Ryan pushed himself off the dark grey mass that was embracing him completely right now. Kindly's tentacles were slung all around his body, getting tighter as if he wasn't planning on letting go anytime soon. And maybe he really wasn't planning on letting go, either. It must have been quite a while since Kindly was able to actually touch anything or anyone with even an ounce of mana within them, so now the mimic probably had a lot to catch up on in that regard. Even so, Ryan wasn't the kind that liked being held like this.

  "All good, bud, you can let go of me, now!" he laughed awkwardly, trying to push himself off the mimic. Realizing that he wanted to be let go, Kindly did ask asked and carefully retracted his tentacles. As he pulled back a bit, Ryan was able to get a proper look at the mimic like this. He was clearly doing a lot better than he was just yesterday. His mimic shell, the wardrobe, had been repaired pretty well, and his wounds were treated thoroughly. Though, the wardrobe was probably fixed by Kindly himself.

  Being an awakened mimic, it seemed as though he had gained the ability to better modify his body and shell, basically allowing him to change the appearance of his shell to whatever it needed to be. A usual mimic really just used something like this as their home in the way that they found it, but Kindly was different in that case. Glancing Kindly up and down, Ryan tried to make sure that the mimic was still cured of the corruption. The idea that the corruption could somehow come back was a little bit worrying, but it didn't seem to be the case.

  Kindly pulled his tentacles back into the wardrobe, closing the cracks in the wood. Now, the only thing that Ryan was able to see were Kindly's eyes peeking out from the cracks of the wardrobe's doors, glancing the man in front of them up and down excitedly.

  "Did Rose do a good job treating you?" Ryan asked. He sat down on the ground, leaning backward onto his hands. Kindly replied with a soft, happy chirping.

  "Do you think you want to come downstairs with me?" he suggested. Now that Kindly wasn't corrupted anymore, he should be allowed to be with the others downstairs. Of course, at the end of the end of the day, mimics were considered animals, so maybe bringing him downstairs so easily was a little reckless, but Kindly was an awakened mimic. Ryan didn't know what sort of abilities he had or what his innate stats were, but he seemed to be incredibly intelligent and responsive compared to what he would expect from an animal. Maybe part of it was Ryan's sociability stat doing its job, allowing him to talk to Kindly and be actually understood, though whichever it was, Ryan felt bad for the mimic.

  Kindly's wardrobe slowly pushed itself off the ground, revealing those spider-like legs that it turned some of its tentacles into. Parts of the wardrobe's front opened up, revealing large, round eyes. Ryan stood up off the ground and walked toward the door. It was large enough for Kindly to get through, but the steps were still a bit of an issue. Trying to properly guide him downstairs, Ryan placed his hand onto the front of the wardrobe, pushing back against it whenever Kindly was about to make a misstep.

  "Take it slow, there's no need to rush. We've got all the time in the world," he explained, carefully guiding Kindly and making sure that he wasn't mis-stepping. If Kindly fell here, he would completely destroy his wardrobe, and that definitely wasn't good for him. Apparently, the stress of not having a 'shell' starkly reduced a mimic's lifespan, and Ryan wasn't sure if there was anything else here that he could use as one. Not to mention, Kindly was already pretty hurt, so falling down here wouldn't be great for him.

  But luckily, the two made it down the stairs soon enough. The mimic seemed a bit nervous walking around here, since he wasn't allowed to ever leave the room at the top of the stairs. Walking around here and feeling something else beside old wooden floorboards below him was certainly exciting. Ryan guided kindly to where the others were celebrating. The smell of food was already filling the well-trodden village paths.

  Ryan turned around the corner of a building, quickly bumping into someone he was looking for earlier. Rose looked up at Ryan, startled. It seemed like she was looking for him as well, "Oh! That's where you are, I heard you went up to see Kindly! He-" she started, though she stopped herself when she saw what was standing behind Ryan right now.

  The fancy, clean, and new-looking wardrobe definitely wasn't here before, "Wait, is that..? Did you bring Kindly down here?!"

