Formations For Control

Even as Jien thought of how he could splice the three provided plants into one to suit his purpose he made no attempt to act on his thoughts. It was far too early for him to consider actually attempting the creation of this plant. He had been too focused on absorbing the knowledge he felt was useful and as such had put actual experiments with alchemy, formations and arcane blacksmithing on the back burner. He may now have the guides recorded word for word but that would not make up for actual experience. Anyone that thought that way if put in front of someone with only base knowledge but years of experience, would lose to the one without knowledge.

Jien decided that after he thought up a decent plan on all fronts from splicing to the arcane blacksmithing of his final design he would begin completing some basic experiments in all fields. Once he felt that he had at least a beginners grasp of each portion would he go through with an attempt. Luckily for him the only ingredient that was somewhat rare that he had been provided for this purpose was the Magical Mandrake. As such even if he failed on that front he would have other chances with the other two plants.

For now Jien decided to direct his thoughts to what he felt was likely to be the hardest portion of the whole ordeal. To create the weapon that he wished, using a live plant as a part of it, he would have to have formations included to control the plant's behavior. After all, unlike animals that could be trained with enough time, plants while 'sentient' in certain aspects were not intelligent in the way of an animal. Given that two of the plants that he had at his disposal would attack any living being in it's vicinity he needed a way to at the very least keep his end product from attacking himself and his allies.

This was by far the more troubling part. Controlling something definitely wouldn't be what one would consider easy to do. There of course were arrays used for controlling things like golems but Jien did not know of any such formations that could be used to successfully control something that had a will of it's own, even if only instinctively. A golem was a being that would be formed of inanimate objects and then would be programmed to follow a specific set of directives.

The more advanced the formations used the more specific the directives could be and if done with great skill one could potentially layer multiple directives into one object. The trouble is that one would need to account for rejection between the various formations in use. Not every formation could be tied to one another, in fact most would only ever attempt to use one formation at a time. If the failure of one formation could be considered a catastrophe then the rejection and subsequent failure of multiple could be even more of a disaster.

Jien wasn't sure if there existed formations for the general use that he was trying to accomplish. He felt that there likely would be, after all it was known that there existed mages who specialized in how to control beasts, both normal and magical. These were known as tamers, there were also rituals used for summoning but he didn't have any knowledge read or otherwise about either of these types of magic.

Jien sidelined his thought on overall control of the plant, feeling that he should research tamers to have a better understanding on their methods. He wasn't positive on how they went about taming beasts but he hoped that it would be something that he could use on a plant and that if could be used with alchemy and blacksmithing.

He knew for sure that summoning magic wouldn't help him. While it could supposedly make a bond between the summoner and summoned it would not help on anything that was not summoned. Even if it could work on a being that was not summoned it was known that the bond created would put pressure on the summoner. Some who failed to retain control under the pressure created would die, while others would be controlled by what they were trying to summon. Jien had little interest on putting that level of strain on himself just for the chance to upgrade a fighting style.

Rather than focus on the control specifically at this point Jien started to direct his focus to utility. If he could find a way to do what he wanted and control the plant then how would he use his new weapon. He wanted a weapon that could act on its own to a certain extent but would not fight back against him or his allies in the process.

His thoughts eventually turned to the formation used to control the heating plate for his alchemy set. The level of control over the amount of heat used and the instinctual knowledge of how to adjust it using the created formation was interesting. Perhaps he could restrain the nature of the plant rather than actually control it. Then he could simply turn the 'valve' on the amount of freedom the plant had. This would still carry inherent risk but if used correctly the risk could be minimized.

There was other potential for that style of formation. Ignoring control once again, he would want to enhance certain aspects of the end result of the experiment. He felt that it would be a waste to ignore the poison the Serpent Vine created naturally. On its own it was a fairly deadly poison when matched with Serpent Vines behavior in constricting around prey. What if he could use the same fine tooth control as the heating formation to sharpen the potential of the poison. Perhaps he could use it to control the explosive growth of the Creeping Moss.

There were many different points to consider, there were even thoughts on whether it would be possible to build some elemental abilities into the final creation. His current sword already had a formation to use a mild paralytic poison and wind. Could he somehow build something like fire or water into the plant portion of the weapon without disturbing the plant himself. He wasn't sure. This too would require more research and experimentation but the more Jien thought of the possibilities the more excited he became.