“Mr bodyguard, help us keep watch. But if you dare peek…well, do that when I’m not around.” Kong Jing pat Ebony's shoulder.
“Sister!” Ning Xin protested.
Ebony was hired to protect one of the houses which had been designated as a room to take a bath. With the doors and windows closed, these runic buildings didn't let his mana pass nor was he able to sense the gravitational or vibrational waves from within.
“Mmm.” He replied before Kong Jing closed the door and shut down her little sister’s yells.
The walls were soundproof so he didn’t hear anything either. They took so long that he thought they fainted inside.
“Let’s go.” He stated rather than urged.
“Where to?”
Ebony relaxed at the scent of plums.
“Raid the factory.”
The two ladies did not look impressed. He at least hoped to get Ning Xin excited to get things moving along but it didn’t appear that way to him.
“We just washed up and that’s all you’re thinking of doing?” Ebony was surprised that the craftswoman even cared about that, she was never a woman that cared so much for her cleanliness.
“...Mmm. I'll empty one or two of them, you can check it out once I’m done.” He nodded.
“Fine, leave things intact this time. So no vibration damage, no freeze breaking anything but the golems. Oh and leave Icicle with me.” The space mage demanded.
“Interesting…okay, I won’t use sound magic and only use ice as enhancement and defence. Stay alert Mark.” He didn’t notice that Ning Xin acted confused for a moment.
“You don’t have to tell me that.” Mark had started on copying down runes from the buildings since he had the time. Well, with Kong Jing present he wasn’t too worried that they would get ambushed.
“Sorry Icicle, these hardy guys have put quite a few chips on you. You’ll have to sit this one out without Sonic Intrusion protecting you.”
‘Oh, its glow dimmed. Is it a coincidence?’
His greatsword's base material was that of wood and it was inevitable that it was worn down by his brutish hackings of these hard earth and gem-like monsters. The only amazing thing was that after so long, he was finally able to tell that Icicle was consuming ice mana and getting heavier, tougher and colder. It was taking up the properties of his mana which was great.
He gave Icicle time to recover from its damage and passed it to its mother and creator.
‘Hmm… how should I go about this? Whatever, I should stop thinking so much.’ Ebony didn’t remain and turned back to the factory that sent most of the defending golems after them.
It seemed like the moment the numbers outside the factory were emptied out, there would be more sent out to replace the numbers. It was very interesting to find out that he could walk up closer to them before they noticed him compared to his allies. He got his scale armour cast and walked in, perhaps thinking that walking would catch less attention.
‘Alright, let’s try something new. I don’t think it’ll work well but I’ve been getting better and gravity manipulation.’
Gravity here was about as strong as Ordina’s, some of the gravity mana around him were separated from their natural flow. It was near impossible to stop the movement of gravity mana but he could easily redirect or control the direction of their movement. He made a tiny whirlpool above him that continued to drag more of the gravitational wave into it. He had to overtake their movement and speed them up so that his Intelligence would come into effect.
He got it as compressed as he could as the pull which generated a breeze was now a violent suction that caused his scaled robes to flutter.
‘Hmm…weak in relative terms.’ Other than dust and debris, it wasn’t exactly sucking up anything else. The manufactured monsters here were too strong for his non-skill spell and the buildings weren’t normal.
He dodged dozens of swings and projectiles and controlled the whirlpool onto one of them. They could resist the suction to each other pretty easily and even when it enveloped one of them, the only thing that changed was that it affected their movements slightly. A lot less effective than Guided Path or magnifying gravity on them. Attaching it to their arm causes their body movements to shift towards that arm a little.
Ebony started to have a little fun by generating a couple of these and attaching them everywhere. It wasn’t destroying anything and he hasn’t even entered the factory. When his control over one of them slipped, the rapid expansion of the compression actually went out with a loud bang. The floor had a tiny dent as if a sledgehammer landed on concrete.
‘Interesting, I compressed it too much and the instant release forced them to burst out together with whatever air and debris it sucked up before they could rejoin the planet’s pull.’
It was usually when he had the seventh whirlpool that they started to just slip and even the sixth was unstable. It was another good source of training and he liked the exploding effect too so he just let them slip. He tried to strengthen the loosening or expansion process but he was just interrupting it. He was better at compression than the other way around. Letting it go naturally seemed to have a greater effect so he stopped interrupting it.
His ability to crush the Golems to powder is gone without Sonic Intrusion so he focussed on utilising Ceaseless Onslaught with his body alone, Guided Path and Chaotic Repulsive Membrane. He wasn’t banned from Sonic Intrusion against the golems and just the facilities but he thought it was a good chance to play with gravity more.
