Chapter 145: Chapter 145
Ever since Ultear defected to Marshall’s side, the task he had given her was simple: continue acting as a double—or rather, multiple—agent and report any important information she uncovered.
Unfortunately, Ultear had also developed a habit of treating Marshall like her personal diary.
Every so often, she would bombard his terminal with enormous walls of text, rambling about everything imaginable.
Occasionally she would even slip in some deliberately provocative teasing, apparently determined to test exactly how far she could push him.
Marshall’s assessment was simple.
Spending too many years surrounded by dark guilds had clearly done strange things to that woman’s personality.
Ultear was the kind of troublesome person who couldn’t be indulged too much, because she might immediately take advantage of it.
But treating her too harshly wasn’t ideal either.
She might somehow enjoy winning the argument anyway.
So whenever Ultear flooded him with messages, Marshall generally replied to only a few lines and ignored the rest.
The important thing was maintaining an appropriately aloof image.
As for what he had promised her, Marshall fully intended to keep his word.
He simply wasn’t in any hurry.
Reaching Ultear’s location would take him only an instant once the time came.
For now, he had something far more important to deal with.
The black box had finally produced a breakthrough from its analysis of Lullaby.
Marshall had acquired a new skill.
[Curse Power LV1]
Curse Power was a method of utilizing emotional energy.
For an ordinary Mage, the skill could amplify the effect emotions had on magic output.
Unfortunately, it wasn’t particularly compatible with Marshall himself.
His emotions rarely fluctuated dramatically during battle, which meant he couldn’t exploit it the way someone like Natsu could.
But that didn’t make the skill useless.
Quite the opposite.
It was extraordinarily valuable.
Once Marshall acquired Curse Power, he finally began to understand what emotional energy actually was.
And with that understanding, his comprehension of magic advanced again.
Emotional energy was, in fact, another special form of magic power.
More precisely, it was created when emotional phenomena interacted with magical particles, producing a distinct type of magical energy.
In principle, it wasn’t fundamentally different from celestial energy, moonlight energy, or dragon power.
Each of them resulted from something else combining with magical particles and forming a specialized variation of magic power.
These specialized forms possessed characteristics that ordinary magic power lacked.
Celestial energy had an unusually strong affinity for space-time phenomena.
Moonlight energy could interfere with and even erase certain forms of Magic.
Dragon power dramatically enhanced magical resistance.
And emotional energy...
Marshall’s current observations suggested that it could amplify the destructive force of magical phenomena.
He couldn’t give a definitive conclusion yet.
But there was something else he had discovered that was even more important.
The ambient ethernano floating throughout this world was, in some ways, more complex than any of those single-property energy types.
The magic power Mages absorbed every day was essentially a massive mixture containing countless different elemental and conceptual components.
Once that mixed energy entered the body, it underwent a process resembling: absorption → conversion → purification
Only afterward did it become the relatively stable magic power a Mage normally used.
This incredibly important function of the human body was so natural that most Mages completely ignored it.
Marshall himself had overlooked it until now.
And that discovery finally explained something that had been bothering him.
Why did Zeref’s artificial demons use emotional energy?
Why did Celestial Spirits rely on celestial energy?
Because artificial life did not possess a human body capable of efficiently filtering, converting, and purifying the complicated ambient magic power found in nature.
Using a single specialized energy source actually made an artificial organism much easier to design.
Once Marshall understood that, he immediately realized that his previous approach to creating Gugas had contained a fundamental mistake.
He had assumed that removing unnecessary conversion systems would free up more "information capacity" for other functions.
In reality, he had been approaching the problem backward.
When creating artificial life, taking the longer route could actually produce a simpler and more stable result.
Once that realization clicked into place, Marshall became so excited that he couldn’t sleep.
He immediately spent the entire night designing a new generation of Gugas.
This time, he didn’t rush to upload them into Super Archive.
