Given how often new Orcs keep invading my area in search of food, I doubt that I’ll need to get the monster lure skill I was thinking about any time soon. Knowing that, I decided to hold off for now on getting my level 35 skill or skill upgrade. I just left the notification hanging in the back of my mind for now. I still wasn't 100% sure about what skill I wanted.

Now that I had access to other trees through my roots, I figure I should see if I can communicate with any of them. I sent a tendril of thought out to the one closest to me at the edge of my perception and tried making contact.

I could feel my mind bump into it, but there was very little response. The mind of the tree I was targeting seemed to just jiggle slightly when I touched it, similar to how a water balloon jiggles when touched. It was a bit weird.

I mentally poked it again, hoping for any sort of reaction. Again, it jiggled but didn’t react. This time I decided to fully connect to it and take a proper look inside of its mind. With how Archy had responded to hearing I was a sapient tree, it was very likely this was just a regular old plant.

Like I suspected, when I went in for a deeper mind delve, the only sensations I ‘saw’ were those that I had felt when I had just been born into this world. I could feel the roots, branches, leaves and other vitals of the tree, enough to tell it was healthy, but there wasn’t any sign of sapience to it. It was just acting on pure instinct. Not that I can complain. I was a certified genius, after all.

I dropped the connection and let the tree be. I moved on to the next one and got pretty much the same reaction out of it. The tree’s ‘mind’ jiggled at my mental poke, but didn’t react. I tried again and again with everything around me, but there wasn’t any sign of intelligence around me. I was truly alone.

Meh. I survived 3 whole years without sapient companionship, I can keep myself busy and survive more.

Feeling assured of myself, I gathered my mind and started to think of how I should move forward. I still had that level boost to use. I could try for a monster tamer ability and capture an Orc. Though an Orc companion doesn’t really tickle my fancy. I could try for that bee plan I had before.

Or... I could try to finish making my golem autonomous.

Ignoring the rest of the world again, I brought my attention back to my humanoid pile of dirt. I had to admit that I was pretty proud of myself for how well it had kept up, even after dealing with all those piggy creatures. Sure, it helped that I fixed it every time it received even so much as a scratch, but it had yet to receive any major damage, like losing a limb or having a hole punched through its chest (real things that happened to real Orcs).

Having been through so many fights while piloting the Golem, I was intimately knowledgeable about how its body moved, how it could bend any joints the way it needed to, and, most importantly, how it could attack.

My biggest issue at the moment was figuring out how to give it a mind of its own.

I tried carving mana pathways into its body, kind of how I would imagine it having blood vessels, but that didn’t seem to stick. When I examined the Orc’s bodies, I couldn’t really see any mana in its bodies, so that didn’t give me anything to work with. The only thing I could think of would be implanting a portion of my mind into the golem, and then using Mental Magic to remove the part from me, thereby forcing it to have a mind of its own, even if it was a section of mine.

My biggest problems with that were that I imagined it would be incredibly painful, and I wasn’t 100% sure that it wouldn’t leave me mentally handicapped. Pain I could live with, but when my mind was currently my biggest weapon, I'd rather not put myself in that position.

Rather than continue playing around with the pile of dirt, I decided to switch it up a bit and try making something similar with wood. That was my forte, after all. And to switch it up further, rather than start it off with one of my vines, I decided to start working with one of my roots.

I chose a root that ended a few feet after the exit of my hobbit hole and brought it out of the ground. I started the construction by using Body Manipulation to grow the root out further and started bulking it up. When it was sticking out of the ground by about 6 feet, I started bulking it up at the top, making it round, to look like a head. Then I made the neck, followed by the chest and left leg and foot. I then extended a shoot off of the root next to where I thought the left leg should end, thereby making the right leg and foot. It took a bit to balance it out, but I wanted this to be perfect. After getting the legs just right, I grew two shoots off the upper section of the chest to make arms. I took my time again, making sure everything was perfect.

My goal while making the wooden dummy wasn’t to make it look beautiful. No, that was just a side-product of my perfection. My goal when making it was to have everything be as human looking as possible, with the exception of genitalia. And I had to admit, I did a pretty damn good job. Hell, I wouldn’t have minded if my body looked like this in my old life. I added muscle definition where there might not have needed to be any. The pecs looked immaculate, going right along with the abs underneath. I didn’t make it bodybuilder levels of muscular, but it did look like it worked out on the regular.

After finishing the cosmetics of my creation, I moved on to making it more functional. Where the joints were previously just solid wood, I segmented them, while maintaining a wholeness to it that would keep it together. I kept the joints as simple hinges, pivots, and ball-in-socket joints. I knew from my old life that there were more joints in the human body, but these three types were the main ones that I needed. The rest felt... unnecessary for a wooden golem.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

Once I had the joints finished, I needed a way to make this thing combat ready. I contemplated what sort of weapons it might need and came up with a few possible answers.

