The dragon's harem

Merlin returned to her lab exhausted to the bones, and she could even feel her magic veins pulsing deep within her flesh. She had used a lot of magic, abused her own body and soul, and even turned into an abomination. She needed to rest a bit, but sadly, for a wizard, that was just impossible. She walked into the inner lab, and the ten maids standing there approached her.

Each one of those maids was an accomplished wizard who was here just to support Merlin and assist in her research. They were her caretakers and assistants. None of them were scouted by Isdis, but the last one is an unwilling participant, a witch who tortured countless people for her magical experiments and was sentenced to death, only for Merlin to snatch her away. Such knowledge and talent shouldn’t be just thrown into the trash.

Merlin leaned on her chair and took her robe off. But that alone wasn’t enough, as she still felt as if her insides were about to burst open. Quickly, she fully stripped down and got two of the maids to fan her with special fangs that don’t just cool, but also burn excess mana.

"Damn, you’re ugly." The unwilling maid growled in the back, and Merlin just waved her hand with a tired expression. "I know that; find a new insult." She slowly turned around and looked at her. "Or do your work. How are the tests going on?"

The maid sighed. "Bitch, I get sent to the chopping block, and you here do whatever you want. I wonder which of us is the evilest." She turned around and walked toward the desk, flicked her fingers, and then opened a magical gate toward a large warehouse filled with neatly cleaned and arranged corpses.

"You kidnapped innocent people, both old and young, and cut them apart for your experiments, and that’s what landed you on the chopping block." That was the clear difference between them. Merlin started experimenting on herself, then only used criminals sentenced to death for her gruesome tests. For the lesser and safer ones, she hired willing people and paid them fairly. This witch maid, on the other hand, snatched people away and used them.

"It matters. You’re just making them suffer more than needed?" The maid growled, and Merlin laughed. "Rich coming from you. But I’ll answer; I’m in a good mood today. Did you forget when I picked you up? You were already sentenced to death, and I made you an offer. Be one of my experiment subjects; if you survive, I’ll keep you as my servant, and if you die, that’s all you’ve been worth."

Merlin had used her as a test subject for a surgery that widens a wizard’s mana veins, and it was successful. Right now, the witch maid’s mana flows 30% faster through her body. Of course, when Merlin confirmed that the surgery works, she performed it on herself and got the mana flow boost.

The witch maid walked into the sealed room and looked at the corpses. "The tests are proceeding smoothly. Since we have your own cells, we can get it to work with enough time and resources." In the back of the lab, there were a hundred capsules filled with green water, and inside them, the corpses of a hundred women, all pregnant.

Merlin stood and walked inside. "Project Spawn Point... It’ll be ready soon." What she was working on was a horrifying magical experiment, but one that could save lives. It was both complicated and expensive, but... "The embryos are mine, right?" She looked at the maid, and got a nod.

"Yes, using your cells, we managed to implant them. The magic is maintaining the corpses nicely, allowing for a smooth pregnancy. Once they are born, we’ll rapidly grow them to a juvenile stage and store them for when needed." Those were all clones of Merlin herself, ones that her soul can escape back to if she were ever killed in battle. If it worked for her, she would make sure everyone had at least one extra body stored.

"You’re absolutely horrifying." The witch maid growled. Even in her nastiest and wildest dreams and experiments, she had never thought a wizard as crazy as Merlin existed. To break the laws of nature so easily, and even run several horrifying experiments all back-to-back, trying to achieve a nebulous goal that no one can even fathom.

"Say that again." Merlin smiled. "But I agree, this indeed looks horrifying. Using corpses to bear life." She then approached one of the capsules and touched it. "But I can’t do anything else. My magic and lab aren’t advanced enough to grow bodies without a host, and since both the dead and living work, I’ll use corpses instead of torturing the living."

"Necromancy, flesh magic, curses, blood magic, demonic rituals... Is there any forbidden art that you didn’t dabble in?" The witch maid growled, and Merlin laughed. "Only those that I don’t know about."

But that wasn’t where it ended. The witch maid could only watch. Merlin’s library of spells and rituals grew by the day, fuelled by the rapidly growing machinations of Arad’s empire. The More kingdoms that submitted to his rule, the more secrets Merlin could get her hands on. Ancient tomes from the elves, secret curses found in Ruris’s castle, the records of witches hunted across the entire continents, and even the bloodied scrolls of demonic cults and long-forgotten dead deities.

Of course, those experiments weren’t all Merlin’s personal research, but the majority of them belonged to the entire empire as a whole. In a world where magic was the strongest weapon, what she was doing was creating state secrets and superweapons. Spare bodies for their strongest fighters, mass destruction spells, warp gates, enchantment surgeries to create super soldiers, and even her greatest secret, the art of purifying mana and severing it from Yog’s influence.

At first, Merlin could only hide her magic from Yog’s gaze by masking it as something else, but that had its limits and relied heavily on the goddess not looking too closely... but after finding Arad and seeing how his own magic worked, Merlin had realized that numbing Yog’s senses wasn’t impossible after all.

"I’m going to take a long bath and rest a bit. Call me if any of the barriers change by a value greater than 0.1%, keep an eye on those bodies, and don’t forget to record all changes and keep the database updated. Lastly, work on the scroll decryption. The one who deciphers one first gets a reward." She looked at her maids, "And if any of you managed to decipher more than one scroll, I’ll give her a special rank, a higher payment, and personally teach her magic."

Merlin teleported out and landed right inside the shower room of the bath. She was alone for just a second before the maid there noticed her. "Lady Merlin, you came for a quick shower?"

"Ah, lovely Jina. I’m here for a full-course meal. A nice scrub, a long soak in the bath, a slow massage, and maybe an entertaining show and a bit of wine." She smiled, and the maid bowed. "Of course, I’ll call the musicians and other maids immediately."