Convincing Murray to learn the style I had demonstrated took very little effort. One might even say no effort at all other than the offer was needed. He immediately agreed, though I still wasn't sure how I could let him learn without my presence.

Controlling the statue directly, as I had for the demonstration, was fairly straightforward. As long as I was close enough, it worked just like one of my scrying constructs would, only that the material was Ice instead of Darkness, with a few other elements mixed in for utility. But to make the entire process automatic was an entirely different thing, for that, I would need something permanent. Some of it could be accomplished with texts, graphic descriptions and such, but a trainer was still needed. An enchanted statue of some sort, but one capable of moving independently, sentient to a degree, maybe even able to speak, though the last part was optional, just as remembering its students would be a bonus.

Even one of those would be a fairly major feat of magic, but all of them? It was unlikely I would succeed in the time I was willing to spend. Hopefully, I will get somewhere with my idea. For that, I would have to jump fairly deeply into the nigh-endless lists of 'Ideas for Later' and make some of them a reality. The solution would, most likely, be a mixture of multiple different ideas I currently had, though which of my numerous and highly varied ideas would be the ones to give me success was a very good question. One I would have to answer if I wanted to make this work.

Either way, creating an enchanted statue capable of teaching people a specific fighting style was be a major challenge, though the trick I had used to give Lady Hecate access to my memories and ideas about the ritual could be a good first step to accomplishing it. The only problem would be to weave a personality around the information; maybe I would be able to use some of the processes I had experimented with in the past when controlling Undead to create something like that. I doubted I would be able to make it actually intelligent, at least not at the level of a living being, but I was fairly confident I would be able to get something capable of moving on its own.

Though sustaining said statue might be an entirely different challenge, I might have to bind it to the tower itself in an attempt to use the tower to fuel the statue and its animating enchantments. The spellwork used to tie the Oculus to the tower would be a good place to start. The thing was an incredible artefact, and after all, it was capable of impressive feats I would be hard-pressed to emulate, let alone replicate the entire thing. But maybe I would be able to copy some of it, even if the divine spellcasting used by Luna and Lady Hecate wasn't something I could casually make use of. However, no matter whether it worked or not, it would be an incredibly interesting challenge, one I was willing to delay our departure for a bit.

Delaying would also allow Lia a little more time to come to a decision regarding her own plans. I had carefully prodded her a little, trying to get her to think about her options and plans, but from what I could see, she was torn by her own indecision. On the one hand, she felt a tremendous loyalty towards me and the rest of our little family. Luna was her dear little sister. Silva was a wonderful companion and an even better pillow on the occasion that either of them wanted to cuddle, and then there was Alex. Though, I didn't think Alex should count as I had little doubt that they would remain here, if Lia decided to stay.

Lastly, there was her connection to me. There were so many layers to that particular bond it was somewhat difficult to insulate, which could be considered the most important. I had, quite literally, given a part of myself to create her current incarnation, used part of my Blood, Mind and even a bit of my Soul to turn the Shattered creature she had been back into what she was now. Just that alone would represent a tremendously strong bond but I had cemented that bond later by feeding her my own blood and magical essence before even that was strengthened further by the mantle of the 'Mother' thrust onto me.

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Plus, the training, travelling and countless hours of conversation all made for a strong and powerful bond, not something easily discarded.

And yet, I knew myself. I knew just how deeply my own relationship with Sigmir had affected me, how I had willingly ignored things simply because they were inconvenient and focused on every minute possibility, just so I would be able to keep my relationship with her. Now, I had no idea if Lia was the same as me in that regard, nor did I truly know how deeply she felt for Samantha, but I couldn't discard the possibility that Lia was like me, especially not given just how much of 'me' was in her. Intellectually, I knew all that. I knew that if it was me in Lia's shoes, having to decide between essentially anything and staying with Sigmir, I wouldn't hesitate to stay with Sigmir. And yet, despite knowing that, a strange, emotional part of me wanted Lia to decide she wanted to stay with me. It was selfish and not something I was proud of, but I could, or rather I had to, acknowledge that this part was a part of myself.

However, regardless of my own feelings, I knew I had to make sure Lia would make the best decision she could, one as untainted as possible, so she would be able to live with whatever decision she ultimately made.

Amusingly, I really recognised some of Lia's actions as mirrors of my own prior to the end of the Road to Purgatory. How I had pushed things aside, such as Silva's supposed status as an NPC, something not truly alive to the best of my knowledge, and simply acted as if it didn't matter. It hadn't mattered, not with the knowledge I now held, but back then, I had happily ignored such inconvenient truths and remained stubborn.

Giving her that extra time would, hopefully, let her come to a decision she could live with because that was the most important part. She, herself, needed to be content with her decision. The rest of the world, including myself, would just have to deal with it.

Additionally, something I hadn't told her just yet, I was fairly confident I would be able to return to the tower whenever I wished, simply because I knew it so well and had spent so much time in this area linked to the Astral here. I would be able to recognise it even at a great distance, allowing me to step through the shadows and appear here. A few runes I was planning to add to strategic places within the structure would make that even easier, though stepping back to the place where I had come from would be harder. It was not impossible, especially if I managed to come up with a solid mark and a runic formation to support that mark, so it wasn't as if any parting would be permanent.

But all that was out of my hands. Advising Lia would be fine, but trying to control her wouldn't work. I knew my own mind that much, so why would a mind as influenced by mine as Lia's be any different?

Instead, I should probably focus on the runes and enchantments needed to make the statue of Sigmir into a worthy trainer, able to spread the style of my beloved to those willing to learn so that those would later go out into the world and laud Sigmir's name.

But how to make enchantments like that? Amusingly, the most obvious answer was to look where facsimiles of Life were part and parcel of the craft, in other words, necromancy. While I wasn't an actual necromancer, my focus when it came to Death Magic was its immediate and indiscriminate lethality. I had some experience, even if most of it was second-hand, stemming from Lenore and some of the things she had done and I had seen within her mind.

Those ideas from my avian friend were somewhat beyond me. Lenore did have a pretty hefty affinity for all things death, after all, but I could use them to guide me.

Just as I could look at the countless examples of Undead, I had seen shambling around here and use what animated them, just as I could use their minds to inspire the one I wanted to work into my statue. The difference, at the end of the day, was merely one of material.

Smiling to myself, I started to work, pushing away all other thoughts and considerations as I was wont to do just like my daughter was.

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