The first was retractable claws like a certain comic book hero. I made hidden grooves on top of the four non-thumb knuckles of each hand and added sharpened stakes in each one. Rather than have them stick out a few feet each, I limited them to the length of the hand they were coming out of. The hidden compartment went from the tip of the knuckle down to the end of the wrist, making each claw a solid 4 inches. I mean, who needs more than 4 inches anyways, right?

After I finished making the claws, my next task was to add little roots to each one to make them truly retractable, along with a separate lever in the compartment to make them lock in place during battle. I almost wished I had a sort of poison to add to the compartment for some extra impact, but I thought this should be more than fine for now.

The second weapon I added to my masterpiece was retractable knee spikes. I made similar adjustments to them as the hand claws. They had the roots to push them out and pull them back in, along with a locking mechanism for when the golem was in battle. This time though, I focused more on making it durable than making it sharp. Sure, the tip was crazy pointy and would easily puncture skin, but other than that, it was basically a pointed stick. An extremely tough, durable, pointy stick.

Part of me was tempted to add a secret compartment along where its spine would be and make a wooden sword to fit in it. Unfortunately, I had no knowledge of how to use a sword, other than the sharp end goes in the bad guy, so I decided against it. If I did learn some day, I would have to come to it and add that feature. Regardless, I thought it was plenty capable now to survive a fight.

My finishing touches to the golem was to add hair. At the top of its head, I added in rows of vines, all swept back to look like proper hair. Each vine was lined with leaves, added in hopes that it would generate some energy on its own. I felt like energy generation was a key part in making a truly autonomous golem. That was just pure conjecture though. I had no real evidence of that being the case.

When I finished making its hair, I realized I was missing one pretty important detail. A face. Now, realistically, it didn’t need a face. But I was going to perfection on this one, so yes, it needed a face.

I started off by adding the basics: eyes, nose, and a mouth. Then I realized it still needed ears, so I added those too. After getting the basics down, I focused again on making it perfect. I started off by shaping the nose better, making sure it wasn’t too big or small, and adding a small curve to the tip of it. I originally wanted human features, but decided to aim for fictional elf features instead. I made its face more elongated, gave the eyes a minor angle, raised the cheekbone lumps a little higher, and ended with a couple of slightly pointed ears. I didn’t go so far as to emulate Archy exactly, but I can’t deny using my memory of him as a reference a few times.

When the face was finally finished, I took a step back and took a proper look at it. I went through each part again, fixing parts here and there until I was finally satisfied that this was the absolute best I could do. I was about to disconnect it from my root when I thought about the energy generation again, so I went back and made sure that the leaves were working properly. They were, but they weren’t transporting the nutrients as well as they could have been, so I adjusted some of the xylem and phloem as necessary until I was again satisfied, then finally I cut the cord.

When I finished thinning out the root connecting the golem to myself, I made sure to leave a small portion of it out for it to use to make roots of its own if needed. With that done, I marveled at the sight of my creation.

Then I almost scrapped it.

Despite my hours worth of effort and meticulous crafting of every nook and cranny, it was still nothing more than a mere puppet. I had to control every movement myself, making it as useful as a literal lump of dirt. I hated it.

But I also loved it. I had just spent the majority of a full day crafting this, and I didn’t want it to go to waste. But I didn’t want to look at it any more either. I didn’t know what to do.

In a minor fit of rage, I leveled the hobbit hole, crushing everything inside and flattening the ground around me. I knew it could all be made again in just a few hours, so I really went to town, making sure to break everything inside.

When I was done with my little temper tantrum, everything I had worked so hard to make for Lilly was gone. The beds were no more than splinters at this point. The couch was more useful as firewood at this point, even taking into account my Fire Resistance.

Well, that solves my problem of needing to raise my lower branches. At least I don’t have to go through the discomfort of that any more.

I only mildly regretted my tantrum. On one hand, it meant that I’d have to make it again if the Laughing Vipers or Lilly ever came by to rest for the night or hang out in general, on the other hand, it meant that I now had more unrestricted room to grow, which it seemed like I would be doing a lot of soon. I could already tell that the housing was starting to feel a bit tight on my trunk. I had grown a little in circumference, after all. I was now a solid 4 feet around and 33 feet tall.

Okay, I need a new plan. What should I prioritize for my level 35 skill? Do I want to be able to grow faster? Do I want a monster lure skill to level fast? Or do I want to be able to make fully autonomous golems? I plan on waiting a while for the whole bee thing, though I definitely want that. I... think I have to do a monster lure. It just feels like it makes sense... AGGHHH!!! Why is this so difficult!

While I silently raged about my indecisiveness, I made a fancy throne for my puppet to sit under my canopy. It felt weird leaving it out there by itself.

When its throne was ready, I piloted it over to take a seat, facing towards where the road would be. When it was properly down, I connected to its foot again where I left the root to make sure the wood wouldn’t dry out, die, or just rot. I guess I really didn’t want to destroy the thing.

Having failed and thrown my mild tantrum, I decided it was time to just relax. I had plenty of time, and I needed to remember to enjoy myself. Now was the perfect time for such wasteful lack of activity.

I spread my mind through my canopy and relaxed in the warm embrace of the sun. It had been too long since I had relaxed properly.