  Ryan turned around to look at the mimic with a smile, though he was surprised to see that he had retreated into the shell completely, "Yeah, I did. He's not corrupted anymore, so I figured he should get to join everyone."

  Nervously, Rose looked around, "Ryan, I adore Kindly as well, but he's still a mimic, and a pretty large one as well... I'm not sure how safe it is to have him here."

  With a scoff, Ryan shook his head, "He's fine, don't worry. He's more shy than anything."

  "Yes, I know that, but the others don't. Plus, there's a lot of extremely curious kids here. Who knows what they might do if they see a walking wardrobe? I don't want to stress Kindly out too much..."

  After a bit of contemplation, Ryan patted the side of the wardrobe, "We can find a spot a bit of a distance away. I just don't want Kindly to be stuck all alone up there. I figured that, now that he's cured, we could find him a new home. Somewhere that's still a bit away from others, but where he can get used to being around people again slowly but surely."

  Rose thought about it for a moment, "Well, most places here are already being lived in right now, and we can't just leave him outside... What about with the Forge Elemental?"

  "A forge elemental that melts metal with a single bite and a mimic with a wooden shell?"

  "... Good point," Rose hummed slightly, thinking about what to do, "Then we could have him live in Runar's office, maybe? Not many people go in there beside you and Runar, it's pretty central so Kindly could hear people and get used to being around them, and the doors and steps are large enough for him to get in and out easily."

  Ryan thought about that for a moment. It didn't seem like the worst place. Plus, most of the time, mimics were completely stationary and in their 'hidden' form anyway, so Runar shouldn't be bothered by him either.

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  "But what about Penny? I know that she's not supposed to be in there permanently anyway, but right now her nest is still in the office."

  "... Right, that could be an issue... but one that we could solve if we could get Penny to move somewhere else. We've been trying to find her a spot she might like, but she doesn't really listen to anyone beside you."

  "That's fine, I can help her find a spot for her nest," Ryan replied. His hand was still on the side of the wardrobe. He carefully nudged Kindly forward, "But for now, let's try and see how Kindly will do around everyone. As long as we're here, I'm sure he'll be okay. Plus, I'd love to let him eat something tasty as well. Wait, what do mimics eat?"

  While he couldn't see her face perfectly through the dark visor of her hazmat suit's helmet, Ryan could swear that Rose was smiling.

  "Fine. Let's go."

  "Okay, let's do this, and then this... and then..." Modak grumbled quietly, chewing on the end of his pencil as he entered different values into the software on his computer, trying to adjust the audio output of the speakers. Once he was done, he quickly pushed himself over to the adjacent desk with his chair, turning a knob at the speaker's side until it reached the exact level he needed. He then grabbed a small band of crystal tape laying next to him and pulled it into place. To his left was the inscription machine, and to his right was the data reader and speaker.

  One last time, Modak made sure that everything was properly in place, and then looked around to the cyclops, "Is everything in place on your side?"

  Marge quickly nodded. She had different cameras set up, each with different levels of mana-sensitivity and filters to ensure that they could capture everything that they needed. Plus, there were a number of other sensors set up to track the experiment further. All of the sensors and cameras were pointed at the pile of toy plastic bricks in the centre of the room. They were thrown together onto the pile without much thought and without being clicked together.

  "We're ready to go on my side," an excited smile formed on Marge's face as she stepped back, just waiting for Modak to start. And with that, he quickly did just that.

  "Perfect," he replied, carefully looking back over at the screen. Taking a deep breath, Modak clicked on one of the tracks that he prepared. The crystal tape started turning along with the playback speed of the song, and the soundwaves were quickly placed onto the tape through carefully pulsated mana signatures. Then, on the other side, just ten centimetres along, the reader lifted the mana off the tape and translated it into sound. The mana that had been placed onto the tape earlier was infused into the sound as the speaker finally let out the sound. It was a simple rhythmic tune that was set to a loop. As the sound hit the toy bricks, they carefully started to tremble. A few of the bricks higher up on the pile were pushed to slide down the side.

