Congratulations! Appraisal has reached Level 9. +1 Skill Point.
Lesser Golem: Wheel
Durability: 65/65
Mana: 25/25
Traits: [Named Golem], [Swift I], [Simple]
As Clover read through the Golem's description, he was once again mystified - greatly confused about how naming a Golem truly worked. He had thrown a long laundry list of names at his previous sculptures, but nothing had happened. However, in the case of his most recent Golem, when the words Wheel had left his mouth, something in its structure had shifted, latching onto the words like a lifeline.
He was happy to have it even though he did not understand how or why the Trait worked. At least in the case of Mr. Cat, the [Named Golem] Trait had greatly improved its power and capabilities. Though, if he had known the name would have stuck, he wouldn't have said it. Wheel was quite a confusing name to give a wheelchair. He'd have preferred a badass name like Mecha-Prime.
No. Wait. That was a stupid name as well.
Allegedly, Clover had many talents, but coming up with names was not one of them. His only System-recognized talent was magic.
He had a suspicion that if he devoted enough time to the subject, eventually he could stumble his way to an answer and unravel the secrets of how and why naming a Sculpture worked, but that would likely take a lot of time - time he did not have. However, for the price of 10 Skill Points, he could shortcut that madness-inducing academic journey by completing the [Named Sculpture] Path.
After his latest grinding session, he had more than enough Points in reserve; he just had to spam out enough random names, and eventually, he'd fulfill the Path's Quest.
He put the decision of whether or not to invest in the Path on the backburner. For now, the Golem had the entirety of his attention.
Clover inspected Wheels next Trait, [Swift I]. The Trait followed the usual progression pattern that he had seen in his other creations. Though he had been certain that the moving image within the Golem's core would have been enough to boost it to the next tier - perhaps he had to refine his technique further first.
Within the Golem, Clover sensed a tight bundle of power that he felt was on the verge of bursting past the threshold that he was currently limited to. Well, there was no way to know for certain, but it certainly felt that way. The thought occurred to Clover that Traits, like Skills, may also have a Rarity, though they were hidden from him for now.
He considered completing [Appraisal]'s Landmark Path - maybe that'd allow him to glean more information from the panel. It wasn't guaranteed that it could. It could just be a waste of Points.
Clover scratched his head, pushing a stray lock away from his eyes. There were so many Paths that he needed to complete, all competing for his time and attention. It was almost overwhelming. Luckily, he had an absurd amount of Skill Points banked up. When he finished up out here, he’d be able to complete quite a few.
Despite its simple name, the next Trait, [Simple], was somewhat of a mystery to him. He had only encountered Traits so far that had positively impacted the Golems, but maybe this one was different. Its name definitely had a negative connotation. He hoped that it didn't end up that way; he could use a bit more positivity in his life.
With great anticipation, Clover entered his soul space and grasped the Golem’s totem - it hummed with potential, a power that wasn’t accurately described by its Traits. Under his attention, the stone wheel rumbled in his soul, yearning to move - the image at its core manifesting the desire.
Right now, there was nothing he wanted to do more than test out his new set of wheels.
Clover grinned, ordering Wheel to roll toward him. It did so, moving smoothly and swiftly, following a meandering serpentine pattern. He observed, noting its capabilities and limitations.
Due to its design, the Golem did not possess a complex array of commands it could follow. Its capabilities were limited; Clover could command it to roll forward or backward. The only degree of complexity came with the fact that he could individually control how fast each wheel would rotate.
It would take some time to get used to - he had not driven a manual wheelchair for quite some time, so he was rusty on the mechanics, but Wheels was capable of all he needed it to do. If he wanted to turn, he simply had to create a differential in the rotational speed of the wheels.
Clover practiced diverting his full attention to the task and micromanaging the Golem's movements.
After gaining at least a passing familiarity with it, he loosened his control and ordered the Golem to slowly drive about. In doing so, he discovered that the Golem had the tendency to take meandering routes to his set destinations, seemingly turning at random times. Though, he couldn’t complain; in the end, the Golem always ended up in the right spot.
Feeling confident that Wheel wouldn't explode in some sort of vehicular accident the second he touched it, Clover lifted himself from his old chair into his new one.
He took a second to adjust - to settle himself into the seat. It felt different than he was used to.
“Check this out,” Clover said. They had gotten used to ignoring his strange actions. They hadn’t noticed or at least commented on his newest Golem till he brought it up.
"Whoa," Ron said as he put down a piece of paper almost completely filled with black ink. "Is that the newest Lamborghini model?"
Similarly, after taking a hesitant swig of a blue liquid that lightly glowed, Claire turned to see what the commotion was about, somewhat surprised that the strange concoction hadn’t killed her.
