CHAPTER 107

With a destination in mind, Tom ran quickly against the base of the wall, vaulting and sliding under the various spikes which were closer to tree trunks that radiated out from their fortifications. He had less than five minutes before he needed to escort the gatherers and his golem was waiting in the south-west corner where it had originally been assigned to defend. That the original orders had been designed only for the event fight was irrelevant to the contract that he and the elemental had signed. The only thing that mattered was the specific instructions that Tom had left. Elementals at this level were bound to literal wording.

The elemental sensed his approach and buzzed out of the home he had created for it within the golem and zipped over while radiating happiness. Instinctively, Tom linked his arms together to make a cradle like a baby was about to be placed in his arms and it plopped down on the offered resting area.

Tom grunted at the unexpected weight and shifted his legs to support it. Volume wise, the lesser elemental was only as large as his fist.

But it was heavy.

It weighed far more than it should have. Healing Tranquillity flared and there were broken capillaries at the impact site. Touch Heal activated, and the bruising vanished before they had a chance to appear. Tom shifted his arms to support it better and spread its weight over a wider area. Twenty, thirty kilograms infused into such a small volume. It was like that piece of tungsten he had picked up in a museum. It had been a large flat coin but was so heavy that everyone had struggled to get their fingers under the edge to lift it.

The elemental jiggled in his arms, and he repositioned his feet to avoid being knocked off balance. It was, of course oblivious to his physical difficulties. A series of images were sent through to him. Impressions from the pitched battle against the goblins. Issues around the flexibility of one joint and the solution that had already been implemented. Others about switching the obsidian layer from a single piece to layers and segments to reduce the brittleness.

The simpler changes had all been installed while he had shared the watch with Everlyn.

The elemental, without pausing, continued with its continual stream of consciousness. There was too much mass concentrated in two of the arms. They were too fat near their tips. The recommendation was to rebalance most of the extra rock back into the central torso area. It was a macro change, and the elemental was not sure the mana-engine would produce sufficient energy in the time it had left with all the other minor changes that it had to make. Adjusting the tier 2 bonded to the spell form burned power.

I can do that later. Tom assured it. I’m not sure about the armour though…

The elemental jiggled in excitement.

Tom grunted as all of his careful positioning to hold the elemental comfortably was undone.

Me, I do. It could refine the outer layer easily, and the fact that Tom lacked the capacity made it swell in pride.

The weight he was holding increased, and he used both arms to support it. Healing Tranquillity activated in response to the sudden damage, but Tom ignored it. There was no point healing himself if it was going to be undone immediately by another bout of enthusiasm.

Fix that and then go.

Really?!?!?

Tom chuckled and then gasped as it slipped slightly in his grip.

Yes, really. Along with the words, he projected the underlying driver of his generosity. He wanted their arrangement to be as profitable as possible and if the elemental was not needed, then there was no reason for Tom to keep it locked up. But in addition to fixing the armour, Tom required a small favour.

Suspicion radiated from the elemental.

Tom laughed.

Not like that. I’m not the type to go back on my word.

He produced his control orb.

The elemental assessed it with interest and then turned its nose up. Its weight left Tom’s arms as it flipped back to sit on the golem.

Terrible.

Better than nothing and I’m sure you can help enhance it.

The golem thought about that suggestion. What do you want?

“Well,” Tom said, switching to talking out loud. “The orb already has the basic capacity to accept plans. I hoped you could train it how to use the actual golem. Teach it how to move it and how it can use its magic. The mix between conservation and not.”

There was thoughtful interest from the elemental.

“What you can do between now and fixing the armour. No need to stay longer for this.”

There was a sense of doubt from it. The elemental did not think it had sufficient capacity to do what it had to do.

“You’ll have to simplify the instructions.”

A mental affirmative came from the elemental and then Tom went to work. As cooperative as the elemental was promising to be, he still needed to graft the new component into the golem.

