Alex awoke feeling… well both refreshed and disgusting. He had slept in his own filth last night, nothing he hadn’t been forced to do before but was still unpleasant. The mental fog from yesterdays… experience was also gone. Though he still had the feeling deep down and somewhere not in his physical body that the injuries from the void lingered.
He honestly didn’t know where to start with that, so he moved on. First, he made his way to the kitchen. He quickly found food in the pantry. Canned goods and the like stored in a room he knew was too large to fit in the building.
“Food, and water seem to be in order. The building is shelter. Thank the gods I don’t have to hunt or scavenge outside. Probably die if that was the case. Clothes and security remain.”
He worked out his priorities as he grabbed the nearest can and went to scavenge an opener from the kitchen. He read the label and was again surprised at how natural it felt. Ready to eat was all he needed to see right now. Opening the thing was easy and even though it had almost too much flavor he had to admit he had worse. Drinking water from the tap in a cup he found in the cupboard.
“Probably meant more as a supplement, add to water for soup or some such.”
Better than expected in these circumstances at least it’s not the cheese and veggie omelet. He paused for a moment giving that hateful MRE the true mental disrespect its existence deserved, and shuddering at the mere possibility that the room might have been full of them, considering his luck so far that may be a real possibility. Moving on he went to the bathroom both to take care of some rising concerns as well as change the dressing on his foot.
Easily recognizable based on the fixtures, this place, where ever he was had most of the things a modern world would. Dated was probably the best way to describe how things looked. In the cabinet he found more medical supplies and he quickly changed out the bandages on his foot. The sink supplied the water he needed. He also took care of some necessary bodily functions and thanked the gods yet again for flush toilets. The shower called, in the cabinet he found some hydrophobic leather that he tied over and his foot before hopping in and taking a long shower watching the dirt and grime flow away.
Feeling mostly human, to the point of questioning yesterday he went on the hunt for clothes and shoes. He was under no illusions that he was safe here. He may need to leave quickly and at any moment so being not naked would be a start.
Alex found some plain clothes and serviceable shoes in one of the chests near the bathroom. He also moved a set of cold weather clothes from the chest to the table he dropped Alessa’s belongings on. Just in case he had to bug out.
His next order of business was to look into the power situation so he moved downstairs to the generator and did his best to figure it out holding on to the vain hope that it would be simple.
His brain nearly exploded at how easy and user friendly the generator was. He almost wanted to kick every engineer he ever knew for trying to add sufficient mysteries to their work. Clean efficient and he didn’t need to climb into the most awkward positions to perform basic maintenance. There was even a manual right next to it. The format was slightly off like reading a foreign instruction manual, but he was able to muddle through. Looking at several dials on the operation panel he stated his conclusions.
“Ok… according to this five years at full operation which is what its currently on… water and lighting are irrelevant to its overall power usage. Highly efficient stuff… big drains are from the workrooms. Not a problem immediately… no way to recharge in place as it was designed to work with the grid and kick on in case of emergencies… doesn’t run on any fuel… needs a special charging station or for the grid to turn on… typical civilian model not designed for the current situation… the manual has a custom layout for the enchantments in place, it doesn’t look like I’ll be in danger unless it breaks or runs out… messing with power setting is not recommended without expertise and access to a power grid… NOT able to switch on the fly, so rationing power is a no go… Again, far better than expected.”
Sighing heavily, he replaced the manual and returned to the kitchen, sitting down to have a good think. His experience and former instructors had harped on endlessly about taking your time when you had it. Rushing costs lives, especially when surviving. Take your time to think, plan, and use your energy efficiently. Or die.
