchemy," Zephyrus said. "You wouldn't mind teaching me, would you? I guess I'm a little too late to become Felicia's apprentice at this point."

"Yeah, it's fine!" Celica nodded with a kind and open smile. "I like being with you, so I don't mind at all."

"C-Celica…" my brother looked touched by her words, which she had spoken rather obliviously without realizing how warm they sounded.

I turned my eyes next onto Aquarina's cauldron.

It was blue, just as I had expected, and it was beautifully decorated with detailed sea serpents coiled all the way around the body of the cauldron, formed from the same blue metal. There was also a black section covering part of the surface, made of black obsidian scales. Several more serpent heads emerged from that darker portion, their eyes set with glowing red jewels.

The entire cauldron strongly exuded both the power of the Sea and the power of Darkness.

"This is what I managed to do," she said with a hint of pride. "I used my own horns, scales, claws, and the like… The Alchemy Spirit that popped up from it was really tough, but nothing I couldn't take down on my own. It served as a nice extra ingredient in the end!"

"I see. So it contains your primary elements and the power of that creature… was it a serpent?" I asked with interest.

"Yeah, kinda," she answered. "It was a Hydra Kraken Spirit. It made for a nice battle."

"Well, I'm glad it turned out so well!" I said. "I wish I could've been there to see that fight…"

"Hahah, don't worry about it," she shrugged casually.

I looked at Ruby's cauldron next.

"This is mine. As you can see, I kind of made it as hot and fiery as possible," Ruby explained. "I also made it so that it had a kind of secondary function as a forge or something similar."

Her cauldron was by far the biggest of them all, nearly three times the size of the others. It was composed of a beautiful fiery red-orange metal and overflowed with a potent, constantly burning flame aura. It was also decorated with gold in many places, and red, orange, and dark red jewels lined its surface in elegant patterns.

It had no particularly fancy shape, yet it was constantly blazing. From within those flames I could sense more than just a powerful relic. There was a living, fiery soul inside.

"Wait a second, Ruby… your Cauldron…!" I muttered in surprise. "It's alive, right?!"

"Yeah!" Ruby nodded without hesitation. "Ignis! You can stop pretending to be just a regular cauldron now."

The cauldron suddenly stirred. From inside, its flames quickly rose and took on a tall, masculine form, muscular and proud. The figure crossed his arms as a face made of pure fire greeted me, complete with glowing red jeweled eyes. A crown floated above his head, formed from dancing flames and sparkling rubies.

"Hmph, good. Because I was getting bored of pretending to be an inert object," Ignis spoke with a proud and rather arrogant voice. "So this is master's friend? The girl who's been asleep ever since I was born, correct?"

"Y-Yep, that's me!" I nodded quickly. "Wow, um, greetings? I had no idea you could do something like this, Ruby! Is he your familiar?"

"Yes," Ruby confirmed. "It happened by accident. My Heavenly Blacksmith and Heavenly Forging Flames skills seem to have a chance of imbuing something with Life or a Soul, or something along those lines. And then Ignis was born the moment I finished my cauldron. I thought it was strange that no Alchemy Spirit showed up to stop me… turns out it had simply fused into the cauldron while I was working on it."

"It's the first time I've ever seen an Alchemy Spirit willingly offer itself as a material," someone suddenly said as they stepped forward through the crowd. It was Master Felicia. "This just shows how incredibly talented you are, Ruby. Materials speak to you, just as you told me the other day. Even the Spirits that define our Art and Craft, Alchemy Spirits and Forging Spirits, answer to you as their True Master and offer no resistance at all… Because of this, the Alchemy Spirit still lives, fused into the cauldron as an entirely new lifeform. A Cauldron Spirit, a Forging Spirit, or… I don't even know what he is at this point! Ruby doesn't let me analyze him properly."

"I do it for your own good, Master. Ignis doesn't have a kind personality with anybody except me…" Ruby sighed. "He might burn you if you're not careful!"

"Hmph," Ignis immediately covered Ruby with a protective layer of his flames. "I won't let you lay a finger on my master nor on me… witch! I am no test subject!"

-----