For weeks, Lucas buried himself in work. From doubling his quota in artifact repairs to gain more merit points to constantly modifying the blueprint for Percival’s magic circle. He was also going through the rune catalog of the company to find out what he could use for the golem. Testing everything to get the result that he wanted.
As he was working, he heard someone knock on the door to his office. “It’s open,” Lucas called out.
The door opened and Jared peaked in. “There’s someone here to see you.”
Lucas got up from his desk. “Thanks,” he told Jared as he headed to the workshop’s entrance.
When Lucas reached the entrance, he saw a beautiful woman with long blonde hair and blue eyes. She had pointy ears and sharp facial features. She was dressed very elegantly with a white blouse and a green purple striped skirt.
“Do I know you?” Lucas asked.
She was wearing a guess pass on her neck, so he was certain she wasn’t part of the company. And he was currently too tired to deal with people, so such optional social interactions were not appreciated.
“Were you the person that fixed my friend’s artifact?”
“I fixed a lot of artifacts,” Lucas tiredly replied.
“The one commissioned at the notice board,” she revealed.
“Ah...” Lucas began closing the door.
She reached out, prying the door open. “Wait!”
“I don’t want anything to do with that person,” Lucas stated, pushing the door closed.
Lucas was surprised to see the woman overpowering him and forcing the door open. “Just hear me out.”
Lucas sighed. “Make it quick.”
“Look, Jasmine is a nice person, she’s just very paranoid of everyone,” she tried defending her friend.
“So what?” Lucas replied and he noticed the confusion on the woman’s face. “What did you expect to happen here?”
Lucas didn’t know this woman and clearly, introducing themselves weren’t a common courtesy to them.
“Look, my friend needs her artifact for a mission and you were the only one that was able to fix it.”
“I did fix it, and then she attacked me!” Lucas yelled in frustration before shutting the entrance of the workshop.
As he was heading back to his office, he noticed Jared smiling at him. “You got balls pal. Shutting the door on the elf princess.”
“I don’t care who they are. I don’t want anything to do with them,” Lucas replied as he went back to his office.
With a sigh, Lucas sat back down on his desk. His frustration was starting to pile up, now, people were trying to disturb him.
“I need a break.”
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Michael Ridley sat on his desk, and across him were the two promising young mages of their generation,
“Let me get this straight. You found someone to fix your artifact, which I must note is not something that could be fix by just anybody, and after he repaired it, you attacked him,” Michael raised an eyebrow.
Jasmine Taruma shrunk in her seat.
“You do realize that if he pressed charges, you could have been severely punished,” Michael mentioned. “Especially now that your teacher is absent, the others would jump at the chance to get rid of you using the laws against mages as a pretext.”
“I’m aware of my situation,” Jasmine replied.
“And you,” Michael pointed to Alliah Slywood. “Thought it was a good idea to go to his place of work?”
“I figured I could have convinced him to fix Jasmine’s artifact before the mission.”
Michael rubbed his forehead in frustration. “You’re off the mission,” Michael told Jasmine.
Jasmine stood from her chair. “Why?!”
“I tolerated your attitude because you were competent, but I don’t need a mage that’s reliant on their artifact and lashes out on civilians,” Michael stated. “Our duty is to protect them, and you just crossed that.”
“But I need this mission!” Jasmine exclaimed.
“Your actions say otherwise,” Michael replied. “Leave. And if either of you approach that young man again, you’ll be subjected to disciplinary actions.”
“Understood,” Jasmine and Alliah replied.
With both young mages reluctantly leaving his office, Michael turned back to his computer monitor where the young man’s file was brought up.
Michael pressed a button on his telephone. “David, clear my schedule for the day.”
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“Hell yeah!” Lucas cheered as he finally figured out how to implement the magic circle on the golem.
Checking his funds, Lucas saw that he had saved up 1300 merit points. Hopefully, that was enough to get all the materials he needed.
Grabbing his bag, Lucas prepared to make his way to the exchange center. On his way out, he saw Sanie pushing in a cart full of parts. He nodded at him as a greeting as he passed by.
Arriving at the exchange center, Lucas saw the same woman at the counter as last time.
“Welcome back Mr. Atican. How can I help you?”
“I need a mana circuit tracer that has an adjustable tip,” Lucas answered. “And a rune stone for compression, conduction, stabilization, and activation.
“Quite the big order,” the woman commented as she typed everything on a computer.
“It’s a big project,” Lucas smiled.
“The total comes at 850 merit points.”
Lucas handed her his ID. After a quick swipe at a machine, she handed it back to him. After a few minutes, a case came out of a conveyer belt.
“Here’s everything,” she opened the case to show four rune stones and the mana circuit tracer.
“Thank you,” Lucas bowed in appreciation as she handed him the case.
“Good luck on your personal project Mr. Atican.”
Rushing back to his office, Lucas couldn’t wait to get started working on his golem. When he returned to the workshop, he saw Sanie busy unloading and sorting the materials he brought in, while Kier seemed to be doing some target practice with a gun artifact.