“Five year deadline. Too short, not enough time to figure out what I need to know here. I’m decent with a knife but fighting people and fighting animals are very different things. I’m alone so most of the tactics and strategies I have won’t work. Not enough time to learn how to use a melee weapon proficiently without an instructor. Seems like a bad idea to fight these creatures like that in the first place. I know enough about WW2 weapons and their production to replicate them if I get the materials and a workshop, but I can’t make the ammo reliably and have no idea if they will even work, so that’s out. This place has magic and probably magical fuckary, but again without an instructor… could I get good enough to survive when the lights go out? Doubtful, it is also possible that I might fuck this place up. Still don’t know if I can even use magic. Call that a last resort, I might be able to hide… Still one fuck up or misjudged situation and I’m dead and I don’t have a lifetime of living here learning the dangers. Even if that information is in books will I remember well enough? … What if some stuff is such common knowledge, they didn’t see a reason to write it down… nothing I can immediately do about illness or disease, put it aside… Outside as far as I can see is a devastated wasteland. No obvious water, edible plants are difficult, even if they exist. Pretty much need a large amount of local knowledge of the area for that to work… limited supplies I don’t know if I even have enough for the five years… If I have magic or if there are items that can level the playing field maybe I have a chance.”
He didn’t come to any conclusion after this rant, but he did have goals. Alex needed an inventory of absolutely everything in this house. And he needed to see if any of the books might have something resembling a solution. No matter how he looked at it, he simply could not fight these creatures. That bastard yesterday had pierced steel with its attacking limbs plate armor wouldn’t stop that. The cold was a problem, one that most people underestimated. Fighting leads to sweating which then might freeze and kill you even if your enemy didn’t. There were very good reasons why people didn’t fight during the winter, especially if that winter had cold like this.
Even if he could avoid the creatures, shelter would be an issue. He needed somewhere to stay. A place of safety to rest, probably for the long term when accounting for injuries and recovery. He doubted that the creatures were immune to the cold or that they didn’t need rest. This all left him with the shitty conclusion that he both had to fight and that if he did fight, he would die. Even if the cold was seasonal, he had to plan for it. He had no idea if the conditions were isolated. For all he knew the whole world could be like this. He had no way of knowing how far any safety might be, or which direction to go. Even if he had full access to survival gear from Earth minus guns, hell even if he had guns and ammo, it appeared that he was up shit creek without a paddle and the boat had some holes in it.
If this had been a purely mundane world he might be tempted to just give up. At some point he would have to risk himself out there, or he could starve to death. Always an option but he knew himself well enough that if it came to that he would give it a try and hope for a miracle.
That said there was magic here, the storage item if he could use it would eliminate most of the supply problems. Diminishing returns was a thing, the more you carry the more you need, creating an inescapable and vicious cycle that had killed more than one person. He would need to take more than necessary to survive without knowing what he could encounter he absolutely required the flexibility.
Staying in the city seemed a no go, it was dead. He could carve out a place to live in pretty much any other environment. Except for a desert, wastelands were just too hard for anyone to live in by conventional means. He currently had a buffer, it was far more fragile than he was comfortable with but it was there.
“Ok, Alex plan in place need to see if it is workable. Get an inventory, paper and pen are in the office. See if anything game changing pops up. To plan further I need to know what I have to work with. Thank God this isn’t a typical American house and might have useful shit in it.”
So that was what he did, an exhaustive survey of everything in the house, including furniture and fixtures that he might tear apart when it became time to leave.
~ * ~
Two weeks had passed before he sat down at the table again to reassess where he stood. It really pissed him off that it took so long but he refused to half ass something this important. He also refused to deviate, at one point he was tempted to try and figure out that storage item on the table. But he resisted short term satisfaction for long term payoffs. He would have plenty of time to figure it out later as well as reassess if the game changing shit was inside.
Firstly, good long term news and infuriating short term. The days here were significantly longer than on Earth, eight hours longer to be precise. He had spent eighty-four hours longer on the task than the two weeks implied. Three and a half days extra spent on inventory. However, that meant his five year deadline was significantly longer than the number suggested.
“Still seven day weeks and fiftyish weeks a year. How the fuck does that work.” He had forcibly gotten in the habit of talking out loud just to combat the silence. He also discarded that line of thought as interesting and potentially helpful, but not immediately useful. He was also not an astrophysicist so he would probably waste time trying to figure it out, when he could be doing more useful things.
Good news was that his foot had healed. Still slightly tender but it didn’t inhibit him. The reason was a minor enchantment on the place that sped up healing and supposedly prevented infection. He had no complaints, and equally no plans to test it. One minor exploit he thought was that it would help PT recovery. The moment his foot recovered he had begun to exercise like his life depended on it. He was by no means out of shape but in peak physical condition he was not. He was aiming for functional muscle not bulk. Mostly because bulk was hard to keep and required too many calories and a specific diet. He wanted lean hard muscle, extreme stamina, and burst strength. The type of thing you see when people perform multiple different hard jobs rather than gym rat size. Easier to maintain with a more balanced diet after working to build the muscle. High initial work out, leveling out at the point his body felt comfortable.
