It turned out to be a she. After returning to the house, they managed to get into contact with one of the Australians raising these things. For once, it was a free exchange of information. Evidently, John was talking to an enthusiast, who was just willing to share her (judging by the name Judith) passion for the subject. Well, they were writing, not talking. Talking was downright impossible due to the time dilation. Writing was only slightly awkward.

The important things that he had learned were, for one, that Magryphs were notoriously hard to find and breed, but not that complicated to raise. If they were given a small share of shiny stuff, adequate housing and food, they made for loyal companions. They weren’t as tameable as dogs, but this was largely because they were less pack-thinking. Magryphs were considerably smarter and able to figure out who to obey and to what gain; given enough time, even adults could become loyal to partners. A raised chick definitely recognized someone as their superior.

As for power and size, Magryphs operated in a wide range in the former case, but did not have much in the latter. Magryphs could be anything between the power of an elite Abyssal fighter and someone of a low Primarch level, like John currently was. In that regard, the ones that John had faced had been top of the line. None of that power actually lived at the moment. In size, the smallest specimen ever recorded was 1,40 metres and the largest 1,60. Not even remotely close enough to be ridden, which saddened John somewhat. Riding on a gryphon into battle would have been pretty up there on the badass scale.

The Gamer had also posted a photo of the Magryph into the harem’s group chat and gotten a number of heart-eye emojis. Particularly his girlfriend seemed to love the looks of the small thing. Currently, the female chick was playing with Stirwin and Sylph. The tiny trio triumphantly tumbled over the table, until the Magryph slowed down and did nothing aside from guarding its pebble.

“Aclysia, we don’t happen to have cat food, do we?” John asked, since he got the recommendation that young Magryphs liked the dry pellets, after they got soaked in water. Of course, the answer to that inquiry was no, making John go down to the next item on the list. “How about minced meat? Bananas?” The later could be squished into a pulp and that would apparently do it as well. Meat was best, but Magryphs were omnivores.

“I am certain we have some minced meat. I will fetch it at once, Master,” Aclysia responded and marched out of the living room and into the kitchen.

“Do you plan to keep her?” Lydia asked.

“I am heavily considering it,” John responded and used Observe on the small thing. It was an unremarkable window he got in response, basically the same as he got for Observing the dungeon monsters, but with a lower level and synonyms for the word ‘baby’ sprinkled in here and there. Also, no Loot Table. “I have been given three options, right? And we both can agree that putting her in the Menagerie is a giant waste.”

“If I understand correctly, she would never grow up?” Lydia asked.

“She would essentially cease being a real being,” John responded. “The Menagerie creates animals that do not eat each other, are only friendly to each other and other people, and that cannot be eaten. They don’t procreate and if one dies, by being killed or because they’re part of a species that ages, they respawn. Sure, if they’re left alive, they show they have individuality, but they exist solely for the purpose of being cute.”

Sometimes, he felt a bit immoral because of that. However, it wasn’t like they were suffering because of it. Having the Menagerie was about as shady as using some chat bot program to get off. The entire purpose of the animals was to be adorable, that’s what they did and that’s what made them happy. It was just wrong to look at them as animals in the traditional sense.

As of this moment, the Magryph was different. “Sure, she was made from nothing, but now that she is something, throwing her into the Menagerie to have some variety in the cute spawns feels wrong.” Aclysia returned with a bowl half filled with minced meat. John took it and placed it on the table.

He had already positioned his other hand to keep the Magryph from dashing towards the bowl, but the chick just kept sitting there. Only its beak went from lowered to attentively raised. John pulled a tiny bit of the minced meat off and offered it to the bird-cat. The animal just opened her beak and left John to not only place the food in her mouth, but push it in there until the swallowing reflex kicked in. He was actually feeding a young bird that expected the food to be vomited down her throat, to put it in unembellished terms.

“Anyway, the remaining two choices are to keep her or sell her,” he continued on, while gently shoving more food down the Magryph’s throat. It was a very odd but also satisfying feeling. “The Judith woman said she would be interested in buying her already, every extra female and bit of fresh genes is apparently worth a ton… even if I am surprised that genes are even a concern.” He paused in his motion as the bird-cat lowered her head to signal she was still swallowing the previous piece. “I’m just going to assume you would take her as well?”

