The Collector pointed down to the sleeping elder's crumpled, prone form. "Take this specimen elsewhere. Ensure his continued warmth."
One of the hobgoblins nodded and came up, picking the comparatively small elder up in his arms and carrying the aged specimen away to the corner of the Snowmound.
There, the other goblins draped the elder with fur blankets, a cloak, and rags that seemed to belong to the elder precisely for the purpose of keeping him warm.
The elder was the navigator of this tribe. Through his knowledge, the tribe traveled and maintained their survival, for he alone possessed the necessary, passed-down knowledge capable of traversing this harsh biome with reliable survival rates.
Thus, the tribe was already familiar with a routine of caring for the elder.
Good.
The Collector could then spend less time on needless instructions and more on experimentation.
"You. Step forwards." The Collector pointed at a random male hobgoblin. The hobgoblin nodded and stepped forwards obediently, kneeling before the Collector.
The Collector utilized Higher Calling's evolutionary power again, wrapping its hand in red and black waves of magical energy. Its ocular systems focused on those waves of energy, allowing it to better discern the minute movements of their flow and adjust them accordingly.
What the Collector primarily desired for now was to remove the continual drain on mana that the evolved specimen posed.
This, the Collector began to understand was due to the forced evolution completely overwriting the core which, though it did allow for goblin specimen to vastly alter their physiology, possessed the side effect of rendering their mental faculties completely inert unless commanded by Higher Calling.
Thus, Higher Calling was in essence a two-part power. Ordinarily, a lord goblin variant would force evolution and then utilize Higher Calling's commands to ensure that the mindless evolved followed orders.
However, because the evolved was mindless, at a basic level, it drained continual mana to ensure that even without Higher Calling commands, it retained enough mental faculties to not simply collapse and expire from brain death.
Then the solution was simple: allow for enough mental independence to nullify the passive cost.
The Collector was beginning to understand that unique manifestations of powers were no more than countless collections of interwoven ripples and patterns of magical energy flow.
Sufficiently complex enough that not even the Collector could directly create unique powers, but understandable enough that when given a power to directly work with and experiment upon, it could identify certain paths of flow and alter them such that the effects they manifested changed.
The red and black surges of mana around the Collector's hand rippled for a second, fluxing with a shade of green as the Collector altered the flow of mana. After five seconds, the Collector deemed that it had made sufficient modifications.
The Collector slammed the energy wreathed hand into the hobgoblin's chest, once more making sure to directly apply it to the specimen's heart.
Again, the hobgoblin convulsed, body rippling and swelling before in a burst of new flesh and cracking and regrown bones, there stood a champion.
This time, there was no discernable sign other than red eyes that the champion specimen had been artificially evolved. No tendrils on the specimen's back, for these, the Collector had made smaller and modified such that they formed a more compact network underneath the skin.
Those tendril antennae did not need to be as large and mana intensive anymore for as antennae, they would receive the Collector's magical energy to ensure they stayed alive, but with heightened independence, they required less of a direct connection.
"Return back to formation," said the Collector, utilizing higher calling.
"Yes, strong king," said the evolved champion, nodding with his grown tusks as he stepped back into the ring of hobgoblins.
However, the Collector would still exert influence over the specimen to the same degree as it did with the elder.
With a simple strong suggestion that would make all the evolved specimen subconsciously believe the Collector a 'king' and alter their worldviews, speech, and loyalties accordingly.
The Collector waited for a minute, pores in its ashen carapace wide and imbibing as much of the dense magical energy within the Snowmound as possible.
By now, there were almost seventy Snow Sprites dancing around the Collector's aura of flames.
However, the Collector let them be. They posed no real threat.
This, the Collector had confirmed with the elder. And it seemed now in sufficient quantity, they even provided an additional flow of environmental magical energy to aid the Collector's mana regeneration.
Once the minute passed, the Collector beckoned another hobgoblin forwards and evolved it also.
Like this, the Collector continued to evolve and evolve the lesser specimen around it.
The smaller goblin specimens became hobgoblins, and then further into champions once the Collector refined the evolutionary process such that it was less taxing on the subject's core.
The remainder of the hobgoblins all became champions.
One exception.
A younger hobgoblin that the Collector estimated was merely of eight years age and still stood as tall and physically sturdy as those ten years his senior, possessed not only the potential to ascend into a champion strain, but even into an elite.
