Arthur and Gaelin continued their conversation regarding the apparently famous poet Sharkspear for around fifteen minutes. Before he left Gaelin gave Arthur a few recommendations of his favorite stories and poems that were written by Sharkspear, Arthur on the other hand gave Gaelin a small book that he had written himself. “When you learn how to properly read and think you have a good understanding try reading this. I think you will find it both interesting and useful once you give it a read.” The two soon bid each other goodbye and Gaelin went on his way.
Arthur quickly whipped out the journal of Brexius Sanguine Bane and began reading over the section regarding small humanoid flesh golems. Arthur felt it was about time that he progressed from the simple rat flesh golems that were at best able to perform simple tasks, he wanted something that could actually participate in a fight if he needed it to as well as help with his alchemy and keep the interior of his house tidy.
Arthur did take a brief look over and had a general understanding of what he would need to do to create this miniaturized flesh golem. Like with the previous interaction it required cutting up a body and collecting all of the useful parts while discarding the unnecessary ones, most of which were organs like the intestines. The rest that were important enough to keep would be returned and the skeleton and useful organs would be shrunk down with a restoration spell included within the book for the next step.
Next the outer mussels would be reattached in the most efficient way and overlap given the now decreased surface area, this would create a very strong and durable golem that could easily perform standard tasks as well as take part in a fight.
Next up was the actual alchemy and enchanting, like with the previous golem based on rat flesh a alchemical solution would need to replace the blood within the golem's new vein system. But unlike the previous golem Arthur could not discern why that was required, with the rat flesh golem it was to allow the mana within the golem to more easily circulate and be distributed. This was not the case with this one, and unfortunately Brexius did not specify what this change did or its purpose.
Finally the enchanting process was a lot like the previous one with the rat flesh golem with either a large slate of hard material needing to have the inscriptions carved into it or something else that could withstand the powerful mana. The actual inscriptions this time were also more numerous and complex compared to the previous one likely accounting for the increased physical strength and mental capacity that this golem was designed to have.
Arthur would have been more than happy to begin right away, but the spells that were used in both the process and creation of this second iteration of a flesh golem were tier two and would each require a lot of practicing before they could be used in a practical application.
Arthur decided to start with the first spell that was listed within this section, the spell that would shrink the body that would be used down. The actual name of the spell was Condense Human Corpse, and it did exactly what the name implied. It would still weigh the exact same as before but it would just become smaller.
First Arthur took out one of the human corpses from his dimensional bag and placed it on the floor. In order to keep the blood from spilling all over the floor Arthur created a large slab from the dirt just outside his home and placed the body on it. With all the necessary preparations out of the way Arthur began removing all of the flesh as carefully as he could and pushed it just off to the side while still being on the slab. Next was the removal of all the organs, the important ones would be returned once the skeletal structure was condensed.
Now Arthur needed to cast the spell on the skeleton and make it around half the size of what it was before. This was a very long and tedious process with Arthur casting the spell several times before he even affected anything. But even then he only managed to affect the skull and made it around half the size it was before. Honestly it was a funny situation with a normal looking skeleton that had a tiny head, the idea of this skeleton talking with a high pitched voice almost made Arthur burst out laughing.
Regardless Arthur this time tried only targeting individual parts of the skeleton and found that he had significantly more success in that part, although he still only succeeded around one in every three attempts with varying results, further attempts often resulted in very tiny bones that were of practically of no use unless he wanted a very tiny flesh golem. By the end he had his fully condensed skeleton with half the height and double the density it started with. Now Arthur needed to place the useful organ where they needed to be, starting with the heart to pump the artificial blood, the kidneys that would need to later be modified with a few enchantments, and the lungs because despite technically being dead it still needed to breathe.
Next Arthur needed to attach the old mussels and layer them over top of each other like he did with the rat golem to give it superior strength than what it had in life. Using a conjured knife and sewing needle Arthur slowly managed to reattach the mussel and layer it.
‘Honestly this thing is really ugly.’ Arthur thought as he looked at the dwarf sized flesh golem with a gaping hole in its chest exposing the few organs that were left. Its face was also quite terrifying with its mouth sewn shut because it would serve no purpose while open. The only thing that gave away that it was once a person was its eyes that still retained its human look. But that did little with the exposed mussel creating a terrifying scene that would give children nightmares.
Walking over to the nearby table to create from earth Arthur picked up the several pieces of veins that he needed to attach for the artificial blood he would soon create. He started by interesting those pieces of veins inside the exposed chest cavity and holding them against the flesh inside with a small amount of conjured earth as he began casting the tier two Insert Small Human Veins. It did take him several tries and half as many breaks to recover his mana and read up on the spell from within the journal, but he eventually succeeded and managed to insert around three quarters of the veins that he needed for the golem to function.
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The last quarter was practically entirely within the head and connecting to the brain and was so complicated that Brexius literally devised a completely separate spell for this part of the process. The spell was practically identical to the previous one but needed more focus and time to carefully insert everything without any damage. Arthur was even forced to temporarily pull one of the eyes out from its socket so he could reach the inside and attach the veins.
