Made Mages

**Made Mages** are people who ingested and have a partial compatibility with Thrud Griffon's cells. The cells creates a small vortex in their mana cores that sucks in world energy and induces a sense of euphoria and might. The vortex gives made mages a mana flow superior to that of their core, allowing them to cast powerful spells far beyond their tier (i.e. tier 1 spells that have power on par with tier 3) and also giving them full elemental Fusion Magic - no sense of pain and rapid healing. However, if another person's mana is absorbed by the vortex, the subject would die from mana poisoning.

Thrud Griffon had used her connections with the Night Court to introduce new "alchemical drug" in the black market, which in reality was just a cough potion mixed with a few of her cells. The symbiotic relationship with Thrud's cells would allow her to influence made mages' thoughts to use them as spies or sacrificial pawns. Those who had perfect compatibility would be turned into clones of Thrud, perfect donors with life forces and mana identical to her own to be used for Arthan's Madness.

Made mages host meat puppets inside them, known as Carpenters, that can take over their host and fall under Thrud's direct control.

## Carpenters

**Carpenters** or **meat puppets** are flesh creatures born Thrud Griffon's body tissue. They are large, skinless, humanoid creatures with large talons extending from multiple hands on their deformed limbs, and require a steady supply of mana and flesh, using the mana to convert the flesh they consume into their own. They can absorb humans other than their original host, and under Thrud's control can turn the vortex on and off at will. Carpenters can shapeshift, use magic, and have superior physical prowess. However, without the vortex activated, Carpenters will slowly become weaker as the host's mana core(s) cannot sustain its abilities for long. When assimilating multiple bodies, the meat puppets can cast multiple spells at once with each mouth and set of hands.

Thrud can absorb the world energy that the meat puppets absorb with their vortexes to strengthen her own core. The puppets can only hold the energy for a limited time, however, and after a while the energy dissipates in the form of a blue light pillar when Mogar takes back the stolen energy. Furthermore, he lack of removing impurities causes her core to become unstable, therefore giving her a rainbow core.

When assimilating more than one body, Carpenters can switch between the mana cores to mitigate the mana poisoning. Fully formed Carpenters can two cores at once, almost on par with having a core of superior quality (i.e. two greens = one blue). With the vortex, the core's purity is upgraded twice and they have the same effects as full elemental fusion. Additionally, they can ignore the mana poisoning effect as long as the secondary core holds, as it protects the main core by acting as a filter and tanks any foreign mana while its vortex accumulates world energy. This way, even if the second core crumbles, the Carpenter can keep fighting at full strength for an extended period of time.

However, Manohar learns that the meat puppets can only nullify spells Tier 3 and below. If the ability of a Carpenter is weaker than the one casting a spell, the meat puppet will be unsuccessful in controlling the spell.

*Trivia*: Carpenters are named after the director of the 1982 film "The Thing," John Carpenter. The film's antagonist is a parasitic extraterrestrial lifeform that assimilates other organisms and in turn imitates them.

## References

1. ↑ Chapter 433
2. ↑ Chapter 465
3. ↑ Chapter 436
4. ↑ Chapter 439
5. ↑ Chapter 451
6. ↑ Chapter 440
7. ↑ Chapter 448
8. ↑ Chapter 449
9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Chapter 463