Upon entering his office, Lucas was surprised to find a stranger sitting on his chair.
“Hello Mr. Atican.”
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Michael observed the young man in front of him. Lucas Atican, freshly graduated from high school with top marks, but failed the mage evaluation, so pursued a career in artifact research.
He received an endorsement from the military after getting involved in a recent incident with the Viper runners.
Michael’s assessment of the young man was pretty decent. He clearly wasn’t all brain seeing as he filled out his company uniform. It wasn’t very obvious, but it was clear he trained his body as well. Michael also noticed how calloused his hands were, along with numerous small scars across his arms. He also had large bags under his eyes, signifying multiple sleepless nights.
“I’m Michael Ridley from the mage association.”
Michael noticed the young man’s teeth clenched. “You’re here because of those...”
“The young mages. Yes,” Michael nodded. “But I didn’t come here to cause you trouble,” the young man remained silent. “I’m here to give you compensation for the trouble they’ve caused.”
The young man raised an eyebrow. “Compensation?”
“Yes. As one of the mages under me assaulted you unprovoked, you will receive compensation. Jasmine Taruma has already been punished, so this is the only matter left to take care of,” Michael stated.
He could see doubt and confusion in the young man’s face. Normally, something like this was swept under the rug. Jasmine was a prodigy under the tutelage of a king-ranked mage, while the young man was simply an employee of a large corporation.
But Michael was never a fan of his fellow mages. He believed every person had a gift, some never discover it, while some grow up with it.
The young man in front of him knows his gift, and yet worked hard to build himself. That alone is worthy of his respect. Building character without relying on a gift.
“Do you have anything you want, or do you prefer credits?”
He could see the gears turning inside the young man’s head. Thinking of what he wanted from a mage.
“A mana cultivation method,” the young man answered.
“Oh? But you’re not a mage.”
“I want to have access to my mana pocket.”
Michael considered it for a moment. There was no law against people doing mana cultivation, only against learning magic spells since that’s where the real danger lies. The association just has a strict restriction on the distribution mana cultivation methods. It wouldn’t be strange for an artifact researcher to learn mana cultivation.
“I can arrange that,” Michael replied. “Since you just want access to your mana pocket, a mana cultivation focused on forming mana circles is fine, right?”
The young man nodded.
“I’ll have it sent here then,” the man said as he got up. “It was a pleasure meeting you, Mr. Atican,” Michael said before leaving the young man’s office.
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Lucas had his doubts, but he actually got one. A mana cultivation method from the mage association.
“But this can wait,” Lucas muttered as he packed a bag.
Once he went out his office, he saw Jared and Sanie working on what looked like a half-built car. “Going somewhere?” Sanie asked, looking up from the hood of the car.
“Going to do some tests outside,” Lucas replied.
“You got a permit to do some tests outside?” Jared asked, peaking from underneath the car.
“Yeah,” Lucas showed a folded-up piece of paper.
“Good luck.”
“Thanks,” Lucas gave them a thumbs up as he left the workshop.
His destination was the empty forest at the back of the research institute. It was a place specifically made for outdoor tests and was completely empty, so there was no worry of harming wild life. He just needed to make sure there weren’t any other people doing their own tests.
Once he was in a good spot, he did a quick scan of the area to check for other people. With that in the clear, Lucas began unpacking everything he needed for his test.
Obviously, going straight to summoning Percival’s golem was stupid, so Lucas started with a weaker golem using a regular monster core and a simplified version of the magic circle Percival gave him.
Lucas placed a disc the size of a dinner plate on the ground. At the center of the disc was the monster core. At the top of the disc was the rune for activation connected to the mana circuits forming the magic circle. Beside the monster core and within the first layer of the magic circle was the rune for stabilization and conduction.
To the eyes of another person, it simply looked like a disc with a monster core on it. But to Lucas, it was a magic circle written using mana circuits.
Once Lucas poured mana on the activation rune, he watched as the mana travelled through the mana circuits, bringing the magic circle to life. The disc began to float in the air, seemingly waiting for something to happen.
After a while, a black tar-like substance came out of the ground, gathering and swirling around the disc.
Lucas couldn’t help but laugh. Golem magic naturally used the environment to form itself. It was just that magic and science advanced so much that people only used golem magic to bring already crafted golems to life.
“Talk about old school,” Lucas chuckled as a less grandiose looking black knight was revealed by the swirling tar. “Now, time to go above and beyond,” Lucas held up his hand as if asking the golem something.
The gesture caused a reaction from the golem. Its chest began to glow as the rune for compression activated. The golem shrunk and condensed until it turned into a glass marble with a miniature 3D image of the golem inside of it.
Holding up the marble and doing a silent prayer, Lucas proceeded to throw it. Upon impact on the ground, the marble shattered and the golem returned to its normal size.
Lucas began silently cheering to the point that it took him to his knees. He didn’t even notice that tears began forming in his eyes. With every of self-control he had left, he grabbed the voice recorder on his belt. “Preliminary test with proto 01 is a success,” Lucas recorded with a choked voice.