Physical fitness was an absolute requirement regardless of what he found. In any case he had created and organized a truly massive inventory of items. Separating them into raw materials, processed goods, further expanding on each type. He included the parts he might tear out as well, everything remained where it was or at least in the same room also organized by type. Compiling all this into a map and several lists he felt like it might even satisfy the most anal of supply officers if he had to present it.
He left everything in its current place based on the hope that there was a reason, or at least some method, to Alessa’s madness. He had no interest in trying to study magic from a children’s fairy tale only to learn that he had wasted time. All because he put a book in the wrong pile. In other circumstances it might even be funny here, it could be deadly.
In the brief breaks he allowed himself or when he was getting ready for sleep, he had looked into the books that looked like magic. The work he had been doing was mentally exhausting and it was too easy to start making mistakes when pushing too hard. Yet again he had time, so he was going to take it. Unfortunately, it appeared that magic was even more complicated than his worst nightmare. It was not easy to use or understand and knowledge from Earth didn’t provide a handy cheat code or short cut. One object in a workroom had at least laid the “gotcha” moment of “sorry no magic for you, normie” to rest. It was a globe attached to a complicated steampunk looking machine, according to the manual nearby like all good scientific equipment it was to help someone measure their affinities and more importantly the affinities of an object. Followed by how they interacted. In any case he had magic and even wrote down the readings for when he actually got to studying.
Alessa’s library looked, based on the list of titles, to be highly diverse, containing a wide variety of magic from many disciplines, from beginner to a decently high level. It looked like she had collected a large reference section. Like a mathematician might collect books on a variety of different applications until it got over his head.
For Alex this meant he had a wide base of the lowest level all the way up to way past what he was ever likely to understand without outside help. Some of the ones that caught his attention had titles indicating that they were about survival and magic for survival. Now he wasn’t foolish enough to believe that they might not be just as useless as most ‘survival guides’ from back home but it was possible.
He also concluded that this place he found himself in was stupidly perfect for him and that of all the places he could have ended up, here was unlikely. His senses tingled at this plot contrivance, it could of course be luck. But that meant he had used up all the luck he had, it went to the bonus roll landing him here. In the real world where he was it could only mean that things were going to worse than he could imagine out there. Although to be fair that wasn’t hard, his lack of knowledge meant that he couldn’t imagine much right now.
Alex sighed “This is going to suck, isn’t it?” he questioned the air. Too many books, too little time. He failed to find armor of invulnerability or a sword or staff of smiting, not even a good old fashioned mace of healing. The lack of overpowered chosen one items meant he needed to do this the hard way. Magic still seemed the only practical choice even though the complexity left him little hope, actually none whatsoever that he would leave here a begin to smite all that stood against him. Not that he expected any different, but it would have been nice.
As for the books, he would categorize them in the same way he had the inventory going through the most promising ones with a skim and taking notes on what might be useful. He didn’t have time, five years sounded like a lot but with easily thousands of essentially textbooks standing before him. Books he had to read understand, and books that might need other information not here to comprehend well… that sucked.
To start, he had found an alarm clock, so it would be like the good old grinding days. “I just wanted a beer and to get laid. To relax and settle into a nice easy civilian life style. Eight hour work days, plenty of time for hobbies, make some friends, get a girlfriend. Instead, I get this… Fuck you world. Pray that I never get a bomb big enough to shove up your ass. Oh and don’t think I forgot about you void. Also, while I’m at it where are my Valkyries I literally died in glorious battle against otherworldly opponents, how many humans could have done that huh. I call false advertising. Assholes.”
With that out of the way Alex settled down to hatefully write the most brutal schedule he could. Only considering the most realistic estimates of his limitations. He had no pity on himself, any time wasted might mean the difference between life and death. Between dying here or maybe finding something that wasn’t totally horrible outside these walls. Then he got to work with a single minded focus.