Energy thrummed through him and he engaged his Stone Golem spell. It was one of the rare spells that allowed multiple purposes, primarily to create, amend and repair. Instantly, Tom could observe the complicated spell form that he had created earlier in the day. It shone in his sight, almost in double vision. The magic that animated the golem overlaying the physical structure. He was there to install the control orb, but he paused to check his work.

The perfectionist in him frowned as he examined his creation. In most spots, the two views of the magical and physically meshed, perfectly together if you were looking from afar. Up close, the alignment was not so perfect, and that was before he inspected the locations where the elemental had changed the physical structure of the golem. He was expecting deviation in all those spots, but the imprecision elsewhere rankled him and this was with a skill level of sixteen.

Tom mentally prodded and adjusted the golem, aligning the spell form to the elemental’s changes. His mana dropped, and he wondered if now was the right time to be making these adjustments.

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He froze his repairs. Definitely not. They were all non-critical and he could do them tomorrow. Part of him suspected the only reason he had spotted a lot of these issues were his high values in the Stone Golem spell. It was naïve to expect a spell form to be perfect on the first cast. There was always room to improve.

For now, installing the Control Orb was his primary focus.

Should he keep a mana reserve? Preserve his crystal?

No, the chance of a major ambush striking the gathering group he was to protect was low. If the enemy was too much, then Tom was sure that he could run and Everlyn would use her archery to cover him.

She was on over watch and with her protection it was worth taking the slight risk to maximise the output of the elemental, which required the control orb to be installed.

Tom lifted the orb up and put it against the central section of the golem. His energy flowed into the physical stone, encouraging the obsidian armour to open up so he could slide the orb in. It resisted him, so he pushed till it moved. The spell form fluttered, trying to conform to the new paradigm of a hole in the chest, the self repairing nature adjusting to physical changes. Tom froze the functionality with a thought and cursed himself. He was experienced enough from the years in the golem factory that he shouldn’t have made that sort of amateur mistake.

He pressed on. The void in the golem extended, and he slipped the orb into the created space. It tumbled all the way down till it rested in the golem’s heart next to the Broken Prison and the Mana Engine.

Mentally, he pushed the orb further, rotated it to align to the right spot. He needed it setup so that when the elemental was not present and he was not pupetting the creation that it would have command.

Tom checked his mana levels. They were dropping precariously and to get the orb in the perfect position he had to rearrange the other key components.

He lacked the mana.

Options presented themselves to him. He could key the repairs going for fifteen minutes and use his natural regeneration to plug the gap. That was the most mana efficient process, but he didn’t have that sort of time and Michael would get annoyed at him.

What else?

There were other less ideal choices. This whole people thing was annoying. At least in the tutorial. If a monster upset his plans he could kill it. Get revenge for the annoyance but that was hardly an option now.

No time.

Maybe a multiple part delivery? Enable the control structures immediately even if the orb was physically in the wrong position. The elemental could do its program and tonight he could shift the core to the right spot later.

Tom knew how inefficient that approach was. Once it was linked into the structure, every time he adjusted its location, it was the equivalent of major surgery on the spell form. It would take him three and potentially four full recharges to move it, and that was of his crystal and not just his mana. Time wise, the investment went from fifteen minutes to over a day.

Fuck fitting in with people.

He was tempted to blow off the gathering party but then Michael would come find him and being disturbed when doing open golem core surgery was not a good idea.

“Damn it.”

Abruptly, the insides of the golem rearranged themselves.

What?

Studious concentration radiated from the elemental and Tom realised it was helping. The orb slid in place, the mana engine dropped, and the prison rose.

The hole he had created closed smoothly.

It was done?

The only thing required was the last changes to the spell form and given his experience, it was almost routine. The final points of the mana left him, and the spell form snapped tight.

There was a shiver of energy and a feeling of rightness that showed that the changes had settled correctly. It was not as perfectly placed and he was going to go back in at least once and maybe twice more with a full mana reserve to fix but it was a hell of a lot better than the five plus times he had been looking at before the elemental lent his aid.

Tom stepped back, pleased with himself even while knowing no one else would have noticed what he had done.

“Thank you.”

I finish go, you re-summon?

“Definitely. Hopefully, for the same job in four day’s time.”