“I would be a foolish leader to not leverage my influence over you for the gain to my nation at some points.” Lydia shrugged. “I denied the necessity of a Magryph at the time, I still don’t subscribe to it, but a positive deal for a new asset and a content subordinate is something I would gladly negotiate for.”

“Right, so that’s something we could do.” John saw no reason not to sell the Magryph to Lydia over some Australian woman, even if that would drastically cut his profit margin. “As it is, however, I am being offered a new Class and the ability to immediately level that Class. From the Quest rewards, that’s doubtlessly the best one.” As nice as a Legendary item was, the Talon of the Ravenlord was made for a melee build, which John wasn’t. It was a temporary stay in his arsenal, so investing into it seemed like a bad idea.

Aside from the rewards the question was really whether he wanted to keep another pet or not. Right now, they had Stirwin, Copernicus and Eliza.

‘Wonder if she would punch me or start panting like a dog if she heard me say that,’ John chuckled at his own joke. ‘But seriously, we have two pets that aren’t really pets. Copernicus is a cat that only likes to be pet twice a week, doesn’t really need to eat and doesn’t have a toilet to take care of. Stirwin just swims around the Guild Hall. Aside from feeding them, taking care of them is extremely easy. In terms of space, we definitely have it.’ The Magryph raised her head again and opened her beak; the feeding continued. “It’s all a question of motivation,” John mumbled. “Do we want to take care of her or not?”

He looked to the remaining harem. Perhaps unsurprisingly, there was a large deal of enthusiasm to keep the Magryph. Not to be overly stereotyping, but women did tend to like cats a lot. This was a cat with extras. The only person that John could see voting against keeping her was Nathalia, who would likely look at the pet as a nuisance. Nia, the other person who was missing, would have been more than insistent that they kept her, though.

The Magryph let out a sound between a raven’s purr and kitten’s meow. When John offered the next bit of meat, she didn’t open her beak, no matter for how long John kept it hovering in front of her. “Beatrice, go order a few feeding syringes and a dog bed or something of the like, please,” the Gamer announced, “…right, and also a litter box.”

“So, you ARE intent on keeping her?” Lydia asked while the passive maid stepped away to do what was asked.

John checked his smartphone before answering. Using her harem-reading powers, his girlfriend had already started a poll asking for everyone’s opinion on keeping the Magryph. Votes tumbled in slowly, as was expected with the current difference in experienced time, the trend was clear, however.

“Let’s go with yes, for the moment,” he answered, putting the almost empty bowl to the side, where Aclysia immediately picked it up and moved to throw the leftovers away. “Unless I run into some serious issues, keeping her just seems like the most useful and humane approach.” He wondered if he could convince those Australians to make some sort of breeding pact, but that was an issue for down the line. He also wondered where they got their initial Magryphs, but as far as the Abyss went, the answer to that could only be either magical experimentation or Natural Barriers.

Given that there were many different kinds of gryphons, John was willing to bet that the original mixture came out of a Natural Barrier, created by human fantasy, and most further types were created. Presumably, the magical creation of a Magryph took an absurd amount of time and resources, so absurd that breeding a population of fifty was cheaper, or the knowledge had gotten lost and rediscovering it would take a lot more effort than the breeding did. Since Magryphs didn’t provide anything essential, the incentive to do any of this also wasn’t present.

If he ever took greater interest in the matter, he would have a longer talk with the breeders about it. For the moment, what he knew sufficed.

“Anyway, until I am completely sure, we’ll have to take care of her anyway.” John picked the Magryph off the table, something she protested to until John took the Mithril pebble in his other hand and allowed her to keep it around. Once she was holding it with her talons against her stomach, she was willing to be held in his arms. She was nice and fluffy, particularly the feathered part. The wings shifted a bit against John’s arm and chest, the fantastical creature lying on her back. “Which also means you,” he scratched the Magryph under the beak; she reacted with a pleased chirp, “need a name.”

“Raven?” Gnome suggested. While the Magryph was half Australian Magpie rather than crow or raven, those three birds were pretty similar.

“Hm,” John hummed; the name reminded him of the character from the Teen Titans. “I like the name, but it’s a bit too on the nose for me.”

“Shinybeak!” Sylph exclaimed. “Because she likes shiny and has a beak!”