He began cataloging the books and the spells they held, and those useful for reference. Thankfully these were also user friendly. Listing the spell and a short description of what it could do and what it might require beyond mana. They really were text books after all and not some secretive fucks personal coded grimoire. No that was a thing people really did that shit. At least several authors cautioned against doing any more than looking at most spell books unless you were capable and knowledgeable enough to understand what was written.
Just stay away from any that appeared to have magic cast on them… probably best if you don’t even look… like at all, even seeing enough to know that looking was a bad idea might end horribly.
Luckily these were not those books and therefore safe. Everything in the library magic related had a certification symbol meaning the information was good and tested, reliable and largely standardized. That was about the only thing aside from necessity that kept Alex from pulling his hair out.
Stolen novel; please report.
About three months of grueling labor later he had yet another obnoxious list for his magical studies. As well as another conundrum. He had blitzed through the books writing down and separating absolutely everything he found into critical, certainly, almost certainly, and ‘could be useful and possibly achievable’ every spell and numerous disciplines or paths for magical study lay before him in a clear and concise list.
“Forty… forty fucking critical spells… and they aren’t all beginner either. Can probably shave ten or twelve off just due to difficulty and niche need… but still… Fuck my life. And that’s before I even start on the hard shit to make combat viable.”
Real combat flowed you needed offence, defense, and support to truly be a combatant especially when alone. The real world punished overspecialization, min-maxing wouldn’t work. He also doubted that he could even achieve that, he would have to be almost overwhelming in any one category to even begin thinking it was practical.
“Ok I know this shit isn’t a wish list. I already culled as much as I could before I got here. No more talk about removing from the list need to prioritize instead and I need to make a choice on how I’m going to do this…” Shaking his head he took a deep breath, while he was getting his head in order he mechanically chewed down on some food.
“Alright from the top. Frontline combat is still out, too dangerous, and it gets worse if I try to half-ass it with magic. I would need real experience and probably a teacher, straight up no go I’m mentioning it for completion and to ensure I didn’t miss anything… I will work on it if possible, for when I get time to round myself out, but it’s not going to be enough on its own. Magical combat has possibilities some of these spells are fucking scary, just their existence had me add like twenty counters to the certainly list and four or five to the critical, a shit load of would be nice… It takes too long though, every book that mentioned typical times required years for single spells to be mastered enough for combat, and most of those assumed the mage would be supported and not alone like I am… seems like wishful thinking… Not like I have good options… I need a workable one though. No matter what I choose I am likely to be too far along before I recognize the fuck up. I very much doubt I can course correct if I can’t get things to work as planned… already have too many assumptions of success because anything else means I’m dead anyways… Ok have to pick out synergies and find an optimal and achievable goal, I can’t flail about too much and spreading my time will probably leave me with too many choices and not enough practice. I need like eighty spells to cover all my bases and not die the moment I encounter the wrong thing, have to take some risk there. I have absolutely no way of making that work when I include anything but not dying… stealth is a poor option too many ways to get caught even with high level spells and that’s before I take maintenance in to consideration… Spell maintenance is probably the kiss of death for going full mage. Not workable. Really only one option left, only possible because of the owner of this place, but I feel like it won’t work, and requirements are ridiculous in these circumstances.”
The possibility Alex was talking about was crafting, specifically golem crafting. It was a specialization of enchanting. It required earth as well as arcane, destruction, and creation/shaping for affinities which coincidently he had, along with a relatively even spread across the others. As near as he could tell based on the books, being pulled through the void largely stabilized his affinities. They were not particularly high, just level. Nothing groundbreaking, and everyone had this to a lesser degree. It wasn’t like you were unable to use magic if you didn’t have an affinity or even if you had a conflicting one. A fire mage could still use water spells. And someone without affinities for golem crafting could still make a golem or any enchantment.
This world was too complex for his level of knowledge. Affinities did matter, they were about efficiency, control, and staying power rather than hard blocks. You might ‘know’ more about an element if you had the affinity, or you would learn quicker and easier. Those spells might come more naturally, but it wasn’t some cheat-like shortcut.
