Cid stared at the big — two meters tall! — bipedal toad in a lab coat. It stared at him back.

"I don't even know how you survived until this point," and with that the toad turned around.

Of course, Cid couldn't tolerate something like this! So he immediately started beating the shit out of the poor amphibian. It did not do much, considering he didn't even use magic, but at least it calmed him down. After that he demanded the explanation. And, well, now Cid had to reconsider how much points he put into luck stat.

Judging by the toad calculations, he shouldn't have survived the process of binding the Sanctuary to his soul. In fact, his soul should've been destroyed and evaporated like dust; toad gave a 99.9% chance of this happening. Another 0.099% chance was for him being permanently crippled, both physically and magically. And with all these chances, he actually lucked onto 0.001%: being successful in his attempt and coming out without major consequences… What, soul strain? Come on, it's not permanent and will heal up with time.

Todd (that's how he decided to call Toad) actually brought up a stack of papers filled with its calculations and started showing the most important parts. As Cid listened further, only one question appeared in his mind: when did Toad even manage to write all of that? There were 153 pages! Filled from both sides!

Of course, he had to know that immediately. Turned out, there was someone else who helped to write all of that! Which means he actually had a second Inner Beast! Lucky him!

All hopes in finally getting cool-looking beast, though, died immediately after meeting with it. Sure, it had a nice fur, was big and somewhat intimidating. However, there was one major issue: it was a freaking hamster.

Oh, yeah, in a lab coat, too. For some reason it also held the Dictionary and was writing something onto the papers… It has already written nine stack of papers, each three times bigger than the one Todd showed him, and was close to finishing the tenth one.

Upon feeling his presence, Hams (yeah, he cut out the "ter" part) immediately jumped up and started complaining: about the fact that he could actually give some time to calibrating the magic language he created, about the fact that he was in the world for so long, met so many magical beings, and yet their storehouses were still not filled with ingredients to the brim! Cid's objection on the fact that they didn't even have storehouses to begin with was heard, processed, and Hams went over onto showing the amount of rooms Sanctuary had.

Not only that, Hamster also criticized him for not properly checking out the Sanctuary, and that was a big mistake on his part! It had a cloning room, room for storing the created clones, room with a lot of sealing runes that previously held the Diablos' hand in place, room that could create something from memories… In short, Hams was angry! These were goods, their goods! It should all be checked out, placed in special containers, catalogued, and kept in safety (meanwhile Todd finally finished containing Serpent's remains properly)! Yes, even dust! What if they need to make something appear more ancient? Everyone knows that something with lots of dust on it is ancient and revered!

Cid listened calmly to everything Hamster said, nodded, and then took out Serpent's scale and started channeling his magic into it. Upon realizing what was going on Hams — and Todd that just jumped out of one of the room, — fell on their knees and begged him to stop, to not destroy the loot of the enemy so valiantly fought against, the one that threatened to destroy the world: that's a rare material! Where will they even find a replacement?!

After ten minutes or so Cid finally placed the scale back and inquired what the actual hell these Beasts were.

Turned out these guys were both manifestations of Greed that were born while the ritual was binding the Sanctuary: short story, there was a lot of Faith energy involved. Hams immediately soothed his worries and elaborated that no more strange things born from his emotions will appear, because now his soul was strong enough to just shrug it off. Well, there was the third one, but…

Cid looked at the grave filled with sealing runes to the brim and agreed that, indeed, such a terrifying Beast should better stay here.

So, with all these things, a question has arisen: what can these absolutely not-cool-looking Beasts (and Todd is not even beast, it's amphibian) even do? Turned out, a lot.

Both Todd and Hams were incarnations of his greed (and grind) and were obsessed with collecting everything. And when he says everything, he means everything: Serpent's body? They got it into the room already! Money? Todd created a cool-looking treasury one not so long ago! Mana and other energies? Faith one was being redirected from Pylons into the Sanctuary and slowly filled up the reservoirs, Mana and Shadow Mana were connected with his own body and were refined non-stop by him! Though Hams sighed and lamented the fact that the efficiency was not 100% and some parts of it were lost, but threatened to create something that would help to increase efficiency factor… And yes, he means "threatened", Hams looked that scary.

Speaking of creating, Hamster made some research on the language that Cid created and found out a lot of ways to optimize it. Humble Eminence looked onto the ground where stacks of papers (450 was the average amount of pages, yes, filled from both sides) lay and asked which one of these was about his rune language? To which Hams blinked and replied "All!"

Yeah, all of these 4000+ pages were about the rune language. Of course, Hamster corrected itself and elaborated that most of them were just theories that it already tested out and found out not being applicable, so the actual working material was about a thousand of or so pages, and waved at the three stacks.

Cid took out one of the papers in curiosity and was immediately hooked. That was exactly that he always wanted to find! Full research on what, exactly, magic was and how it worked with material world! Hams once again lamented that it still didn't manage to check out the theories yet, especially considering that it was only born a day or so ago.

