Materials rained down from the sky to land in front of Tom, but before they clattered against the rock, they slowed and were levitated to position themselves in neat rows.
“Quick question. Is the layout identical to what I experienced?”
The challenge is identical. The layouts will vary.
Tom nodded at that. The carefully chosen words told him he could not create a golem and have it exactly mirror his actions.
“Will I be able to remotely control the golem?”
No
There went that idea. He hummed under his breath. If there was no piloting allowed, it meant he needed to produce some level of autonomous programming or intelligence in the construct. While the type of challenges would be the same as what he faced, such as the three levels on that fourth stage, the exact number of plugs and turns might vary, so he couldn’t just give the golem a list of instructions to follow, and have it trace the same path that he had. With a changing maze that sort of direction would end up with it running into a wall.
Five minutes was not a long at all to plan and the first thing he did was to focus on mana he had available. It was sort of critical in any golem creation activity and the largest bottleneck that he would face today. His soul bound mana crystal was full and would contribute one hundred and forty-one as a once off burst. After that, he would need to rely on his starting mana pool of one hundred and sixty-two plus twenty minutes of regeneration, which was almost another four times that start mana. It would put him just shy of nine hundred mana in total.
To create and then animate a stone golem, that was not a huge amount to use. It was worse than that Tom realised if he was going to complete one of the more recent stages then he would need to incorporate an elemental, somehow. This golem was not being built to guard a treasure chest he needed something able to act autonomously. Plus, he had titles to help, and Susie had clarified that titles were not factored into the difficulty of challenges or the scoring. Therefore, he should be actively using as many useful titles as possible.
Friend of the Elementals: Cost of elemental contracts reduced by 50%. By doubling initial mana cost, any elemental summoner spell can connect to a tier above the spell’s usual tier.
Being able to summon a lesser elemental particularly if he got a good personality trait would explode his chance of getting a result in the golem test.
Finally, his eyes dropped to the materials that he had been given to create his golem. Three crystals linked with mithril wire that were suitable to store a spell form. A tier 2 ranked mana engine.
Great, Tom thought. That would remove a lot of his concerns about keeping the golem running for long enough to finish a stage. Mana crystal containing three hundred mana.
Tom touched it and then frowned slightly. It was only a single use crystal. His dream of linking the mana engine to this crystal and having a golem with burst magic potential would not work. It was still a nice object and one that could give the golem emergency mana, or it could be used in his construction. It was clear that it would be used for the second. Bumping available mana up to twelve hundred would improve what he was constructed materially, and with the mana engine the construct could function no matter what. Mummified enchanted bat. Crystallised eye of a hawk. Six feet of gold thread. Fifty kilograms of tier one obsidian. Twenty kilograms of tier two enchanted sandstone. Crown of clarity. Common prison cage pendant. Dagger enchanted with fire damage.
As his eyes skipped over what was available, he mentally calculated what they would allow him to do.
The three crystals could store a spell form for the golem to use. Stone Skin was immediately dismissed. It was useless to a creature already constructed of rock, which meant he needed to choose between Throw Rock and Remote Earth Manipulation, with the lesser version of Earth Manipulation a far worse choice than its higher tiered cousin. The decision was not as simple as it seemed. A golem could be programmed to throw rocks perfectly unlike what he could do with his inconsistent human biology. Incorporating the Throw Rock spell into a golem’s arsenal would make it deadly because it would hit every time.
Tom considered the two outcomes. It was basically a question of offense or utility. Usually, destruction would win out in a golem design, but his task was not to destroy things it was to navigate through a complicated environment as fast as possible. That included one that could mitigate the impact of Lava Spitters. How many rocks thrown by a golem would it take to end one of those and the golem would need to carry ammo with it. While it was throwing, the lava would hit it. The lava would both damage it and stick to it, increasing the weight. What happened if it ran out of ammo?
The more Tom considered the practical problems the more he realised it was not really a choice. For this task, Remote Earth Manipulation was superior. It could deal with the spitters with walls, it had no ammo issues and if lava struck the golem, then Remote Earth Manipulation could make it fall off instead of sticking.
“Fine,” Tom muttered to himself as he fiddled with the crystals and confirmed their capacity. Insufficient, good enough for Throw Rock but too limited for Remote Earth Manipulation. Because, of course, the challenge trial would not make it easy for him. The crystal cluster lacked capacity for him to use the raw form of the higher tier ability. He would need to reduce the complexity and flexibility of the Spell. For example, including the capacity to destroy a launcher was only a sliver of the overall spells complexity and would be easy, but the method he had used to scout ahead would not fit.
Choices, choices.
Tom’s fingers drummed on his leg as he kept reasoning out what he needed to do. The mana engine would provide continued power for the golem and to fund the use of the Remote Earth Manipulation spell that had to form the basis of his build.
Then there were the useless items. Crystallised eye of the hawk would not do much in the underground. Tom had no doubt that using it would grant the construction an unparalleled clarity of vision and let it see for kilometres. That unfortunately had limited usefulness in windy tunnels where you didn’t need to observe more than twenty metres in front of you and then only to spot the lava spitters. He fiddled with the small object. Incorporating was part of the art side of golem making. This thing had been used to see, and he could borrow that concept if it was included in the golem. There was a mental weight to the item. Eighty mana, Tom decided. It would take at least that much to incorporate it. Outside in the real world, that was a trifle, and he would do it without hesitation. Here where he had under twelve hundred to spend. It was outrageously expensive for the benefit it would bring.
He dropped the eye, and it bounced, possibly even cracked. Tom didn’t care; there was no way he was using it.