Even with the affinities for enchanting and golem creation, he wouldn’t have considered it without the three stones sitting before him. Enchanting of any kind was hard. Like inventing the computer from scratch hard or building a rocket to go to the moon. The knowledge, control and precision required should have meant Alex discarded it as a workable option instantly. The cores changed his mind. Basic enchantments would be punishingly difficult without a teacher but workable, in fact they were needed for his plan. Most of the sustained spells had enchantment counterparts that supplied a similar effect.
He could use a spell to keep himself from freezing to death or he could make an enchantment. Yes, he would have to redo it until he got better, but that was one spell he didn’t have to cast and maintain. It was his only real choice long term. However, while staying warm was important it didn’t keep him alive during a fight.
“Well, you wanted synergy retard why is this so difficult. An actual combat core and two high level generalist cores are right there just need to make some frames… problem solved golems fight I focus on support hopefully buy time to not be useless baggage by continuing to learn. Solve the insane and probably impossible amount of spells I have to maintain through enchanting, craft my way into unparalleled flexibility… oh yeah I also have will have to devote all the remaining time to have any hope of making a single working frame, that will barely be more than trash tier. Then pin almost all my hopes that it will be enough. Maybe also get totally screwed and figure out that these cores don’t really function and be left with nothing… Cool, no biggie, definitely not the scariest choice I have ever made in my life.”
Alex spent a good three hours after this agonizing over the decision, pacing talking to himself. Going over every bit of information he had. Triple checking that he hadn’t accidentally misidentified the cores, he only stopped when he caught himself going over the same lines of thinking twice. That made the choice for him. It was both one of the riskiest options as well as the one most likely to succeed. Mind made up he jumped in the shower to wash away the cold sweat and went to bed. Tomorrow would be the beginning of his real plan to escape this hell hole.
~ * ~
Six months after he made his decision Alex was getting desperate and going crazy. With success not guaranteed he had to force himself not to deviate. He had failed to take mana recovery into account with his plan and the already vastly optimistic schedule was falling behind.
His mana pool was currently very small compared to the mages who wrote the books hell it was small for a student, just starting to learn magic. He pushed himself as far as he could go. Foregoing anything that resembled a luxury. He took short showers to refresh himself, if he couldn’t focus on a book, he went to exercise running endless laps, or doing well anything he could think of to train his body. A few days had been devoted to making the equipment he could spare time for. Alex just had too much to do to waste time building a home gym, so he made do. He studied at meal times. Not even taking the time to cook anything proper, just devouring them out of a can or in the package. The stuff he could make he spent as little time as possible, or it needed to be doable with minimal focus.
His world became the workshop which could handle anything someone at his level could do quite contemptuously. Isolation, loneliness, and the silence had begun to wear away at him. He always talked to himself now. Turning off his inner voice unless it was the random time he was practicing being quiet so as not to slip up when it was dangerous.
This had the reverse effect of actually getting him to talk less. He didn’t want to stupidly give away his position when it mattered but he couldn’t take the quiet all the time. The dark was also becoming problematic. He began to keep the light off or dim to match the outside, often reading by the windows just to get used to it. The only thing he avoided was going outside to try to acclimatize himself to the temperatures. That would wait until he had a working golem, or he was forced to.
No. Fucking. Way. Was he doing this to die by misadventure over something that would happen anyway. He had managed to access the necklace he now wore. It was empty but he constantly practiced using it to make the feeling natural. He also took the time to build a punching bag. No matter how disciplined he couldn’t prevent himself from feeling anger and frustration. It seemed better to beat the bag than destroy anything valuable and probably lose himself in a self-destructive spiral, all because he couldn’t manage his anger.
Like Alessa had said in her note the other objects were high quality but common enchantments that would likely be no help at all. The rings were nice, and he also took to wearing them mostly to get used to it.
As far as the frame was coming along, he had to manually shape the metal using magic, the workshop didn’t have a smelter or forge. It had tools for post processing but not the ones for initial. This was a problem because the materials he had were far more difficult to handle than an absolute beginner should be using, and they were also on the lowest end of the quality spectrum for making a golem especially without a forge and pre-shaped materials. Placing an enchantment and making it stick was frustrating as fuck. Also just getting it into shape left him gasping on the floor, hours of work with barely any progress.
Alex knew that this would be beyond difficult that changed nothing as he practiced enchanting on one piece of material, collapsed and then practiced shaping on another in the hopes of getting something made in time. Add in the likely decades of general knowledge and skills he was pushing for, and Alex had become a machine.
