Re: Abysia and magic research
 

Anathemant Salamander = 160g = 4RP = 40g/RP
Anathemant Dragon = 320g = 5RP = 64g/RP

Cap Only:

Warlock Apprentice = 130g = 5RP = 26g/RP
Warlock = 270g = 8RP = 33.75g/RP
Demonbred = 260g = 6RP = 43.33g/RP

All but the Demonbred are Old Age. With Magic1, the Salamander is still 32g/RP, but it IS sacred, so it ultimately starts to look like a relatively decent researcher if you avoid taking Drain, but you really have to mass produce them (which is just a good idea all around). With Magic1 the Salamander is about 1g/1RP for upkeep, but as the Apprentice is not sacred, he is around 1.4g/RP in upkeep - and as he is capital only, and is your premier Blood Hunter, it is unlikely you'll have a big mess of them sitting around. Plus once you can afford Boots of Youth, you'll likely switch to Warlocks unless you need more hunters.

Re: Abysia and magic research
 

I'd go demonbred over apprentices for blood hunting if at all possible, as they aren't old and have a second point of blood for the same upkeep...early on this means you're protecting your cap-only units and nearly doubling your blood hunting efficiency before you can make SDRs, and later it means you save a pair of boots of youth, an SDR, and a couple mage turns in exchange for 130 gold up-front. Since so much of MA Aby's power comes from warlocks you also really want to make sure you aren't losing any blood hunters that you don't have to be via early old age deaths. Plus they fly.

My recommendation would be snagging a few warlocks early to site search for S and E and then making demonbreds til you get to boots of youth, then swapping over to Warlocks for the rest of the game, possibly filling in with demonbreds if you need to up your blood hunting, although using spare warlocks for blood hunters isn't terrible either, as it gives you more of a chance at getting good random paths.

Obviously this varies based on map size and indy mage finds, but when I played aby I had a lot of territory and had trouble getting enough hunters to cover it, plus my warlocks had to do all of the heavy magical lifting for the nation.

Re: Abysia and magic research
 

MA Apprentices are S1B2 (hope that's not CBM playing tricks on me!). Otherwise you're right, the Demonbreds would be better. I do hire Demonbreds, but I am heavier on apprentices.

I went with Evo-2 for arcane probing, and alchemising fire to get the first few pearls. Evo-2 also gives Fire Blast. Searching E etc is up to my rainbow god after he gets Const-6.