I Raised a Black Dragon - Chapter 218

Rather, things have turned out quite well, and I will make it happen for you. Except, this time, I will do things my own way. Eleonora, you crazy… I begged you not to do such a thing. You brought all of this onto yourself.

“Oh, he was so torn up about her death.” Noah sighed, flipping over the pages. 

11.09.579

When the unity of the soul and the body is torn away by an external shock.

“What, what? Unity of the soul and body. Where have I heard this before?” Noah scanned further down the page. 

At the same time, so as to prevent the extinction of the soul as it’s ripped from the body, it is placed in an object where the replica process is entered, or, in other words, ‘hacked’.

But it doesn’t look like there is a way to perfectly duplicate the soul without damaging it. No matter how much almighty power is borrowed, it is impossible to create something out of nothing. The ‘record’ is possible, but the ‘duplicate’ isn’t. Damage done to the soul is too large.

A defect. Noah recalled the defects in the gambling ring on the first floor; those who had never been seen as normal. They’d become guinea pigs of the Replica Project, so their souls were forever damaged.

She flicked through more pages, the records spanned over a few days. And then a few months.

If  there is no point in trying to duplicate everything, change the way you think. It’s not about making one more, it’s about making two…

How would it turn out if one were divided into two?

Noah felt shivers run down her spine as goosebumps spread across her body. The record showed when Adrian’s thoughts had reached a turning point. If it’s impossible to create another one that’s already there, divide it into two. But dividing it like that would no doubt make the two halves incomplete. Was such a thing even possible? 

The text that filled the next page was a bit smudged:

03.12.580

Divided without damage. It’s looking more and more impossible to choose the parts I only want.

Failure.

03.15.580

Failure.

03.21.580

Failure.

03.27.580

Failure.

Failure. Failure. Failure. Failure… Nearly twenty pages of failures had been recorded. When Noah urgently flipped through the pages one at a time, a page appeared with the word ‘failure’ written on the bottom with a new phrase:

04.02.580

Failure.

Doesn’t work through human strength alone.

She gasped, her words dying in her throat. Checking the date, she saw that the entry was dated from the second of April. The dragon’s egg disappeared on the seventeenth of April. Now the puzzles were starting to fall into place.

At first, it was Adrian, not Lenia, who had stolen the egg from the heavily guarded imperial castle. Then why had Lenia been the one to become the imprint?

“Pecker.” Noah looked at Pecker and folded her arms across her chest. “Lenia Valtalere. This is not the first time she has stepped foot in this laboratory, is it? Pecker! Answer me!”  

“No! No, it isn’t. Lenia has been with Master Adrian ever since the laboratory moved here two years ago.” Pecker stammered, avoiding Noah’s eye contact. “She’s never left his side.” 

And then, the pieces started to fall together in Noah’s mind. Lenia had come to Harrell with Adrian two years ago. If, as Noah was assuming, she had stayed for a long time, everything else fell into place: Lenia being able to make copies of herself, her stealing Adrian’s egg and bringing it back to Noah, and the never-ending fear of being killed by Adrian.

Adrian had stolen the egg, and the person who had stolen it back from him and returned it to Noah was Lenia. In the process, Lenia had mistakenly been contacted by the egg, suddenly becoming the imprint candidate. And thus, she was able to be replicated with no problems. She was not another one of Adrian’s ‘failures’. 

But if that was the case, when did she first meet with Adrian and become his laboratory partner?

“Pecker, you said that Lenia came here two years ago with Adrian, right?” She said, frantically flicking through the papers. “Where did they move from?” 

When Pecker didn’t respond, she slammed her hands on the table again. He leapt back with a yelp. 

“The old laboratory was in Eleonora’s mansion in Tezeba.” He squeaked. “I don’t know anymore than that, I promise!”

“So, the old laboratory was in Eleonora’s mansion until she was killed. And then they moved everything here.” Noah slumped against the desk. “How does Lenia come into all this? Where did… Where did she meet Adrian? I need to see her, and get the answers from her.”