Instead, he decided to imitate Zeref’s method first and create each artificial life-form within a physical book.
One step at a time.
That single experiment quickly spiraled out of control.
Marshall had another breakthrough.
Two days later, he stood before seven entirely new Gugas with a deeply satisfied smile.
He had succeeded.
Marshall had successfully created artificial life capable of using supernatural abilities on its own.
He named these seven revolutionary prototypes—The Seven Sins Gugas!
Each was designed to feed on a single type of emotional energy and possessed one unique Curse-derived ability.
First came—
’Ahem.’
Pride: Erza Guga.
Pride possessed Erza’s face.
Using Metal Magic and Information Magic as the foundation, Marshall had given her the ability to manipulate metal through magnetism.
At present, she could barely control a handful of small blades.
But theoretically?
She had the potential to become a miniature Magneto.
Next came—
Wrath: Mira Guga.
Marshall had used Fire Magic and Lightning Magic as the foundation, granting her the ability to manipulate plasma.
For now, she could barely produce a useful flame.
But someday she might possess the potential to become both a Flame Emperor and a Thunder God.
Then came—
Gluttony: Cana Guga.
Using Earth Magic and Gravity Magic as the foundation, Marshall gave her the ability to manipulate gravitational force.
At present, she could only make herself float.
But one day...
She might possess enough potential to make the entire world know pain!
Then there was—
Envy: Juvia Guga.
Built from Water Magic and Ice Magic.
Her current greatest contribution to civilization was functioning as a portable air conditioner.
Lust: Levy Guga.
Built primarily from Wood Magic.
Her current ability was... repairing wooden furniture.
Sloth: Wendy Guga.
Built from Sky Magic.
She functioned as a mobile first-aid kit.
And finally—
Greed: Lucy Guga.
Built using Heavenly Body Magic as its foundation.
Marshall hadn’t actually figured out what she was useful for yet.
But she definitely had potential!
Probably.
All right.
In truth, the latter few Gugas had mostly been created because Marshall needed enough prototypes to complete the seven-sins theme.
They were unfinished.
Then again, all seven of them were unfinished.
Creating seven artificial life-forms capable of even rudimentary supernatural abilities in only two days was already absurdly impressive.
They might be weak right now, but that didn’t matter.
Unlike the original Gugas that had already been uploaded into Super Archive—where changing their fundamental architecture afterward became extremely difficult—these seven still existed inside individual books.
They could be modified.
Expanded.
Rewritten.
Marshall had extremely high expectations for them.
Artificial life might never understand Magic beyond the conceptual limits of its creator.
But that didn’t mean its eventual combat strength couldn’t exceed his own.
Marshall wasn’t Zeref.
He certainly didn’t possess an immortal body.
He had created the Gugas specifically to assist him, so naturally one principle had been engraved into the deepest layer of their existence from the very beginning: Loyalty.
Marshall stood before the seven prototypes.
"To help you master your abilities as quickly as possible, I’m assigning Cake Tower’s security to all of you."
"I want to see effort."
"Whichever one performs best will be the first to receive a proper body."
"Understood?"
"Gugu-gaga!"
[Loyalty!]
All seven answered together.
To make room for as many useful functions as possible, Marshall hadn’t wasted precious capacity giving them proper speech systems.
Their appearances had been simplified too.
They still resembled penguins, but unlike the original tiny, squat Gugas, these prototypes were nearly a meter tall with lankier four-head-tall proportions.
The result looked...
A little strange.
But details like that weren’t important!
They could use magic now!
Besides, these penguin bodies were only temporary.
Marshall intended to build them proper combat bodies eventually. Their current shapes weren’t particularly suitable for fighting.
For the moment...
They would do.
Unfortunately, just as Marshall was happily immersing himself in the joys of creating artificial life, an urgent message from Makarov summoned him back to the guild.
Something serious had happened.
Natsu had stolen an S-Class request from the second floor.
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