"It's an Invacare, so more like the Prius of wheelchairs, but with the modifications I made, maybe it's as fast as one."
Clover stretched his fatigued arm, preparing himself to accelerate.
"I wish my phone still worked so I could get this on video," Claire said.
Clover chuckled. “Give me a countdown. I’m about to break a land speed record,” Clover said, fully intent on leveraging [Swift I] to its fullest effect. So far, he hadn’t even scratched the surface of its potential.
Claire counted down dramatically, “3,2,1…”
Ron waved the paper in his hand through the air like a starting flag.
“Let’s go,” Clover whispered to himself. With a spark of mental effort, he commanded the Golem forward at full speed.
He yelped as the chair accelerated aggressively, pushing him into the back of the seat. Bouncing around on the edge of tipping over backward, Clover tried to maintain his balance while the wheelchair further increased in speed.
Wind rustled through his hair, and the ground began to blur beneath his feet.
“Holy shit!” Clover yelled. He hadn’t installed a speedometer in the wheelchair, but if he had to guess, the chair had already exceeded a speed faster than any normal human could sprint - it showed no signs of slowing down.
He continued forward, quickly approaching a wall. He hadn’t expected to go nearly as fast. Urgently, he commanded the Golem to stop.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
It skidded across the ground, the tires fighting to halt its momentum. It wasn’t enough.
Clover crashed into the wall.
Ouch.
Clover slid down the wall, his pride more damaged than anything else. Thankfully, by the time he had made contact with it, his speed had dramatically decreased. He lay flat on the ground, letting his heart settle back to its normal rhythm.
Out of the two vehicular crashes he had been in, this one had been the most pleasant by a wide margin.
Clacking footsteps approached hurriedly. “Oh my gosh, are you alright?” Claire asked.
Clover shot back a thumbs up.
Ron laughed.
Still breathing hard, Clover pushed himself off the ground and back into his chair after righting it.
“You weren’t kidding when you said you were going to set a world record,” Ron said.
“I never lie. Except when I do.” Clover readjusted himself in the modified wheelchair. “But I’d never lie about a land speed record.”
As the sun set, Clover spent the remaining daylight practicing controlling Wheel. There was a bit of a learning curve, but he was quickly adapting.
Slowly, he wheeled back and forth across the parking lot, curving around obstacles and carefully restraining his speed to a more manageable level. As he practiced, the Golem began to respond to his commands faster and faster.
Wheeling about in the modified chair consumed mana, though not very much. Its simplified design made it more efficient. It was still too early to tell what its maximum range would be; however, he was comfortable in assuming that it wasn't small.
Before it got dark, Clover, Ron, and Claire returned to the factory. Clover severed Mr. Cat's thread and reactivated the many-hand Golem, commanding it to push along his old wheelchair and supplies. Obediently, the many-handed Golem followed them to a far corner of the factory.
They weren’t alone there, but no one bothered them. Upon seeing their Levels, the group that had been there previously scooted a bit further away.
“How does the paper work?” Clover asked.
Ron flicked his hand, summoning forth three new blank sheets of paper. "It's not very useful for fighting yet, but [Papercraft Advertisement] lets me make fliers that I can slightly control. I have to manually make the designs, but the limits are pretty open-ended. At Level 10, I can make three per cast."
In his grasp, dried ink sprawled across their length, forming the words, Ron's magical market. As if a slight gust of wind had blown them, they billowed toward Clover, landing in his lap. "Like I said, it's not very useful for fighting."
“Maybe you could give someone a paper cut,” Claire said.
Clover chuckled; it sounded absurd, but it was a valid strategy. No one liked paper cuts. They were easily one of the top ten worst things in all of existence. "Why are all your Class Skills related to paper?" Clover asked.
"Maybe because I have an affinity for making paper," Ron said, half joking.
"You have a Paper Affinity?" Clover asked, completely serious, excited to ask him more about it. He had been searching for someone to compare notes about how Affinity worked for a while.
“No, but it totally would be cool.”
Claire said as she picked up one of the fliers. "Well, since we're all in the sharing mood, who wants to try one of the potions I made? I'm fairly certain there are no side effects."
“Your sales pitches need work. They don’t exactly inspire confidence," Ron said as he carefully held a plastic bottle partially filled with blue liquid like it may explode that she had handed him.
"What does it do?" Clover said as he peered down at the unhealthy-looking liquid.
"It's a Lesser Mana Potion. I'm still dialing in the technique, so each batch gives slightly different amounts, but like I said before, I think it's mostly safe to consume."