Cid thought it over and decided to bring as many books about magic of this world as possible as well as search for other natural phenomena; who knows, maybe they will find something that could completely turn everything around? As of now, Hams was tasked with creating an actual portal system so he could connect everything and finally go out to find some other worlds. Call is good and all, but he also would like to have a working ability to teleport on his own!

Then Cid realized that Todd disappeared somewhere, but his worries were unneeded as the amphibian was simply placing goods into the Sanctuary rooms. Toad complained about the fact that at some point the rooms will run out, and what's next? Where will they place their hard-earned stuff?! That would be a catastrophe!

Hams interjected and said that if Todd had been working as much as it was placing coins from one place to another, they would already be finished with rune language and could think about actually using it! Yes, maybe even in things like "where do I stuff more stuff"!

Todd only looked at the pile of coins it was holding and sighed. Then it placed them back into the treasury room and went over to help polishing the rune language. Cid focused on it and realized that, in fact, the job was almost done, so he decided to step in and help with finishing it too.

The results were quite simple: the alphabet and dictionary were finally filled fully, the rules were implemented, Hams combined it all with Ancient Rune Language, and simple examples of runemaking were included in the pages from 259 to 798. Upon seeing the "simplest" example Cid almost went crazy: who the fuck uses 10 words and 182 runes just to create a small flame?!

Hams had to defend it by saying that it was the most efficient way to actually use magic; moreover, wasn't Cid all about actually using his resources thoughtfully and not go "my stick big your stick small ooga-wooga"? He thought it over and agreed that, indeed, having skill is important, so he decided to check it out. Turned out using it the way Hamster and Toad created reduced the mana consumption to bare minimum required for runes to even start working, everything else was carried out by the meaning behind them and laws of physics. About second part: as Todd elaborated, most of the runes related to material world were actually there to check out for the laws of physics in the surroundings and adjust accordingly, so the flame would be able to go off in any place with minimum mana consumption… except absolute void, of course, but they both had doubts even Cid himself would be able to survive in such case.

Upon seeing how hardworking his two Inner Beasts were, Cid shed a tear: while all other Beasts were just there to look cool, trashtalk their owner, and rarely grant their powers, his own helped him in creating his own magic systems and were all around smart! Yeah, lab coats and glasses- Wait, hold on, what are they doing?

Cid stared as Hams wiped his tear. He even thought that they were very fond of him and shed another tear before Todd elaborated — while placing his tears into a vial made from laboratory glass, placed into the chest made from Serpent's scales, and held it in place with Sanctuary's chains and twenty rows of runes, — that Cid's genuine tears were as rare as a potion made from Demon's Skin, God's Blood, Honest Student's Saliva, and Dragon's Talon.

Upon receiving Cid's question about Honest Student's Saliva both Beasts went into thought before admitting that, indeed, they went a bit overboard: at least the other three you can find, but Saliva? Yeah, dream on.

But overall, Cid was very content: after all, he got two more… sentient beings of his level that could help him with creating magic stuff! Moreover, unlike him who was also caught up into doing Eminence stuff these two were in Soul Space 24/7, and they didn't even need sleep! As they elaborated, by the way, he did not need it now, either. From papers they gave him apparently he has now evolved to the point where sleep was more of a nice way to rest than a real necessity; sleep is needed for the information you received during the day to be catalogued properly and remove the nasty stuff that you receive during the day. His body was now advanced enough (especially with magic) to restore itself during the day and use Soul Space as a secondary back-up… By the way, Hams also promised to create something so Cid could catalogue his memories properly like a library, but that was task for months to go.

But as of now, both of them said that he needs rest for at least three days before they could go on their experiments again: his last attempt still strained him heavily. Cid finally remembered about the Shadow Garden girls that he didn't visit properly in days and went out of the Sanctuary.

A moment of concentration, and now he's back at Mitsugoshi. And just as he wanted to relax with a cup of nice tea and some cookies…

"Lord Shadow!" something warm and soft launched itself into his embrace and clung to him like a koala, "I have missed you so much! Ahh, to think about receiving the blessing to be with you…"

The "thing" in question was a very tall (no kidding, taller than he was in his mob persona!) and voluptuous woman with somewhat pink hair that looked at him with so much love and fanaticism that he heard Todd's wails of not being able to collect Love energy. At least Faith was collected at a rapid pace.

And after searching through his memories he finally realized that this woman was suspiciously similar to Victoria, that one girl he once saved from being killed when she was possessed… Hmm, he didn't think a growth spurt like that could happen…

But he had another problem at hand. Right behind her, Seven Shades stared with such amount of jealousy that Todd audibly gasped and clutched onto its chest in despair that so much energy was left to waste. Hams promised to think about it.

But even that paled in comparison to the sight near them.

The Tyrant Queen Rose Oriana looked at him in shock after hearing how Victoria addressed him.

"S-Sha- Cid?"

"Hey, Rose," he slowly waved his hand, "guess you finally managed to fulfill your goal?"

That was not in the plan.