Jordo finished wiping the window, his eye shining red as he analyzed its surface; 98,5% clean. Well above the minimum acceptable level.

  He put away the cleaning supplies in his bucket, returning it to the supply cupboard, depositing it in its designated place. Scanning the cupboard, he noted two items slightly out of alignment. He pushed them back into position and, with a satisfied nod, closed the door.

  He turned and observed the room as he ran through his checklist of tasks and duties, and found them all done for the day.

  With his master and mistress gone on a “moon of honey” for a week, Cornelius having offered the Alchemical Star for a cruise around the kingdom, the house was rather quiet. There was only Linzy, and she had barred Jordo from cleaning up her living quarters, stating that the last time had been a disaster.

  How could he know that the dirty rags were actually usable clothes, and not trash, or that the mess on the floor was not a mess at all, but some sort of sorting system?

  If he could sigh, he would have.

  He elected to do one final round of the property, just in case some maintenance was necessary. Although his masters had done a good job at renovating this building, it was still old, and nicks and scuffs were not uncommon. Just last week, he had found a small chip on one of the outside wood beams!

  As he patrolled and analyzed the house's structural integrity, he let a parallel train of thought spool up, on a topic that had him conflicted.

  When his master had displayed his aspect, he had been overjoyed. The repository's files had been right; it was possible, and all signs pointed at it being the solution to a scion's mana corruption problem.

  However, something had nagged at him, and he had kept unpacking and reviewing the experiment logs.

  And right he had been; after a long string of failures, the Reign's researchers had opted to do some more theoretical work, hoping to refine the method. Less throwing mud at a wall and hoping, more figuring out which kind of mud at which kind of wall.

  From those experiments, the researchers had come up with what a materialized aspect should be, according to their calculations. They had identified measures, readings, and categories.

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  Most of which did not match what his sensors told him when he had directed them at Leviathan.

  He was afraid that what his master had managed was not materialization. A significant achievement it was, no question there, but the solution to mana corruption?

  He didn't believe so.

  And herein the conflict; he wanted to inform his master, but doing so would dash his hope, ruin his mood, and impose stress upon their new union. At the same time, it was his duty to inform him of his misgivings.

  His hope was that the planned trip to the supposed Luminous Reign library, to retrieve legal documents which would validate his masters' claim to the living vault, would also provide new insights into mana corruption.

  The topic left one question, however; if Leviathan was not a materialized aspect, what was he?

  The readings from his sensors had offered a curious possibility. Although not a perfect match, they were very close to those of Anaakendi and Hodge. With both of them being incarnations... could Leviathan be one as well?

  If so, he certainly wasn't a Devil, as those were born out of a humanoid.

  A spirit – born out of the natural world? This did not seem to apply. Leviathan might look like a beast, but it had been an aspect, a being of mana.

  This left an arcanae: a being born out of mana.

  On the surface, this appeared to be the right answer, but here, again, something didn't match. Arcanae were spontaneous creations, when the concentration of natural mana attained high enough levels, for long enough, for a passing scrap of soul to attach itself to it.

  None of them matched Leviathan's exact circumstances.

  Another mystery.

  Jordo's eye dimmed for a second, his way of smiling. There had been so many delicious mysteries since he had awoken and put himself under his master's service.

  Not only that, but for the first time, at least of what he could remember, he was being treated fairly, as an integral part of his master's retinue. Almost like a living being.

  While he would have served his new master with the same dedication, no matter how he had been treated, there was no denying that being treated as an equal had resulted in a bit of... zeal, on his part.

  His primary process alerted him, merging his parallel thoughts back to a single thread. There, on the garden's exterior wall, a micro-fracture in the mortar between two of the stones. He calculated that it would evolve to a hairline crack within two to three years, and would degrade the wall's local integrity by 0.8%.

  This would not do. He turned toward the garden's entrance, heading for the tool shed, where he kept masonry supplies.

  His masters' house had to be kept in perfect condition.

  unnatural.