“A bit too simple.” John shook his head, and they went through a number of different names.

“Bronwen,” Lydia suggested. “It is a name from Arthurian legend.”

“That does make it attractive, but it’s not that feminine.” The Gamer made an apologetic face. “I know I’m being picky about this. I always spent ten minutes hammering in names in the character creator.” He looked down, then remembered a name he liked from Dark Souls, the game was still on his mind from earlier. “How about Velka?”

“Where does that originate from?” Lydia inquired.

“It’s the name of the goddess of sin in Dark Souls,” he told her straight-up. “Her holy animal is the raven, so it sort of fits.”

“I like Velka,” Gnome agreed, so did the other elementals, the maids and, although she found the reference unbecoming, Lydia. Shortly thereafter, the now named Velka fell asleep and John placed her on the couch. Their supplies wouldn’t arrive for another ten hours at least.

“Alright, now that she is asleep, let’s discuss this thing.” John reached into his inventory and pulled out the golden, softly glowing disk that Velka had sat on. It was the Legendary drop from Radiohead. Having gotten two in as many days was pretty lucky, even if he was almost guaranteed one of them. This disk was a bit less exciting than a live chimera, but the one Attribute it offered was exciting.

The long-term value of this was insane and he had Single Step to replace anyway. “Beatrice, eat this,” he decided quickly and offered it to the passive maid. Looking at it for a while, the short-haired maid said something unexpected.

“Request: may Aclysia have it instead?” Looking over to her elder, the passive maid added, “I am under the impression that she deserves a reward as recent decisions have left her with less than she deserves.”

That Beatrice decided to state her intentions so blatantly was pretty like her, to forego his orders in favour of being kind, however, was something new. The reason was the recent denial of Aclysia’s request to receive a Lover’s Will mark. Although the logical part inside John didn’t want to give this item to his weaponized maid, he looked over to Aclysia for her decision.

“I thank you for your empathy, Beatrice,” the older maid smiled genuinely, while shaking her head, “but I need no handout. I will get what I deserve in time. This is required so you can catch up to my number of Perks and be of better use to Master. This must take priority.”

“Understood.” Beatrice proceeded to take the golden plate without any more insistencing or questions. It appeared her empathy had been used up for that and her passive nature had decided that no further clarification of the matter was needed.

Seeing his second maid devour the item with a number of quick bites gave John another idea. “Say, Lydia,” he turned to the queen, who was looking over the sleeping Magryph, “you get a temporary power boost by drinking Mithril-mercury mixtures, right?”

“This is accurate.” Lydia looked at him, first just out of conversation courtesy, then with careful intrigue. The Gamer was well aware that he had a schemer’s grin on his face.

“Would it be possible to get permanent, smaller boosts by taking in raw, exceedingly powerful metals?” He pulled a Mithril and Elementium pebble each from his inventory. The silver-white and the golden pieces lay in his hands like pills.

“Under any normal circumstances, absolutely not.” Lydia raised one hand to her chin and stroked it carefully. “It would just be digested into mana. However, one could use martial art meditation techniques to funnel that mana into overloading magical circuits and strengthen the muscles. If adequate potential is present, this could be used to generate massive advances. Those same advances would come alongside considerable damage to the body tissue, however.”

“Which would be a considerable problem, if one left that damage to take root and lead to permanent crippling.” John only grinned wider as his plan came together. “A powerful healer would be required to steadily overlook the operation, someone that can immediately fix all ailments as they arise.” Undine flowed onto the scene, having heard her cue. “What do you say, is it worth a shot?”

“It’s not an unheard of procedure,” the queen thought out loud, “martial art prodigies have been known to go through training like that, utilizing outside sources of mana to quickly increase their own potential and overcome fighters with decades of experience in the span of weeks. Of course, I am no prodigy in the field, but with the help of Undine, my mistakes should be diminished…” Finally, Lydia nodded. “On a theoretic level, it should work. It depends on my ability to perform the meditation. Slightly less important than my bodily integrity, however, is the question if you truly want to part with these materials.”

That she hadn’t started with that just meant she already knew what his answer would be. “The way I see it, I’ll gain a more powerful and potentially more beautiful lover, so this is a worthwhile investment.” He grinned and gestured towards the door. “’Let’s see how this pans out in practice.”