It was unclear whether this clone of Morgan le Fay was simply naïve or overly conscientious, but she insisted on carrying out a so-called "physical inspection."
In extreme embarrassment, Thea allowed her to examine her once. After that, the clone even compared Thea's body with her own. Because the clone remembered that she herself was female, after comparing the two, Thea finally managed to prove that she was indeed a woman…
After doing something this outrageous, the blonde woman showed not the slightest hint of shame. She immediately reverted to her goofy expression and smugly read out the second requirement: "Must be able to cast spells."
Afraid that she might start some overly intimate inspection of her internal mana circulation, Thea attacked from both sides at once—Magic Missile, Fire Arrow, Ice Arrow, and a whole pile of spells. In the blink of an eye, she had fired off seven or eight different kinds.
The goofy blonde nodded. "Mm. Third item: must not be over fifty years old…"
Thea hurriedly pulled out her driver's license. The blonde woman glanced at it with great seriousness, pretending she could understand it, then continued reading, "Fourth item: appearance must be beautiful…"
A long list of miscellaneous questions followed, leaving Thea exhausted from dealing with them. She felt this wasn't a test at all—it was a census! Name, age, gender, family situation, a full round of interrogation.
"Seventeenth item: the main body requires the testee to obtain the scepter gemstone of the first ruler of the Roman Empire, Gaius Octavius—the Star of Scribonia, named after his wife. Time limit: three days…"
"No need for three days. The gem is already in my hand," Thea said flatly. She rummaged through her ring for a moment, then tossed a purple gemstone to the blonde woman.
"Oh! So beautiful… ahem—I need to hand this gemstone over to the main body for appraisal. This stage counts as passed…" Morgan le Fay's clone played with it for a long while. She clearly wanted to throw it back to Thea, but simply couldn't bear to part with it. In the end, she came up with a lame excuse and stuffed it straight into her own pocket.
"..." Thea stared at her until the clone finally put on a flattering smile, only then letting the matter drop. If you're going to covet my stuff, the least you could do is say thanks.
"Eighteenth item and nineteenth item, the material-gathering tasks—you pass them both. Twentieth item…"
As the clone continued reciting one "test" after another, Thea finally understood just how outrageously flexible the main body's trials were. For example, the forty-fourth item required the testee to kill a Medusa.
In a modern society like this, where was Thea supposed to find a Medusa? She took out a fiery red gemstone and pretended to drop it by accident. The gem rolled to the clone's feet, and the blonde woman instantly played along, boldly declaring that the gemstone on the ground was Medusa's head. Without a sound, that stage was passed.
People said Merlin was greedy and lustful. Judging from this Morgan le Fay clone's personality, her main body probably wasn't much better! Holy or evil—those were all embellishments by later generations. After direct contact, Thea felt no reverence whatsoever for these legendary figures. Dealing with them wasn't much harder than dealing with General Amanda Waller.
Although both examiner and examinee were fond of this "flexible" working style, Thea's gemstones didn't come from nowhere. Some troublesome tasks that couldn't be done could be handled flexibly, but for simpler ones, she still relied on her own abilities.
As time went on, the tests grew more and more difficult. For the eighty-second item, Morgan le Fay's clone directly dragged in a native from outside. The moment the native entered the temple, his bloodline began to boil violently throughout his body.
The task was simple: under the bloodline curse, ensure that this person survived for ten minutes.
Thea didn't dare slack off. The instant the man entered the temple, his pupils began to dilate and his entire body convulsed. Without immediate treatment, he wouldn't last even ten seconds.
Healing spells, Greater Healing, Regeneration—every Light- and Water-aspected spell she had was thrown at him. At the same time, she stacked various enhancement spells onto his body.
But in less than two minutes, the man's bodily potential was completely exhausted. Mana recovery lagged far behind the curse's eruption. Magic alone could no longer save him.
She injected a shot of adrenaline straight in. Thea glanced at the blonde woman, and seeing no reaction, stopped worrying about appearances. The medical pod powered by new energy was activated immediately. Heart failure—set up extracorporeal circulation. Kidney necrosis—open him up and replace them with mechanical ones.
She injected ten doses of stimulants potent enough to make an elephant run wild for three days. Various nutrients were poured into his body as if they cost nothing. Poison Ivy, based on her own experience, had formulated a chlorophyll solution rich in life energy. After a brief test confirmed that the human body didn't reject it, Thea poured an entire bottle into him as well.
"Time's up. Not bad!" the blonde woman said with clear satisfaction.
Thea let out a long breath, summoned a sphere of clean water, and washed the blood from her hands. Only then did she have the leisure to carefully inspect her handiwork.
It seemed that the temple's bloodline curse only lasted ten minutes. Now, after those ten minutes, the man had breathing and a heartbeat, and his brain was still receiving external signals. From a physiological standpoint, he had survived.
However, his heart was temporarily mounted outside his body, more than half his internal organs had been replaced, his capillaries had burst from the chlorophyll, and his cells—stimulated by the drugs—were still erupting with energy, dividing, growing, and dividing again. This violent cellular explosion in such a short time had drastically shortened his lifespan.
The best outcome for him was to live on as a half-cyborg. Thea didn't stop just because the time limit was over. After some thought, she used her proficient mechanical knowledge to expel the excess substances from his body.
Metal framework, bio-synthetic nerves, artificial skin. With the powerful functions of the medical pod, it took half an hour to finish tidying him up.
She gestured for the blonde woman to send him out. Thea felt a genuine sense of accomplishment—forty minutes to create a half-cyborg. After he woke up and returned to his tribe, his strength and speed would certainly increase significantly, and the synthetic skin ensured that without dissection, nothing unusual could be detected from the outside.
After calming herself for a minute, she signaled to continue the test. Having invested so much effort, Thea was determined to see what the final reward would be.
Morgan le Fay's clone was a spiritual entity and didn't know fatigue. Seeing that Thea wished to continue, she cheerfully launched into the subsequent trials.
The phantom of the Knights of the Round Table was beaten senseless by Thea with a combination of magic and martial skill.
When it came to riddles with the Sphinx, Thea pulled out a file on Gotham's Riddler. Many of those riddles had given Batman serious trouble. She selected a few of the harder ones and instantly defeated this Sphinx projection, whose intelligence had clearly dropped by several levels.
"Ninety-eighth item: locate the sword of the main body's mortal enemy, Merlin!" When the blonde woman read this line, she stared blankly at Thea—or rather, at her neck.
"You can see it too, right? The sword is right here," Thea said, shaking the sword disguised as a necklace. This test was entirely reasonable and well within expectations.
In other eras, this trial would have been extraordinarily difficult. But in the modern age, with A.R.G.U.S. having searched high and low for decades, the equipment of all well-known mages had basically been collected.
Even if it had required Merlin's staff, Thea could have obtained it by paying a modest price. This stage posed almost no difficulty for her at all.