The Collector noted the evolved elite's figure. Two and a half meters tall. Four limbs. Long tusks. Red eyes. Solid cords of durable muscle padding sturdy bones.
Yet, still inferior to the twin elites stored within the Collector's burial tusks jutting from one of its six skulls.
It would seem that among goblin elites, there was quite the variance in power ranges. This elite was approximately 70% as combat capable as either of the burial tusk elites. A similarity in extreme power ranges could be observed among tinkerers in this world as well, though it seemed that such extremity was not as pronounced among goblins.
Still, the elite was far stronger than the rest of the evolved.
"You shall be a Carrier unit," said the Collector. Within the Collective, carrier units were those that controlled a variety of parasitic, mindless units beneath them. They were the only units that could control other units aside from the Queens and other Collectors.
This goblin elite specimen did not warrant the worthy strength to be either a Queen or Collector, but a Carrier, it could be.
The Collector's meaning flowed into the goblin elite's head, and he bowed his head and nodded.
"Thank you, king. I lead us good for you," said the elite as he stepped back and entered the ranks of his fellow evolved brethren.
A total of thirty-three evolved champions and one taller elite stood in white-skinned, red-eyed ring around the Collector.
The Collector clicked the mandibles on its main skull in satisfaction. Highly agreeable.
With these numbers, even this gathering of weaker specimen would prove quite dangerous to most, not to mention that the Collector could regenerate their wounds by expending its magical energy so long as they were not utterly torn apart.
The Collector heard the elder's snoring at the edge of the Snowmound.
The elder, it hesitated to evolve. The frailty of the elder's form coupled with a unique core that channeled more magical energy would make Higher Calling a risky procedure to force upon him.
By now, the Collector had understood the mechanics of how a core defended the body against foreign magical interference.
The core and spirit roots could be likened to an eye within a storm. The storm raging outside the calm eye was the flow of magical energy emitted throughout the roots. This storm would buffer out any attempted outwards interference, hence why Dominus-magic that affected the mind directly was difficult to utilize.
Hence why attempting to directly hold a creature with Sapia was far more taxing than levitating inanimate matter around.
However, if the storm was spread out thin, perhaps in utilizing extensive magical energy or techniques that required mana to be ejected in large areas out of the physical body itself, then it was easier to infiltrate the eye, the core.
Higher Calling allowed the Collector to essentially inject magical energy that knew the path of the storm and would follow its currents right into the eye.
However, for spirit roots and cores that were even slightly different from those of an ordinary goblin's, Higher Calling became more difficult to utilize.
As was the case with the elder. It would seem he along with the thrall possessed unique mutations that rendered their bodies frail, but their cores altered to be more magically sensitive and capable. This also heavily enhanced their intelligence.
The Collector calculated a forty percent chance of failure in ascending the elder. Too high a risk to lose an information source familiar with this biome.
"Carrier unit," said the Collector.
"Yes, king," said the elite.
"Have one of the female specimens among you that has cared for the elder's needs to carry him and secure his physical integrity. Once my magical energy reserves have fully restored, I will mobilize towards this body of water known as 'Vimur'," said the Collector.
"From the elder's knowledge, I glean that it is likely we shall encounter a predatory specimen making a home within a dungeon along the way.
There, you and your brethren will prove your military worth to me," continued the Collector.
"We fight," said the elite with a sharp-toothed grin. It was evident he had been a battle-hungry specimen prior to his evolution.
He turned to his champions and raised two of his arms into the air. "We fight! Fight well! Fight strong for king!"
"Fight strong! For king!" roused a shout throughout the circle of champions.
The Collector clicked the mandibles of its main skull in appreciation and anticipation.
Soon, it would be able to see how efficient this fighting force of units was when given sufficient free will. Always, it had demeaned the thought of free will in terms of efficiency.
Only among Collectors, units of great worth and strength, was any measure of free will effective. For lesser units, there was no need for such an adaptation.
Of course, even now, the elite and champions were not truly free, believing themselves fighting fervently for a 'king' with conjured loyalty, and yet, their basic thoughts, how they would move, their individual emotions, their tolerances for the fight, their bravery or cowardice – all of that would show in the altercations to come.
And these, the Collector would observe.
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