A Dragon’s Curiosity

 

 

Satisfied with the sensible decision of her familiar to apologise right away, Nisha decided to not hold its mistake against it any longer.

Most of her anger had dissipated anyway after punishing the floating armor once, so the elf exhaled a deep breath and stabilised her mental state.

She inspected the treeman and spent additional care to observe the changes through her [Spirit Sight].

Although Nisha had learned the contents of the [Golem Control] skill, this was the first time she actually attempted to make one, so it was hard to say if everything went according to plan.

Only having theoretical knowledge set the dragon to the beginner level in overall performance, many attempts and integration of knowledge with practical experience were needed before the elf could advance her proficiency.

From a cursory glance, two distinct flows of energy existed in the same pathways inside the golem.

Permeating from the top Eisen’s familiar mana cascaded downwards from the mana gem, following the circuit and wrapped around the upper and middle portion of the wooden figure.

At the same time vitality welled up from the base material, thick and sturdy earth aura mixed with the life mana and twisted together in the circuit.

Starting from the mana crystal, the energy drew a big circle around its figure, with small stubs branching out from the main path - an irregularity that caught Nisha’s eye.

While the initial diagram she carved was flat and on the top of the smooth trunk.

Once the skill was invoked and the arrays and inscriptions fired up, the original diagram would adapt to the actual situation of the base and turn into a three dimensional structure.

But no matter how warped the diagram became, the circle should not deviate from the base structure.

The stubby arms and legs of the treant coincided with the irregularities from the diagram, so there was definitely a connection between these matters.

Due to the mixture of aura and mana, the arrays and inscriptions sprung to life and worked at a high speed.

Nisha roughly knew the function of each diagram, but their exact collaboration and deeper meaning eluded her yet.

Further study was needed for her to grasp the mysteries of the [Golem Control] skill.

 

“Stand at ease. Can you move your new body yet?”

Before, the log stripped of bark was nothing but an inert mass of wood.

Now, the transformation array softened the mass and allowed the treant to stretch its arms and legs, moving about freely.

Perhaps the most miraculous aspect of the skill sapling’s formula happened to be that the golem did not lose the hardness of the base material, despite having a great range of freedom in movement.

If the elf did not personally manufacture the treeman, she would have guessed that the familiar testing out the new body was a rather particular monster instead.

The limbs were rather simple, with a single palm and a thumb instead of individual fingers, while the feet were flat and had a wide base to give stable footing.

“Slow … movement …”

When Eisen had laid its hand on the dragon’s treasured relic, its speech was fluid and the movements were sharp and concise.

Compared to that, the treeman had slow reactions and the deep rumbling voice stumbled every now and then while speaking.

The difference in performance clearly showed the disparity of quality in base material.

Earlier, Nisha noticed the grace and fluidity with which Eisen moved as he possessed the chess figurines, and the pleasant voice while talking.

Of course, the memory only came back after the mind smothering rage subsided after the thorough punishment of her familiar, but the difference was quite startling when put next to each other.

Now, the floating armor did not have much trouble moving the treeman, but the speed was on the lower side and the rumbling bark-like tone halted after each word, showing how much trouble it took to voice them.

Nevertheless the first trial run of her attempt at [Golem Control] could be considered a success, since the elf managed to build a working example with all the necessary components.

In case that the diagrams were inscribed wrongly or clashed with each other, there was a chance that the mana gem and crystal would blow up from overcharge and the base material breaks down from recoil.

Neither material was rare for the dragon and she had plenty in her [Inner World], yet it was a relief that she succeeded on the first try and avoided wasting the resources.

 

“Move around for a bit and see if there are any problems. If anything is out of place, tell me.”

Nisha was rather calm in dealing with her familiar now, her interest was aroused and it displaced all other emotions.

She did not have a particular interest towards the skill before, as it was too difficult to learn and the payoff compared to the required time and material investment did not make it seem worthwhile.

However the circumstances changed since the elf broke through to the fourth realm.

With a greater capacity to process information and handle mana, it was now possible for her to put [Golem Control] into practice without having to sacrifice too much of her time and money.

As long as the first trial works, the second time was bound to be only easier, not more difficult.

Eisen complied and began to move around the wooden body.

Despite the limbs being formed through the arrays softening up the base material, the limbs themselves did not strain under the weight or movements, nor did they deform easily.

The core circulation of combined life mana and earth aura empowered the golem and gave it the strength of a third rank warrior.

Despite the familiar having a higher cultivation, the inscriptions and arrays did not meld together perfectly and its own proficiency with [Golem Control] limited the floating armor from perfectly executing its own strength, so it stopped at the peak of the third rank.

All the tests, including lifting stones to test the strength, climbing over difficult terrain and testing its resistance against different elements went rather well - on top of that, it was rather easy to repair once damaged, even the wooden scraps from Eisen’s failed attempt did well enough to restore deterioration to the base material.

The higher the rank of the material used to repair the base, the greater the effects.

Low rank materials barely filled up a scratch, while a third rank tree removed all the damage from the burns when testing the resistance to fire elements.

As the golem lacked any nerves, it did not feel pain and neither did Eisen while controlling it, but it became a significant bother to move the body once the damage began to impact the circuits containing the energy inside.

