From Ash to Rust

Trent Evensman was timing himself, he was making sure he'd be the last one into his classroom today. He had a special treat for his class again. Though not quite as exciting as the blue dragon heart he had brought in one day this was probably make a couple of students weeks.

In a wooden cage floating next to him under a drapped cloth was something he hadn't thought would exist in this Planar Wheel. A Rust Monster. It had a couple of differences from the ones he remembered back in the day. But it was still the same rust brownish orange that he remembered.

Trent heard his classroom before he saw it, like always students found anytime they were not supervised to talk to their friends. Once he entered the class the room started quieting down as most of them wondered as to what was under the cloth draped over the box. "Good morning class, I have something special for you today. Tell me have any of you heard of Ærugo Onocentaurus?"

Trent had been in the middle of the question when a student barged in late to his class but all Trent did was look at him and then seem to ignore him as he turned back to the class. "I don't doubt that most of you have never heard of the Ærugo Onocentaurus. Though in common tongues it is most oftentimes referred to as a Rust Monster."

He moved over to the cloth covered wood cage then and pulled off tge cloth in a overdone theatrical way. And he didn't break his verbal stride as he continued. "The Rust Monster likes to live in dark mineral rich caves. Iron being one of its favorite foods, hence the name. Mr Ward please come to my desk after class. Yes, the Rust Monster is quite the specimen. See the thick rust orange color of its hide, the long feeler antenna on its head capable of rusting any metal." Trent took out a rod of solid tungsten steel and showed it to the class. It was easily a yard long and as this around as a quarter but Trent didn't even show the slightest strain holding it one handed.

"The rust is fast acting and is potentially harmful to those who back in times of old hunting these creatures wearing the wrong armor." he then put the rod within reach of the creature. It quickly wrapped its antenni around the metal rod cutting off 2 feet of it rusting the metal. Now left with one foot of metal in his hand he walked over silently to his desk and stoid the rod up on the non rusted side presenting it to the class for all to see. Meanwhile the creature pulled the longer section of rod closer to it and as each inch of the metal touched the metal it nearly instantly turned the solid metal to rusty flakes and at it. Using its frilly wide antenni as prehensil appendages.

"now class, can anyone tell me HOW the Rust Monster is able to Rust metal so quickly? And No the answer is not just simply 'Magic'."

There was a pause between the asking of the question and Mr. Ward's answer. "That is precisely right my boy, it is a natural compound only found in the Rust Monster's antenni. It comes off the little frills of the antenni and upon contact with the metal begins the rusting process. Only THEN does magic take effect in the process with a rapid temporal field to decay the metal rapidly."

Trent began pacing again as he talked walking back and forth in front of the front row projecting his voice so even those in the back could hear him properly. "Now the history of the creatures. Most often the origins of the Rust Monster lies with a mage ir group of arcanely gifted individuals. These people tend to find some reason to envy or be jealous of another. This could be some physically apt individual bragging to much about their 'invincible' armor so the wizard, sorcerer or mage takes that as a challenge and so creates the beast. It could also be because they did not like the iron Golem another mage might have created. But..." Trent flicked his gaze towards a student near the back with their head down on their desk.

So he headed for his chalkboard. He prefered them so much over the smell if markers, his Draconian nose despised the things, but he did not stop the lecture as he moved as he wrote on the board some bullet points of what he was saying. "... All of these Creatures tend to find their origins in magic. However magic fades into the blood overtime and so certain things are gained through evolution where it is simpiler to do biologically then having to use large quantities of magical energy to survive. Useing such energies to much can make such beings slow to react to their..."

At this point Trent whipped around hoisting his chalk on high and with a mighty throw threw the chalk in a glow of white energy. It smaked the student in the head with a small pop of collapsing Vacuum. Had Trent not coated the chalk in merciful energies it would have been far deadlier then the goose egg the student was surely going to get later, and the boom of the vacuum closing would have defended the entire class instead it would probably just have a low pitched annoying ring in their ear for a few seconds as they recovered.

"...environment. Now class, I guess I must remind you of one of my class rules once more. I don't care if you're hung over, I don't care if you've had an all nighter, I don't even care if you're sleeping with each other outside of school. But NEVER sleep in my class. NEVER cheat on your school work. And NEVER insult another person while in earshot of me. Do all of you understand these rules again?" he was glaring at the student whosename escaped him at the moment with such a fury it seemed the very air around Trent would conflagrate.

Trent was snapped out of his angry glare at the other student by Mr Ward. But the glare did not transfer as well. The question actually cooled the energies in the room as Trent for back to the lesson at hand. "That is an excellent question." he turned back to the chalkboard as the thrown chalk returned to his hand with a pop of magic once more.

"For such things to occur it tends to be in the hundreds of generations margin but can be seen easily within 5 or so generations." he wrote Origin and 1St Mate on the board with a line connecting the two followed by a line below connecting to 1St Offspring and so on until there was a rudimentary family tree of 6 generations.

"now for the Rust Monster it is usually closer to 3 to 4 hundred generations before the change is noticable in their offspring. So in this example I shall go of a common occurrence from where I come from. In this diagram the Origin is a human given the ability to say...breath underwater or something by a mage. This draws upon magic to power the ability and is draining on the origin because it was added to their life after birth. Their first child would inherit this ability with it being a permanent addition to their parents life. To the child it is easier to draw upon the magic but it's still straining their magic reserves. This happens for the first couple of generations until you hit a split that could occure in the bloodline."

At this point there were 2 children of Origin Bloodline Gen 3. Now this occurs in generation 4, so 3 generations after the origin, two major things can occur. The Branch bloodline could gain a vastly enlarged magic reserve after generations of use by their parents before them or biology kicks in. The child has rudimentary gills."

He changed the names of these to siblings to Arcane Bloodline and Biology Bloodline. "For Arcane's line they will develop like other humans or creatures of their ilk with very very few changes biologically. These are your mages in the family. On Biology's side they will evolve efficiency in their new organs and will still have traces of magic in their blood. These are your Magical or Mythical creatures. If you also have a Group of people then you have more complex genetics getting involved but I shall spare that for another time."

Trent turned around back to Hudson and the rest of the class at that point "You can use the same diagram to show the split in tens to hundreds of generations at a time as well. But those are usually the two branch offs found in studies. Arcane or biologically evolutions. Did that answer your question Mr Ward?"

"Ah forced mutation, that is a bit different. Usually those sorts of mutations when done in a short period of time don't do more for the children then being a very very repressed set of genes in the body that don't do more then just...exist." Waving his hand to the board with the diagram on it of the generations he continued to explain. "What we have been talking about is long term gentle processes in the body that would take weeks to plant into the genome of the host to be able to affect their offspring."

"Those sorts of forced mutations could be a minor experiment by a potentially young mage who is new to the field to learn what a certain change would do on the first generation of subjects. a sort of 'Control Group' as it were." Turning back to the class he picked up the last bit of metal from his desk and tossed it to the rust monster which it caught dexterously.

"As I said, such control groups are mainly used by young inexperienced wizards or sorcerers who honestly are only beginning their study into the field of Alteration Biology. That however is not here in this class, we can touch on this subject more at a later date however Mr Ward, now let's continue..."