He had no time to revel in any success. When he accomplished something, it was time to move onto another. Oh, made an under suit from really fucking cool fantasy materials, too fucking bad now try to enchant the thing so you don’t die from exposure. Finally mastered the simple spells so you don’t starve or die of thirst, great took long enough keep practicing, and how about moving on to the next thing on the list.
Three spells sat at the top of the critical list. One ‘conjured’ food or edible material anyways, tasted like crap but worked. He spent two months living off it just to ensure it wouldn’t have negative consequences. The second created drinkable water, it also got thoroughly tested. The final one was an enchantment temperature regulation, and enchantment that would keep the body at a comfortable temperature in either hot or cold climates. That went on the suit he made for under wear.
He had found more of that extremely soft hydrophobic leather and put one together on his down time. He was also making spares. Every spell he learned, every enchantment memorized and successfully created got added to his schedule for endless practice. Practice until he could perform them effortlessly with no need to think.
Alex felt like his humanity was slowly being chipped away like he was becoming something else. He might attribute some of it to the damage he could still vaguely feel. Caused by that nightmare of a journey here, but some of the longer deployments had this feeling, the brutal ones, where every day felt like it would never end. Where tomorrow looked just as bleak. Groundhog Day but new fucked up shit around every corner, and no redo’s. At least then he had his fellow marines, here nothing to distract him but the work he threw himself into.
What was worse was he knew that it wasn’t going to end. The failure of the generator was just the next step. Out there he would have to be more careful, more on edge. Add danger to the mix, all while continuing a cycle that may be even more brutal than what he already had, remove any semblance of stability and solely do what he could when he could.
More nightmares where it doesn’t end to add to his fucked up mind.
Only two things kept him going. One if this place wanted to kill him it had to earn it. He was going to keep going until he died just to spite the place if nothing else. This place may kill him, but it wouldn’t be because he didn’t try.
The second was hope. The hope that somewhere out there the possibility of a life existed. It was the same hope that he had in that bar so long ago. That he would find a place and just stop, because he belonged there. The light at the end of his tunnel. A vision and place worth crawling through a horrifying tunnel with his eyes fixed on that point. That it would be worth it. No amount of fear, pain, or trauma could outweigh that single thought.
That place was worth fighting for wherever it was, and he would not give up on it just because things got hard. He needed it, needed it to exist even if it was only in his mind because it made it all worth-while. The place Samwise the true hero of the Lord of the Rings talked about when Frodo started bitch out of his quest in Gondor.
Those thoughts let him face the nightmares, made him get up each day. They allowed him to avoid buckling at the mere thought that this might go on for decades. That he may spend most of his life trapped in these lands desperately trying to learn so he could escape.
It would take years, Alex had no illusions about it. Years in the tower spent to survive for years in a city until he felt ready or was forced to move on. Years to gather resources, practice until he could build and control better golems, years to travel carefully around these extremely dangerous lands. More years to find his way out when he inevitably ran into roadblocks or simply got lost wandering about searching for the end. Years to scour the wasteland he was in to find survivors or a way off this rock. Unless a miracle occurred, he wouldn’t be leaving this city for at least a decade. If he was lucky, he might get somewhere more hospitable on his first shot, but well… he wasn’t feeling particularly lucky at the moment and was unlikely to until he did find civilization again.
The alarm clock went off, time to get back to work. He was tempted to destroy the thing when he left the tower, but it might be useful, and waste pissed him off right now. The thing was almost certainly going to die if civilization had a replacement, he was feeling rather petty and didn’t see that changing.
~ * ~
Three months left before the generator ran out of power. Alex thought that might be optimistic he could already feel the enchantments on the building becoming unstable, and straining. What used to be a smooth flow had become turbulent. He had made admittedly damn fine progress, even if it didn’t measure up to his desired outcome. He knew he had come further than anyone had a right to expect yet it still fell short.
For the past two days he stopped practicing with magic. Out of necessity, the activation was likely to knock him on his ass magically speaking if it worked. Theoretically he could do it. Barely but he had the mana needed and had mastered the control spells even if he lacked a training golem to practice on. Now it was time to see if he had screwed himself with that choice four years ago.