  So, Modak carefully got started with the rest. He adjusted one of the dials on the control board next to him. It was like what a music producer would have, allowing him to adjust tons of different values easily. For now, he adjusted the mana levels of the track, which was set to increase the amount of mana that was placed onto the tapes. When the toy bricks began to shake more vigorously, Modak increased the speaker's output volume. Like this, instead of just shaking, they were being lightly thrown around, almost floating for a few moments, like gravity became weaker for them.

  "Changing amplitude," Modak said to warn Marge. She took a slight step back, watching as the plastic bricks weren't just thrown around, but were carefully lifted off the ground, weightlessly moving along. Some of the bricks were still shaking a bit, but Modak was able to fix that by carefully adjusting some of the other values. By changing the pitch and playback speed of this track in particular, he was able to just have the bricks stay stationary in their position, like someone paused time for them as someone threw the pile on the ground.

  "Perfect. Playing 2Mu7," with a grin on his face, Modak carefully started up another track to play simultaneously with the first one, carefully ramping up the volume. It was only minuscule addition to the initial track. As he did, each of the bricks started rotating around their own axis until they were oriented in the exact same way, lining themselves up in a grid. Each brick was an equal distance away from its closest neighbour. Modak muted that track again, and then instead started up another one, "Switching out 2Mu7 with Ik91."

  "We really need some better naming conventions for the tracks, huh?" Marge pointed out, and Modak chuckled with a nod.

  "Maybe, but we're still just testing, so it's fine," he replied, watching as the bricks, that were now all lined up in a grid, sorted themselves by colour. With the next track, they sorted themselves by size, all whilst keeping up that grid setup. They moved around each other skilfully, almost algorithmically.

  A few moments later, though, Modak pulled up the next set of tracks to play along with them, "Beginning construction sequence, track 8Zg1," Modak said, almost giddy as he ramped up the track's volume. As the track continued on, and Modak adjusted different values like pitch or playback speed, the bricks didn't just sort themselves anymore. Instead, they were clicking together into each other, carefully constructing a small toy cube. As Modak reversed the track, the bricks took themselves apart again, returning to the grid setup.

  As Modak went through different tracks, the bricks were arranged into new shapes. It still worked even when new bricks were added to the mix or some were taken away. Before long, the final part of this test was done, and Modak carefully stopped all of the tracks. The bricks fell to the ground and Marge turned off the cameras and sensors.

  "It just... worked perfectly," Modak said with a broad grin on his face.

  "It's simpler and cheaper than most other processes... Modak, you have no idea what you invented with this, it's... incredible. If we can upscale this properly, then this would absolutely revolutionize construction or maybe even rescue operations!"

  "Well, it would take quite a lot of mana to make it work at that scale, but if we can properly increased the efficiency, it won't be long until we can do some field tests," he replied, leaning back in his chair, "But I'm glad that the showcase tracks for this Thursday are working without issue. I'll tweak them a bit more here and there, and then they should be perfect to show what we can do!"

  Marge looked at the orc for a few moments, hesitating, "Are you sure it's a good idea to already show it so soon? Wouldn't it be better to do a few more tests? Maybe make sure it's fully safe?"

  "I mean... there's nothing here that's actually unsafe, and we tried anything that could realistically happen already. Glitches in the tracks, issues with the tape, inscriber, or reader, and even issues with the speakers. And otherwise, the spell just has no capacity to be harmful to anyone. The total max weight it can hold is about two kilos," Modak pointed out, "Plus, there's no mana leakage, and the level of mana exerted is already less than the average awakener's spell."

  The cyclops was still clearly hesitant. It hasn't been long since they started working on this project, and they already made this level of progress, largely because Modak was working at a speed she could barely keep up with.

  "Let's just be doubly sure and run a few more safety tests," Marge suggested, and Modak quickly agreed.

  "Sure, just in case," he said, glancing over at his screen. This test 'song' was working incredibly well already, and Modak couldn't wait until he could take this principle and apply it to the next song he was already in the middle of working out.

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