Seeing the capabilities of the golem in action, Nisha was definitely interested in building more of them.

 

Without having to think much about it, wooden golems alone would be a great help in many areas, such as the construction project of the new walls outside the capital, as a labor force to harvest wheat and other food and many more jobs that did not have high requirements on the difficulty of the process.

Of course part of their performance had to be attributed to Eisen, who both knew [Golem Control] as well as possessing a talent in the handling of puppets through its life element.

If Nisha wanted to produce more of them, the difficulty could be either called very high or very low depending on the viewpoint.

The material requirements were rather low and mud, stone and even water were all suitable to be used as the base material, as long as the core diagram worked and the mana crystal had enough capacity to support the entire mass.

On the other hand, the burden on the skill from the caster was rather high in comparison.

Without a familiar, contracted sprite or wild elementals, the golem would not move.

Eisen issued all the commands so far, in its absence, Nisha first needed to create a central tool to call herself a [Golem Controller].

By refining a top class mana gem, a very special device was recorded in the skill sapling, essential to all practitioners of the skill.

The so-called Control Core was a higher ranked version of the central node that operated all golems refined through the skill, and it had a very important purpose.

In a regular diagram, most of the importance was placed on the mana gem as the control unit, whereas the mana crystal mostly stored energy used to operate the golem and circulate in the channels, so the latter two took a minor role in comparison.

Just like the mana gem, the Control Core stored the laws and commands under which the golem operated and controlled its behavior, only that the Core contained all the diagrams, operating methods and special command seals to take control of all units created by the maker.

Once Nisha built a new golem, she only needed to bring her Control Core, link it with the new control node in the mana gem and transfer the needed components over, then it was ready to work straight away.

From the skill manual, Nisha learned that it was recommended to use the best quality material she could find, as it decided how great the capacity of the final product was going to be and how complicated the stored designs could be.

 

Before the dragon had a chance to think about where she would find a high grade mana gem to start producing golems, she heard a voice from her familiar, who was still overjoyed over having a physical body.

“... Master?”

While it was lacking several areas and the vocalization was not as smooth as before, the floating armor no longer dared to dream about the chess figurines and the other items stored in the forbidden zone.

Being able to speak in the first place was already good enough, with time and enough materials, Eisen would eventually be able to obtain a body of its own.

Still, it called out to its master due to an anomaly that happened to the golem it inhabited.

Standing behind the elf, the wooden body was in the middle of a difficult posture, trying to reach the base of its feet by bending down, when the entire golem ground to a halt and refused to move anymore in the end.

The dragon was torn from her thoughts and quizzically looked at the inert treeman.

So far, there had been no problem at all with her creation, even though the skill contained inside the sapling had several annotations about problems with the mana flow or clashes between the base material and the chosen set of arrays and inscriptions.

Nisha had not fancied herself as a genius in the field of golems, yet she was still proud that her first attempt had gone so well - so far at least.

Squatting down next to the fallen figure, the elf ran her finger along the smooth lines hidden beneath the wood, finding a rather satisfying elegance in the complicated lines of the array retaining the golem’s energy.

Examining the condition of the mana gem at the core, she found the cause with her [Spirit Sight].

 

“It’s not a big problem. The aura from the wood base material ran out, so the golem stopped moving.

Now it either needs to be charged by hand or a specific station that acts as a bigger energy storage needs to be built so the golem can go there before it runs low on mana or aura.”

Placing her hand over the approximate area of the crystal, dense fire aura poured into the golem and replenished the exhausted machine.

Excited that his new body was able to move again, Eisen finished the movement and continued to check out the features of the treeman.

After being unable to interact with the world for so long, the familiar would never get enough of the thrilling sensation that came with a physical body.

Unfortunately, the good times did not last long and another issue cropped up soon afterwards.

While carrying the biggest rock it could find, the floating armor suddenly noticed that while the wooden golem still moved around, fiery motes of energy ate through the wood shell on the outside, revealing more smoldering circuits beneath the surface.

Before it had a chance to call out for its master, the tall golem stumbled and then fell flat on its face, before crumbling into many charred pieces.

Without the interference of the internal circuit, which broke down as well, the fiery aura swiftly ignited the wood chips and burned everything into ashes.

Such a commotion alerted Nisha, who had pondered on aspects of [Golem Control] and how to put it into practical use.

Raising an eyebrow at the distraught familiar, she pulled the intact mana gem and mana crystal out of the soot, the only remains left from the golem.

Before Eisen had a chance to get his fill of having a body, it suddenly self-destructed.

Despite not having a face or facial expressions, the dragon still perceived the grievance and non-existent tears in the familiar’s eyes - two floating orbs of green fire hidden beneath the visor of the helmet.

“Erm, there probably has been a clash between the aura I charged the golem with and the base circuit, so a problem occurred.

You should study the [Golem Control] sapling more and learn the skill in its entirety, then you can probably create your own body whenever you want.”

Seeing the downcast appearance of the floating armor, Nisha did not have it in her heart to tell it that she deliberately chose fire aura to charge the core, wishing to see what happened when conflicting energies ran in the same golem.

Nevertheless, her encouragement managed to cheer up the floating armor, who could no longer talk, and floated right over to the [Golem Control] manual, eager to study more and obtain its own body.