CHAPTER 131
The first item that caught his focus was a chunk of the crystal eye half embedded in the obsidian outer shell. It was a section that was maybe an eighth of the original mass. Enough to know that there was no recovering from that sort of damage. If it was only a chip, it was possible there might have been a larger chunk elsewhere that could be repaired, but this segment destroyed that hope as it went from the outside all the way to through the centre.
Tom continued his investigation. Volume wise, the golem must have been missing fifty percent of its mass. He would look over the area later, but either a significant amount of obsidian had been blown away or evaporated by the attacks. He suspected the latter explanation was probably accurate, as he could see traces of melted rock all over the place.
The experience of seeing the golem he had been proud of destroyed so completely was humbling. It would take a long time till he got his golem to the point of its power reached the height that it could become known as one golem to rule them all. He continued his examination using Earth Manipulation to open an path in the rock towards a void that might contain one of the components that he was looking for. Stone split to reveal a severely singed beholder eye.
He frowned.
The physical damage was low, but the magic that had made it useful was gone.
Symbolic use?
Tom thought about that and shook his head. Nope, it was too damaged for that to be a possibility. Carefully, he continued his investigations. He founds scraps of metal, melted and he knew where it must have come from.
The sabatons were destroyed.
Grimly, he proceeded further.
The stone peeled away and revealed lengths of wire. Curiously, he tested it and found that it was still functional in places but a length as long as a finger that no longer had any magical conductivity.
Another had reduced levels.
To sort out useful from useless would take significant effort. Too much for how little pristine material was likely to remain. The wire framework was not salvageable.
The rock, both the basalt and obsidian, was a different matter. While a lot of it was missing, what remained was as strong as ever, with a strange vibration through it. From the years of memories of the golem factory inserted into his brain, Tom identified it as a positive. Historically, when they had worked with material with resonance, the outcome tended to be a superior golem. The stone had been changed by the battle and internally he thought of it as being tier two plus. It was not tier three, but it was much better than the base stone used initially within Golly.
There was a scrap of memory of one of his supervisors talking about resonance. Tom could remember the old man’s voice. “If you can’t pin it down, then at worse it’s harmless but on average you’ve got a better golem. That’s twenty percent more profit right there. But there’s a but. If you feel like it’s alive, then nope… not worth the risk of a possessed golem to use.”
The stone that survived did not feel alive to him, only primed. There was a silver lining to this disaster though financially the day was a negative. In pure credits, even with this bonus and the loot portal, he had lost credits the destruction was that complete.
No longer feeling completely disheartened he continued his investigations.
The prison was next. It had mostly survived. Not useable as it was, but unlike everything else it was recoverable.
“Please,” he whispered.
This was the moment of truth. He lifted another chunk of stone and stared downward.
The mana engine… the elemental must have explicitly protected it. The object was in perfect condition.
Tom smiled happily and then searched for the jewellery that contained the Earth Manipulation spell. It was supposed to be right next to the engine. A section of basalt broke apart to reveal what he was looking at.
He frowned.
This had not been preserved like the mana engine. It looked battered. And when he explored it with his power, he was not surprised to discover that it was ruined, a crystal was cracked and the setting damaged.
When he channelled magic through it, nothing happened, and identification confirmed its broken status.
But…
The structural damage did not look significant, and most of the magic was still intact. Less than a week ago, he had effectively rebuilt this component from scratch. He knew how it worked and, as his senses explored the issues, Tom created a mental map of how to rebuild it.
He ticked off each problem with rising excitement.
It could be done.
He could do this.
He could fix it. The brilliance of the threshold bonus, one that taught instead of just doing amazed him. What would have been a disaster was recoverable as a result, even if it meant Tom was going to end up at least partially as a crafter.
It would be worth it.
One crystal was cracked, along with several bits of the jewel setting. Without that threshold gifted knowledge and experience, he would be screaming right about now. The Earth Manipulation casting jewellery had been worth fifty thousand credits and the damage he could see and feel was more than the human crafters around him could fix, usually at least. But the fact they had as good as made the item meant that even Tom with his limited understanding of these things knew how to fix it. While they lacked the power and rituals to create empty casting jewellery from scratch, an activity like fixing minor breakages such as the ones he had identified was well within their capabilities and if he was being honest potentially even within his own personal skill set. And while the damage was significant enough to mean the item no longer worked Tom knew it was nowhere near as bad as it appeared.
If he gathered all the crafters who had helped him last time, he could definitely rebuild it.
Not for the first time, Tom considered just how fortunate he was that the skill he had got from the threshold bonus was not a simple upgrade platform. While Tom having to do the fixes himself was limiting on face value, it was events like this that demonstrated why the structure chosen was extraordinary.
Tom could definitely see an outcome where he could fix everything in his golem and use that knowledge to create new constructs almost as powerful as his primary one. That was for the future. For now, he had one very broken Golly to reconstruct.