Clover drank the magical liquid. Immediately, an icy hot sensation ran down the back of his throat into his stomach, similar to a mint mouthwash.
His MP bar ticked upward by around 20 Points.
“Nice. How many of them can you make?” Clover asked.
"I'm out of the crystal fruit, so I can't make anymore tonight, but once we make it back to the Monster Nest, I could probably make a lot. I don't know - I don't have an exact number."
Clover nodded.
“If you wanted to, you could probably sell or trade them for a good price,” Ron said.
She shrugged. “Probably, but I wouldn’t want to sell them; they’re not very good.”
“Oh, one more thing. Do you have a Fire Affinity?” Clover asked, shooting a question out of the blue as he usually did.
Claire blinked, slowly turning to face him. “Yes? How did you know?”
"Your aura felt hot, kind of like a fire." Clover paused, realizing how weird what he had just said sounded. "Anyways, that's not the important part; what does it do?"
"I take reduced damage from fire and heat. And it augmented my Perception Stat, so I have an easier time sensing fire. It's not very useful if you ask me," Claire said. It was hard to tell, but she almost sounded like she'd rather not have the Affinity. He couldn't be sure; she was good at hiding what she was really thinking.
“Cool. How did you get it? I had to explode a rat from the inside out to get mine.”
"I guess I'm lucky," she said with a slight frown. Even Clover could tell that her words were insincere. "I started with it."
"Thanks for sharing," Clover said, backing away from the subject when he realized she wasn't going to volunteer more information.
After talking back and forth for a bit longer, the group settled into their own projects.
Clover debated what to do next. He was utterly exhausted, but he knew he needed to make another Golem to boost the Skill to Level 10. The only problem with that was that his SP was too low to fully utilize [Sculpting] or [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] at the moment.
Worst scenario, if he didn’t recover in time, he could always transform another one of the statues at the museum.
Temporarily crossing off making another Golem from his list of things to do, he debated whether to immediately start spending his Skill Points. Painfully, he decided against doing so. While he wanted to, he decided that it would be smarter to wait till he had completed [Meditation I]'s Quest and see what options the Landmark Path revealed before committing to any individual choices.
With his mind made up, Clover readjusted himself, settling in for a long bout of [Meditation].
Tonight, he'd finally cross the one-hour mark.
Clover closed his eyes, focusing on the vibrant mana flows that surrounded him. A clock gently ticked away in the distance.
Unlike last time, he turned his attention inward, observing his own strange bonelike aura. There were other odd components to it, though they were hard to place, smothered away by his Affinity.
As he observed the dome of energy he emitted, his Affinity shifted in his bones, the energy slowly awakening, searching for a purpose - a new form. It was unable to find it, but watching it made Clover confident that there was more to his Affinity than what the System had described.
He deepened his focus, the mana coming into greater focus the longer he persisted. With his eyes closed, he couldn't be certain, but he swore he heard a familiar ding of the System notifying him he had a Skill that had Leveled up.
Outside the Safe Zone's walls, his enhanced Perception occasionally funneled the terrible echoes of roaring monsters and terrified screams. All at once, they sounded distant and close, garbled and clear.
The faint sounds echoed in ways that should have been impossible, making him grimace, unsettled. Teetering on the edge of falling out of [Meditation], he stabilized the Skill, trying his best to act calmly.
Just barely, he managed the feat.
With the danger that haunted the city, he figured no one would be sleeping well tonight.
To distract himself from the strange echoes, he delved further inward with his focus to his soul space.
Inside, [Meditation] wavered for a moment, but in the end, the Skill held strong.
Strands and motes of light further gathered in the space between the grave that symbolized [Minor Tactile Terrakinesis] and the crescent moon that represented [Lesser Golem Creation], slowly continuing to fill in the scene. For now, it was nothing more than blotches of color, but one day, it would be more.
A stray thought crossed his mind: his soul space looked awfully a lot like the interior of a Golem's core. Even the images that held his Skills reminded him of those inside the Golems he had created. They were different - clearly - the ones inside his soul were more solid and developed, but at a base level, they shared many similarities.
He fought off a yawn, fearing that the movement would break him from his meditative state.
Interested, he inspected the structures, noting their details. As he did so, [Meditation] boosted his Perception, slowly bringing them more into view. It wouldn't be long till his perception of his soul space matched his perception of the outside world. When that time came, he felt - he knew a shift would come.
Whispers of screaming violence filtered in and out of the edge of his perception, following him into his inner world, so sparsely ringing out that he questioned if he had only imagined them.
Clover blurrily fought through his deepening exhaustion and continued to meditate; he had to be getting close to the hour mark now.