Once he was done he removed all the excess organs and flesh and put them off to the side where he wouldn’t need to worry about them as he began the enchanting process. He started by using his hydromancy to collect all the blood that spilled all over the large slab and quickly and discreetly dumped it outside through his back door.
Arthur started brewing the artificial blood in the next room as he kept the half done flesh golem off to the side and out of the way from any prying eyes. While the recipe was different this time around it wasn’t that much harder than before and Arthur was easily able to slowly add it to the new artificial blood stream before beginning his preparations for the actual enchanting process.
With the blood out of the way Arthur then began carving the inscriptions into the slab that would be filled with the magic ink and used to channel the mana for the enchantments. Taking one of the new bottles of ink that he recently brewed in his free time he filled the carved inscriptions with just enough to reach the top, next while looking over the diagram within the journal of Brexius Arthur copied the pattern that the example had until it was practically a copy. Next Arthur did the same thing with kidneys and copied what was shown in the book, he wasn’t exactly sure why the kidney needed to be enchanted but it probably would work without it.
Now all the preparatory work was done and Arthur was ready to begin the enchanting process whenever he wished to, which he would do after dinner time. Since it was roughly four o’clock now that would give him a few hours to recover his mana and rest his mind to ensure he was less likely to make any mistakes.
Since he had the time and was starting to feel a little peckish Arthur decided to start making a soup from some of the fish he recently bought at a nearby market. He started by filling the cauldron with water from the outside moisture in the air and placed it above the fireplace to boil. Arthur picked up some of the firewood and placed it below the cauldron and used his pyromancy to set it alight.
As he waited for the water to boil Arthur decided to take a look over the enchanting section for the first proper flesh golem so he would be absolutely certain he would not make any mistakes. He didn’t understand what any of the enchantments were doing on their own but he did know that when they all functioned and worked together the golem would work. It reminded Arthur of something called gears, he recalled what they were but not exactly what their purpose was.
‘Spinning gears, just like wheels on a cart.’ Arthur compared the image of spinning gears within his mind to the wheels on carts that he would always see going throughout the city and were even in use with the expedition to help transport their things.
Arthur soon turned his attention back towards the boiling water as it was time for him to start adding the actual ingredients and make something delicious for dinner. Taking the fish that he wanted to add to his soup and placed them on a nearby cutting board where he removed the guts and inedible parts before chopping the actual meat into smaller pieces which he then dumped into the boiling water and began to stir. Arthur then started cutting up a few carrots to put in the soup and was sure to keep his eye on the soup and everything else cooked while he gave the occasional stir to keep everything nice and even.
While he ate his well deserved soup Arthur continued looking over the enchanting instructions for any possible small details that he would need to look out for when he began. Soon he was done with his bowl of soup and putting it away to eat throughout the rest of the week and it was time for him to start enchanting the golem and seeing if all his hard work was going to pay off.
Taking a few deep breaths Arthur placed the journal containing the spell and the instructions on how to cast nearby and within his eyesight. The spell was long and complicated and took nearly a full minute to cast despite being a tier two spell. Another thing to note was the mana cost was not as great as Arthur expected it to be, typically the more complex the spell the more mana intense and expensive it would be at an exponential rate.
Arthur slowly began chanting the spell as the inscriptions slowly began to glow with a dim blue hue, every gesture and every word spoken was the difference between success and failure. This feeling caused the casting to feel not as long as a single minute but more like an hour due to the stakes that were involved with it, worst of all Arthur didn’t even really know what would happen if he failed.
Soon the minute was over and casting was completed, the inscription slowly lost their blue hue and turned to normal. Arthur watched the golem with anticipation for it to do something, when a minute had passed and it had still not moved in the slightest he picked up the journal and began looking over the instructions for the enchanting process thinking he had done something wrong.
Then suddenly its finger moved. It wasn’t very much movement, no more than a twitch, but it was enough for Arthur to notice and put the book down to observe. The rest of the golem remained motionless while this single index finger on its right hand moved just ever so slightly. Arthur observed this for several minutes as he tried to understand what might have gone wrong in the process.
‘I've double checked the enchanting and assembly of the golem and I don’t see anything wrong with it, that leaves the only thing that could have caused this to be the material I have been working with, in this case it would be the bodies. But this also raises the question of what exactly is wrong with them, because I haven’t had any problems with them up until now.’ Arthur thought to himself and he paced around the room.
After around ten minutes of thinking an idea hit him, but unfortunately it wasn’t a very good idea, at least not for him. ‘Dam! It might be how old the bodies are. I’ve had them for several weeks now just sitting in my dimensional bag, I thought they were just fine because they weren't rotting or showing any sign of decay. Clearly it wasn’t so simple.’ Arthur then picked up the journal again and looked through the whole section for anything regarding the flesh used for creating the golem but found no details, Brexius must have only been using fresh corpses for his experiments and never even learned that the age of the body would be an issue.