He found the second beholder stalk, but it was in a worse state than the first one.
That was it. He had his list of salvageable materials.
* Mana engine
* Control orb
* X Obsidian (Enhanced)
* Y Basalt (Enhanced)
* Prison (Requires threshold benefit to repair)
* Earth Manipulation casting jewellery (Require repair)
He put his head in his hands. Compared to the initial equipment he had contributed to Golly’s build it was a lot of credits lost. Those nine kills Golly had got were nice, but did not compensate for the sheer number of credits that were permanently lost to him. Then again, it sounded like Golly had saved lives, and even keeping a single extra human alive was worth far more than a mere fifty thousand auction credits.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The list was still good. Provided his threshold boon could heal the prison, he had the core components available for an elemental driven golem. What he was missing was extra stone, metal wire, vision or sensing organs and offensive abilities, whether it was a weapon or a magical attack.
Tom stood up and chewed on his lips while he thought about the next steps. Gathering the crafters to fix his Earth Manipulation jewellery was a simple decision. He should also get help to craft the golem. His eyes flicked around the surrounding fortifications. People were swarming everywhere. Keikain was heavily involved in rebuilding the wall as was Hao. There was no way he was convincing anyone to abandon building up the walls to fix his golem in the short term. It would have to wait till tomorrow.
With a sigh, he swept the valuable components into his inventory, and then spent three trips transporting the heavy stone to the bunker that contained their bed. Unsurprising the longjoules had not explored what to them was an empty cave.
When the reusable bits of Golly were safely packed away, Tom went over to a wall and started working. He needed to build up some brownie points before asking everyone to help him with his construction.
Golly number two would be better than the first version. Tom promised himself that. If only in the casting’s detail of the Stone Golem spell, if not the components.
Tom’s mana ran out.
He glanced around. The entire group was working hard and he should start to physically move stones, but he was sitting on a heap of experience that he needed to spend and he had already decided on what. He closed his eyes and stepped into his system room. Cold metal walls stared back at him like always.
Maybe Evie’s approach to her system room was not such a bad idea. It would be nice to create his own retreat; a bit of greenery and a nice bubbling brook encased by natural cliff looking stone walls. Add in lighting that mimicked the sun, and it could definitely be peaceful.
Another time maybe. For now, he had things to do. “Spend all available experience on lightning tank levels. Invest into passive skill and then show status.”
There was a crackling of energy as the various changes appeared.
Classes Level - Eighteen
Lightning Tank: 9 (+4) - Expert
Elemental Summoner: 9 - Expert
Attributes
Strength: 92 (+12 Class, +2 Title: Strength Spring)
Vitality: 107 (+12 Class, +4 Title: Vitality font)
Agility: 87 (+8 Trait: Fates Agility)
Magic: 93
Fate: 149 (+8 Trait: Fates Agility, +4 Title: Competition Shaker (I))
Mana Pool: Magic * 2 = 186
Spells
Lightning–Affinity 83
Spark: 65 (+1) (Tier 0)
Lightning Spears (16) (Tier 3)
Lightning Ball: 18 (Tier 3)
Lightning Skin: 18 (Tier 2)
Earth–Affinity 91 (+9)
Earth Manipulation 128 (Tier 0)
Throw Rock 64 (Tier1)
Stone Skin Partial 32 (Tier 2)
Remote Earth Manipulation 24 (Tier 3)
Stone Golem 16 (Tier 4)
Harnessed Meteorite 12 (Tier 4)
Earth Sense 16 (Tier 3)
Healing–Affinity 64
Touch Heal: 95 (Tier 0)
General
Summon Playful Wisp: 69 (+18 from class passives) (Tier 0)
Summon Lightning Elemental: 17 (+2 from class passives) (Tier 3)
Summoner: (23) (Tier 1)
Low Light Vision: 42 (Tier 0)
Clean Others: 4 (+1) (Tier 0)
Clean Teeth 5: (+1) (Tier 0)
Cut Hair: 2 (+1) (Tier 0
Skills
Pact Master: 23 (Tier 2)
Elemental Whisper: 38 (Tier 1)
Elastic Regenerating Skin: 18 (Tier 2)
Burst Cast: 62 (tier 0)
Plane Sense: 25 (tier 2)
Health Burn: 6 (+1) (Tier 3)
Mana burn: 2 (Tier 3)
Lightning Feet: 12 (Tier 3)
Lightning Dodge: 6 (Tier 4)
Strengthened Throwing arm: 3 (+2) (Tier 2)
Accurate Throw: 7 (+5) (Tier 1)
External Awareness: 1 (Tier 2)
Safer Falling: 1 (Tier 1) New
Class Passive Skills
Class spell boost: 38 (+9 Class, +9 from Trait: Elemental Summoner Passives)
Lightning Tank Feet: 24 (+9 Class)
Traits
Free Class Slot, Epic Soul Space, Fates Agility, Child of Elements, Elemental Summoner Passives
Titles
Lightning Mystic, Friend of the Elementals, Strength Spring, Vitality Fount, Healing Sponge(III), Venom Resistance (V), Competition Shaker (I), Trial Dominator (II), Trial Speedster (IX), Expert Eight Double Advance Double Expert, Camouflage Piercing–Stone (new), Stage Advancement (Earth) (new), Earth Friend (new), Stone Skin (new), Golem Master (II) (new), Golem Prodigy (new)
Other
Soul Space: 19 slots (+3) and 0.44 (+.06) metres cubed
Experience: 1,732 (- 41,500 class purchase, + 30,800 event, +5,311 miscellaneous)
Ranking Points: 1839 (+278)
The experience he had gotten from going through the caves with Everlyn had been just enough, combined with the event, to purchase four extra levels. For most people, that would have only been sufficient for a rank, but his ridiculous titles had propelled him up two ranks and that was even ignoring his fate levels, which had risen to almost a hundred and fifty.