Only embers of his flame from Augmentation latches on, he needed to be careful with Frostblaze Cladding in case it froze stuff that he didn’t want to freeze.
There were only a dozen of them outside but he took about half an hour to break their ‘cores’.
The wide metal doors could probably allow two planes to fly in and out at the same time. It was shut tight. He didn’t see any windows or any other openings.
Ebony walked up and knocked like any normal person. “Anyone home?”
The metal doors creaked and the narrow gap widened slowly.
‘It actually opened. It pays to be polite.’
He was then bathed in a gentle blast of green light.
“I take it that I’m not welcomed?” Ebony put more mana into Frostblaze Augmentation while also leaving the path where Stalwart Endowment lies alone. Since he didn’t feel any difference using flames or normal ice mana to power Stalwart Endowment he just conjured normal ice for it.
He estimated that only about 10 to 15% of the green light that was topaz mana reached his body. The rest simply couldn’t pass through Chaotic Repulsive Membrane. He could visibly see the green glow wafting away from touching the scales on his robe.
All in all, Homunculi's domain didn’t work that well on him. He was about to test what would happen if he cast his own but he would damage the interiors if he did that so he held back.
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‘I need to keep this one intact.’
Now that he thought of it, he should have captured one or two of the other versions in an orb. Well, there were so many of those he could do that later.
Perhaps whoever was behind the doors was still unaware of his presence because no attack came. The doors were really adding to the suspense by opening so slowly.
When the gap was wide enough, he didn’t see any Homunculi past the doors.
It just appeared like the whole interior was constantly bathed in this green light.
Ebony stepped in.
The interior wasn’t filled with contraptions of any sort. There were just rows and rows of tables.
‘Strings or wires? Earthen puppets?’ Ebony looked upon the rows of puppets that had their limbs connected to the walls by silver wires. A small number of them were handling yellow gem fragments while the others were carving dirt into limbs and torsos.
The green glow washed over him and remained for a couple of seconds before shutting down. There was nothing waiting to ambush him. Just a bunch of incomplete golem parts and the ‘workers’ crafting them. The puppets didn’t seem to notice him.
He froze the door to the ground just in case and linked himself with a Model that stood outside with gravity, he could pull himself out faster should he wish to do so. It wouldn’t really make a big difference but it didn’t hurt to take more precautions.
He walked towards the puppets first since the tables were mostly empty or had a couple of golem limbs that had their carvings done. The puppets didn’t react to him even when he reached their side. He even poked them but there was no reaction. This was great, he could observe the entire process like this.
Ebony continued to explore.
Instead of working on a specific part each, all the puppets seemed to be making an entire frame by themselves. Only those that worked on the topaz mana ores didn’t touch the special earthen body. Deeper into the factory was a separate room, some sort of contraption that was dishing out golem parts. The parts are transferred by conveyor belt to the puppets.
Ebony didn’t understand how but the topaz mana ores were simply ores, not cores. None of the puppets seemed to be completing a core either. These puppets looked quite different from those that were carving and assembling the body. They had a large amount of mana in them and were directly stuck to a raised platform on the ground. They stood in small circles with a slightly smaller puppet in the centre that was not moving.
He assumed that the smaller puppet was waiting for the surrounding puppets to finish their work on the topaz mana ores before passing it the material that it needs to work on.
The factory was pretty large and he was taking his time observing so he reached the centre of the open warehouse-like building in about ten minutes. It was free from clutter or tables for golem parts. There were two metal wires thicker than his waist that dangled from the ceiling and all the way down. Without the tables blocking his sight, the large dark hole could be seen. He was alerted when the green light washed over him from over his head again.
‘A periodical wash with topaz mana? It’s a little weaker than the Homunculi’s domain.’ Ebony waited for a minute before the green light was turned off again.
Even with the glow of light, he wasn’t able to see the depth of the massive hole. One issue was that it was bone dry of mana inside the hole and even the interior of the factory had practically no ambient mana. It might be topaz mana wash that ‘eats up’ all the foreign objects or harmful substances. That might be the reason for the lack of defensive measures. Of course, it might be due to every golem being destroyed prior to his entry.
He opted not to jump in. There was no need to confirm at the moment but looking at the buckets and carts near the edge of the hole he guessed that the hole was linked to a mine and the two thick wires were a pulley system.
Since he had no idea what the puppets with the topaz mana ores were doing, he watched the carvers and the engraving process.
The green light will wash over the entire place every ten minutes for a minute. The doors had attempted to close but didn’t have a strong push so his ice held.
