"Aaich, please don't screech. My head is still throbbing right now."
It tilted its head giving Gregory a curious look.
"He took a femur to the head. He'll be sore for a while."
Nodding the royal eagle continued in a softer voice, "What about your promise? One beast core can only be given to one of my chicks."
"But if one chick eats that core 70% of the power will be wasted as their small bodies can't handle that much energy. I was planning to cut it into thirds to make it easy for all three chicks to share and that way there would be far less wasted energy."
That made sense to the royal eagle but there was one problem with that plan.
"Once you cut the core it immediately starts leaking energy. What do you plan to do about that?"
"I can put it in a small item bag or apply [Sever] to a knife that you can use to cut it once you're home."
The knife would work well but it wouldn't have much use to the royal eagle after that, in comparison the item bag was much more useful to him.
"Make this item bag thingy, I can use it to carry tons of other things afterwards, right? That's much better for me."
"No problem, let me see that letter carrier. I'll expand its insides to be several times larger than they are right now. I can't make it as large as a regular item bag because of how small it is, but I should be able to make it about a meter in size without any problems."
"Truly! That'll let me carry a ton of things!"
Chronos winced as the royal eagle screeched in excitement.
"Please be quieter. My head still hurts."
"Right, sorry."
Holding the letter carrier Chronos carefully opened an item space and layered it on the inside of the carrier. Since the carrier had a hard case, instead of the usual soft bags Chronos normally used, he had to push the space into the corners and make sure that all of the sides were properly connected to the carrier before the item space snapped into place.
He felt around the inside of the letter carrier one last time to make certain that it was attached to all sides without any gaps before handing it back.
"There's one meter of space in it and the gap will draw in anything that is smaller than that."
As his ability with spatial skills had grown, he realized that the size of the opening didn't matter for a spatial object. As long as something was smaller than the insides of the item bag it could be drawn into it.
The royal eagle looked inside and whistled, impressed by these new skills Chronos had discovered.
"That should do. Now cut the core and give it here, I need to get back, hopefully in time to see my chick's hatch."
"Of course."
Chronos promptly cast [Sever] on his finger and split the core into three equal parts then stuffed them into the carrier before they could start losing energy.
The power of space would keep them from losing energy during the journey, but the chicks would have to eat them rather quickly to get the full benefits.
With a nod of its head, it flew into the air rapidly ascending to a height that most flying beasts would struggle to reach before flying to the west at a breakneck pace.
As Chronos was considering what to do next Gregory tapped him on the shoulder.
"The ship is ready to leave, everyone is waiting for us to arrive," he reported.
"Sounds good. Jeromy, please give my regards to Magar. It seems it's time for me to leave."
"I understand, try not to get into too much trouble."
Gregory snorted thinking that Chronos couldn't avoid trouble even if he tried and he wasn't wrong. Ever since they had left Gra Ulv they had gotten involved in nearly every problem they had come across, not all of them intentionally.
Boarding the ship, they found Lyla and Sariah waiting for them.
"Gregory, I need a test subject for my curse. Do you know of anyone suitable?"
That didn't bode well.
"You shouldn't be saying that as soon as we get back and what does this curse do?" Gregory retorted.
"It's a multi-faceted offensive curse that causes several symptoms from various illnesses to affect the target all at once. The illnesses aren't real, but the effects cause the target to experience various forms of weakness that will disrupt their actions in combat. It's a fusion of multiple weaker curses which makes it hard to use as a third rank curse. I'm calling it [Phantom Malady]."
"That sounds problematic. Let me guess none of the researchers want to be sick."
"That's right, why don't they want to experience it? It's just the symptoms; it's not like they'll actually get sick." She stomped her feet in frustration as Gregory rubbed his forehead.
"Of course they don't want to feel sick. It's very unpleasant. Once we land, I'll find someone for you to experiment on. I'm sure someone from the slums will be willing to be cursed for the right payment. For now, experiment with one of your other curses."
She pouted at being unable to test the curse immediately but accepted that she would have to fill her time with something else now.
"Well, I do have another curse that I came up with while developing the [Phantom Malady] curse, but it has some weird effects."
"Are they harmful?"
"No, just slightly annoying."
"Then we can test that one first, come on, let's find a researcher to test it on."
Chronos and Lyla glanced at each other than chose to join in on the fun. As they followed them to the testing room, they voluntold a couple of researchers that they were helping out and brought them to the testing room with them.
"What did you bring us here for? And don't tell me it's to test that malicious [Phantom Malady] curse, we refuse to test that." One of them said.
"It's not for that spell. I've developed another spell that might be helpful and I've already tested it on myself. You're just helping me with a broader range of test subjects."
They looked at each other with concern.
This wasn't the first time she had dragged researchers into the testing room and when they came out, they were always worse for wear but the chance to see a new spell was too alluring for them to refuse.
"If it's only a broader testing range than we'll accept."