His attributes were progressing well, but the skills, slightly less so. For example, not a single earth magic spell had levelled up, but Tom guessed that was a first world problem. They weren’t levelling because they were already ridiculously high. In fact, the only spells to level were the low tier and low-level ones. Except for Spark. It had increased because Tom’s use of it was far more advanced than its nominal level of sixty-four and the GODs had acknowledged that by upgrading it. The slight improvement in power the extra level gave was not worth worrying about, but if he got ten of them, then it would be material.
He left his system room with his mana mostly recharged and went back to work building the wall. He resorted to applying muscles and inventory to shift more rocks with less magical expenditure. As he worked, he pondered what spells he could earn for his golem, and whether it was worthwhile. If he invested in the right directions, he could create or upgrade more jewellery to contain a magic form. Given that flexibility, it was possible to tailor the spell selection rather than depending on the whims of the auction house. He could borrow sensory spells from Evie, and maybe even his throw rock might be fun to incorporate, then overlay it with a decay spell. Evie’s to spot weakness, throw rock to deliver and decay to make the eventual collision that much worse for the enemy. It was all about stacking synergies.
There were so many options for him over the longer term, but right now he lacked the resources to do anything too fancy. Golly One had been a little too diverse in its skill set and Tom knew with the new version he would have to specialise purely because of the lack of credits. As fun as creating more jewellery to contain a spell form was, it probably wasn’t practical yet.
“To arms!” Legen thundered, sounding panicked. “Priority one.”
Tom leapt to his feet from where he had been sitting, channelling his magic to fuse the rock wall. The ringing bells they had built were being rung vigorously, to reflect Legen’s priority one call, which was a full summon to battle. Crafters were leaping off the wall and scrambling for their weapons, while the fighters just spun to look for the threat, already armed and ready to go.
“West wall,” Legen yelled, obeying his own instruction as he sprinted from the southern wall towards the westerly one. Tom mimicked him, marvelling at his new attributes as he crossed the damaged centre courtyard. Percentage wise, the gains were only been about ten percent, but it seemed to help more that. Despite the rough ground, his movements were near effortless. He reached the wall and scrambled straight up the side. It’s damage nature meant he didn’t even need to cheat to get hand and feet holds.
Once on top of the fortifications, his eyes skipped across the landscape searching or more of the giant lizards or ferrets. There was nothing.
He glanced up.
Then he froze when he spotted what had set off Legen.
A glance was enough to make the identification instantly, despite the distance, and he immediately supported Legen’s decision to ring the alarm.
Sapient.
And not human.
A figure sat upon a huge griffin-like creature in a saddle. Packs were visible, tied and spiralling down from the person, even with the griffin still over a kilometre away, though approaching rapidly.
Tom’s mouth went dry.
This was it, the mind from his dream. The alien had found them and now it was too late to run.
In the vision, he had got an impression of the size of Birdbrain, but only relative to the mind that he had been sharing. The alien was not as large as a human but close, which made the griffin absolutely enormous both to the aliens senses and his own.
It was large enough to effortlessly carry four or five humans in the space between its heads and wings.
‘My god.’ someone whispered near him.
‘We’re doomed.’.
The huge wings of a griffin Tom knew was called Birdbrain snapped out as it dove toward the ground, targeting a spot about three bus lengths away from them. They all heard the whoosh of that wing beat as the griffin went from travelling at well over two hundred kilometres per hour to almost stationary. A scattering of small stones were flung about by its downdraft, before it dropped the last five metres and hit the ground with a thump rivalling all the explosive magic that longjoules had been tossing around.
For a moment, nothing happened. The griffin stood tall and proud, wings settling against its back, as the figure in the saddle observed them from under a cloak that obscured its features.
Then it reached its hands up and pulled the hood of its cloak off.
“What?” Legen asked, sounding shocked. “Is that an otter?”