It was more uneventful than he imagined but what he found should be worth a lot for the scholar and craftswoman.
He returned to tell them what he found and the two of them were excited.
Kong Jing had her methods and was not afraid of the green topaz as well but a mantle wouldn’t keep Mark safe. Ebony cast Chaotic Repulsive Membrane on him, he wasn’t able to utilise much of Mark’s natural gravity mana so he just simulated the effect with surrounding gravity. It wasn’t as strong so he had to rely on himself for whatever topaz mana passed through.
Ning Xin had zero interest in that and said she would empty out the surrounding factories and try to keep the facility undamaged. He wanted to join her but he needed to stay with Mark and he was interested to listen in on their thoughts.
“I see…so that’s how they did it.” Was roughly what Kong Jing was saying to herself throughout the duration she stood still.
Mark was just penning everything he saw down.
When the craftswoman started to move from the spot she took a couple of minutes to explore before she claimed to have shut down the washing of light every ten minutes. Stating that she could also shut the entire factory down.
“Shoo shoo. Go watch her, don’t let her do anything silly like get bored and move deeper into the city where another ring of factories sits. We’ll go there later.”
The three of them that didn’t follow him in the initial scout went for a walk deeper into the city where they found another ring of factories that were further apart from each other and likely produced Homunculi instead of Golems
He could see the flashes of fire roughly 50 km away to their right.
Ebony hurried to join her, passing over two factories. “Hey, you emptied out two of them without me?”
“One of them was already mostly empty since they were sent to us when we flew in.”
Together, they removed everything just as if they were back in the dungeons.
After half a day, he confirmed that every fifth factory was one that created True Topaz Golems. They tried very hard to leave the facilities unharmed so that it could continue ‘spawning’. They were getting good experience and levels.
It didn’t even take 2 days before they were completely done. The other two were still busy studying, so they left this ring and returned to the outer city to hunt down the mass numbers that were released from the factories a couple of days back.
Hundreds of Masters and Grandmasters were working hard so the streets weren’t exactly flooded with monsters to kill.
They went to less crowded spots, away from the towers and managed to find more. They found that one of the groups was no longer staying in large groups and didn’t gather at the tower. It was the group that the shadow or darkness magic-wielding lady was in.
Some kind of large brownish dog called [Teratish Lvl ???] that had metallic fur could be found in the streets too but they usually run away from Ebony. He was gonna assume they didn’t like his mana because he saw these dogs actively attacking others. Other than dogs, other monsters have entered the tomb city. They similarly avoided the Ebony and Ning Xin like a plague, unlike golems that simply don't act out of their programmed hostility.
The barrier appeared to be down and the towers weren’t working so it was only natural that this huge underground space was getting visitors.
Those that decided that they were a nice treat were usually very strong and may even require them to work together. Ebony usually took all the attention to him and his squad of Models while Ning Xin searched for weaknesses and they would attack it together if the target is massive. To reduce destruction, she had put a tiny ban on her fire magic but she still used it on her blood magic. It made fights slightly harder since she was relatively new to blood magic and its usage in battle.
Ebony had a habit of keeping a strong link of mana with Ning Xin, he could power her up with Battle Song and even cast Sonic Intrusion on her twinswords. If they manage to modify the runes of Stalwart Endowment such that it didn’t require topaz or ice, he could cast it on her too. His supportive abilities were getting better even though he never thought of improving in this manner.
They tried not to depend on the callstone but his experiments told him that he could actually cast Battle Song through a call. Losing effectiveness with distance but it was possible as long as he supplied the additional mana. Through this method, he already tried to call Hector but he couldn’t get through. Ning Xin tried as well but didn’t get through either.
Apparently, the sea has many mysterious forces at work and it is hard to get a connection even if their callstone had that much range. The tiny gem in their bracelet and mask wasn’t that strong.
His hunting partner was tired so they prepared to return to eat and sleep.
“Wait, let me catch one alive.” Ebony didn’t think he could contain a True Topaz Golem that easily so they had to hunt down the weaker one. Ning Xin opted to hunt something edible for once.
His Model surrounded the duo that he found after some time and threw themselves towards their targets. It worked and his Models hugged the golems before they smoothly melded themselves over. It wasn’t enough so more and more Models threw themselves onto the duo before he got two coffins. It had been a waste of ice since they kept expending their magic to eat his ice away.
‘It's similar to Na’s but I don’t feel any difference in effect.’ Ebony only knew that he didn’t recognise the runic language but he assumed it would be a complete copy since Na’s runic body probably came from this place.
Together, they returned with a gift for the scholar and craftswoman.