He hadn’t waited until the last minute because he saw that working out horribly, and if something went wrong, he wanted at least some time to try and fix it. Doubtful that it would matter but it could. He was activating the combat core, it was the most advanced, and immediately useful. It also had the potential to be the easiest. The much more powerful capacity of the core as well as its complex and purposely designed functions made it suitable for combat. Mostly what he was looking for was a small level of autonomy, one that might let him focus on the other golems he had to create.
Alex also did everything he could to ruthlessly purge any sense of superiority he might feel, he was a rank amateur he assumed that the people here were not stupid. Until proven otherwise he would assume that they had good reason for their actions and choices, and that an actual formally trained master would throw out a one liner, followed by the look. This would cause Alex to facepalm at his own stupidity.
Alex had studied cores but had no materials to practice with, not for real anyways. He had made raw materials into a core analogue, some even resembled the material of the core themselves. Objectively he needed the mana capacity and regeneration of a core for the golem. Otherwise any material might do, he was far from that actually being remotely achievable so he practiced on fake cores. He would have to harvest new cores from the monsters and work them into place on the fly.
Alex hoped that this also meant the golem would be less of a strain on him in the inevitable fights as he simply had no way to practice. Actually, commanding or controlling an actual golem, a step he skipped, but every golem crafter had done long before they got to where he was. He was also hoping the extra enchantments on the core itself, performed by an actual master of the craft, could cover his mistakes.
The frame he built was seven feet tall and more like a robot than a typical fantasy golem. If the books were correct this should be more suitable than the typical stone monstrosities that kind of defined a golem. Stone was easier to manipulate but these people had advanced that tech to a frightening degree. The size was larger than he had liked but it had to be this large. He built it to specification according to the designs helpfully provided, he simply couldn’t get the runes or enchantments small enough to down size. It was a slightly block humanoid more closely resembling a skeleton than a person. Wide shoulders and chest narrowing to a thinner, flexible waist, and limbs that were thick enough to manage the strain but appeared lanky on the frame. This was a standardized model, he hadn’t had to mess with dimensions, while he would prefer a smaller and faster golem. He simply wasn’t even close to experienced enough.
Not a masterpiece, but it will do. Covered with enchantments from the tips of its clawed toes to the face shaped like a badly done skull. Arms ending in talons rather than fingers, hopefully capable of a similar level of dexterity to human hands while being weapons. Alessa hadn’t stored any weapons in her home, however he still believed that at least the possibility of using tools like a human would matter.
He ‘designed’ the frame using a combat hybrid model. It was combat capable but not useless for other tasks such as harvesting, carrying or sneaking. Other models had either been way out of his skill range or been too specialized for his comfort. Especially with the first and likely most important golem he made.
A number of the enchantments had pushed the absolute limits of his new abilities, but he had gone full perfectionist with his crafting. The long years had made him refuse to say that anything was good enough, if he had the time to do it right. The relentless practice had made things a habit, he wouldn’t obsess over perfection to the point of failure, he simply kept trying if he felt it wasn’t there yet.
Done with his last minute checks he carefully bonded the core. Pressing his thumb to the rune on the core itself he added mana with exacting care. Nothing he could do should even have a chance of damaging it like this, but he wanted to leave nothing to chance. The core heated slightly in his hand and came alive to his mana senses releasing pulse of mana when activated and imprinting on him something about bonding to his unique mana signature. He really didn’t care about the specifics right now.
He slowly pressed the core into the open chest cavity where he built its housing. A slight bit of enjoyment and almost childish delight at the fact he made that housing, literally with his mind. The core clicked into place, and he saw it start to connect with the frame before he closed the opening in the chest and installed the cover to make up for the weak point.
Once that was done came the hard part, he would need to jumpstart the frame, prime it with mana for the core to control and take over. Afterwards the core would produce its own mana and the golem would become largely self-sufficient absorbing ambient mana with its core. He poured mana into the frame as smoothly as was possible, persisting even when he was covered in sweat and trembling. His vision was getting hazy, and his breathing was ragged by the time he felt a click and the link he lacked for his practice of control was created.
He was right, it dropped him on his ass. So now he remained on the ground and focused on getting himself back under control.