The elemental sent firm agreement to that. It would be ready when he summoned next time.

Satisfied, Tom left to meet the gathering group.

They were not ready!

If he ended up waiting for more than ten minutes. Tom growled at the thought. Then to distract himself picked up a rock at his feet and practised his throwing.

He was so bad and mentally he cursed himself for not getting the technical skills in the tutorial. There had been time to do it too. He had just not considered it.

Tom chose rocks and launched them without his power, but it still built muscle memory. His personal mana had mostly regenerated, so on the margin he played with the details of the Throw rock spell. It imparted both weight and speed, and if he focused, he could engage only a single one of those components. Normal rock, fast rock, heavy rock or devastating missile seemed to be the modes that he had access to.

The team came and Tom followed still engrossed with his practice. While almost twenty people laboriously processed the three large lizards and the forty winged scavengers, Tom continued his training. As always, the repetitive nature of this type of practice soothed him. It was like he was back in DEUS’s trial. Polishing a skill with single-minded determination. The tier levels were funny and Throw Rock, despite its obvious limitations, was a doozy of an ability. It did however require a mastery of technical skills. The type that purchased skills could not truly replicate. It had to be built from hours of drilling. Hours Tom had failed to invest during the tutorial.

He was still kicking himself over that.

It was funny.

At a macro-level it seemed like the competition was about amassing resources. Yes, they were called skills and spells, but ultimately it was the same. Spend the money to get high-powered abilities and dominate. Classes were the worse in that space. Every level cost experience and gave you a straight upgrade to your powers through attribute points and whatever abilities you bought.

However, that was only on the surface level. True power ultimately came from your technical skills and your magical insight. Throw Rock functioned best if he possessed an elite throwing arm. Spells and Skills came into their own when you went through threshold levels and outside of tier 0 versions. The juicy thresholds needed epiphanies and understanding to get past.

Tom wondered how many people around him truly understood what it took to get better.

Everlyn definitely.

He had seen how she practiced. She was always stretching her abilities and testing. She was a ranger, and not just because of her layout. It was her natural inclinations; she was not the type to spend a thousand hours tossing a pebble at a wall but she would invest twice that long training to sneak past a skittish rodent to prove she could or to stretch her identification ability by an exhaustive focus on what Tom would only ever see as a tier 0 unremarkable stone.

The only difference was what they enjoyed doing.

She would be elite. As for the rest of the team? Harry absolutely, Michael, if he stopped being a politician had a lot of potential. Others who knew and even if he had a list what could he do with it. It was not like he was the type who could motivate them to do better.

He focused on the skill he was practising. While he would not easily raise the level of Throw Rock in an official capacity because it was so high thanks to the challenge trial there was a lot to learn about it still and he had only scratched surface of the flexibility that it offered. That Spell was for later. Short term, it was the technical improvements that he concentrated on. The form he used to get power behind his throws. Each skill level might give him half a percent improvement, but already the rocks he threw unassisted were hitting harder than they had twenty minutes ago. Improving his physical technique to throw a rock ten percent faster was a twenty percent increase in damage. Improving accuracy so that he hit three out of four times instead of two out of three was another easy fifteen percent improvement once you factored in the difference between a critical and a glancing hit. Tom could feel his practice paying off, and he had gained that level of improvement. He knew it was all low hanging fruit, but it had to be picked before pushing to the top if you wanted to prevent wastage.

Tom aborted his latest throw midway through the movement and focused on a bush almost a hundred metres away. He lacked any true scout skills, but he was always aware of the world around him. He glanced around and confirmed that all four scouts were still at the same spots, hidden in a ring around them.

“Hey,” he called out to the nearest ranger. A short Asian girl with perfectly clean skin.

She looked at him in annoyance. The rocks he had been throwing had been particularly frustrating for the scouts. However, his rapid rate of improvement meant he couldn’t care less. “Behind that bush.” He pointed.

“Yeah, I saw it. Some sort of cat with a strong obfuscation skill.”

“Can I scare it away?” He hefted the rock.

The ranger shrugged.