The sandstone was similarly wasted despite its tier 2 status. If he had longer to plan, he could work around its weaknesses, but as a substance it was too brittle. Tom was paranoid about an earth missile destroying it and his entire golem with a single hit as a result. The simple enchanted dagger was another item that Tom could not see adding any value. There was nothing in the challenges that required cutting or killing and even if there was, that function would be better served by getting a hundred kilograms of rock to punch the target rather than delicate knife thrusts.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
Finally, there was a crown of clarity. He didn’t even know what it did.
Crown of Clarity
When worn improves the chances of the wearer to see through illusions and slightly increases the chance of finding order in a complex problem.
Absolutely worthless in this challenge. “Hey Susie, why is there is so much useless stuff?”
There are no penalties, or rewards associated with using the supplied items.
Tom shrugged. It was not an answer, but it meant he could put all those items aside and focus on the important stuff. Overall, the remaining material was more than solid and a better base for constructing the golem than he had expected. The common prison cage pendant would act as a home for his elemental where it could rest and conserve its power and the enchanted bat could be incorporated to provide the golem with echolocation.
Mummified enchanted bat.
This is the mummified corpse of an enchanted bat.
The bat had no specific power associated with it beyond what it used to be in life, but used with the correct Spell, it would definitely grant the ability. A mixture of art and science to create something from where there should be nothing. Tom was surprised at his confidence, but he knew it was a factor of all the golem knowledge that had been dumped into his head.
With the materials he had selected, he was confident of producing a smart golem. One capable of shaping earth along with a powerful sound visualisation ability.
The real question was which trial to attempt.
He focused on the functionality of what he could create. The golem could patch itself up if injured. It could climb vertical walls probably easier than Tom, admittedly at the cost of its energy. The basic navigation would get the golem from one end of a stage to the other. What else did he need to consider? Would the slow spell on the darts and homing missiles work against the golem?
No. If stone skin repelled the effect, then the golem would be immune?
What about the hard missiles?
They would hit hard enough to break his bones, but versus the golem? They might chip it but not shatter it and the components of Remote Earth Manipulation that he was including could heal the damage.
Could it tank the spray of lava bullets?
Certainly, for a period, in fact, unless multiple lava spitters focused on the golem, it should be fine.
He could do this.
Tom could send it through the final stage. There was nothing specific that could stop it.
Thirty-second warning till planning stage finishes.
Five minutes was nowhere near enough time to plan out this sort of magical construction. However, it was what he was given, and it was the same for everyone else. He had a barebones plan in place, and it was time to execute.
The seconds ticked down.
Tom rehearsed the immediate steps. First, he was going to summon the elemental. He had a good imagination, but he couldn’t imagine a golem completing any of the stages he went through without a higher intelligence. He could tell it to reach the yellow glow of safety, but what happens if there was a bottomless ravine in the way, a dumb construction might just fall into it. Because Tom could imagine that situation, he could include instruction to avoid that specific outcome, for example jump it. While he could guard against that precise permutation, how many others were out there? What happened if the exit was not visible and there was a circular tunnel that the golem would go around and around without looking up.
Yes, he could force it to always chose a pathway that it hadn’t tried before, but if he did, that what would happen if there were tall ceilings. Tom, with eyes could see the roof but the golem couldn’t. Would it waste all of its power crawling along the roof?
The risks were overwhelming, but with an intelligent elemental he did not face those issues.
3… 2… 1
There was a ding and Tom knew that the second timer had started. He grabbed the mana stone containing three hundred mana and then engaged the spell.
Summon Wisp upgraded through Friend of elementals to rate up a tier. He punched a hole into the earth dimension at the lower edge of the lesser elemental plane. His soul immediately felt weighed down and suppressed. It was unpleasant, suffocating, and he knew it was his vitality and overall strength being insufficient for the environment. He could endure for a period and unlike in the higher plane it was only discomfort. The environment was not quite sufficient to damage him in the short term, at least not materially. There would be bruises on his ankles. Most likely, but Tom rejected his body’s complaint to focus on the task. He needed a lesser elemental with the right personality traits.
Tom cast out his awareness and frowned. The usual swarm of options weren’t there for him.
He found one. Not close, but a short movement away. Physically, he felt the pressure on his body swell as he moved. His consciousness touched the flittering shape.
Anger flashed through him.
It wasn’t even a lesser elemental it was a wisp that had risen briefly into the higher plane.
He cursed and searched for something better.
Another expenditure of effort to shift his position and to get close enough to identify the elemental. Friendly and lazy. Tom was torn. It was not a disaster, instead it was a possibility, but definitely a sub-optimal one. Provisionally, he rejected it even as he sent across details of what he needed.
The wisp purred with interest. Tom needed to find something better, so he kept moving.
Where were the host of options he was supposed to be exposed to?
There was a glimpse of energy he pushed through the cloying mulch to reveal it.
Not a wisp. Thank God.
Tom’s mind touched it.
Stubborn and mean. He only barely contained his flash of annoyance. It was not an option as he would even take a wisp before it, but it was not smart to upset the denizens of elemental planes. Not that an earth aligned resident was likely to bother reacting.
Where should he look? Was this really it? Up, down, sideways, it was difficult to move his mind within the landscape. The way he was floundering about there were going to be more bruises than just on his ankles. The earth planes were not gentle places to exist in for flesh and blood. He was flailing and not finding anything. Maybe friendly and lazy was the best he could achieve.
He was burning energy for every moment he stayed and there were only the two lesser elementals and the wisp.
Unless?
Far below, on the cusp between layers, was something. It was probably a wisp, but no better prospects presented. It was borderline, but it was worth checking, and if it was unsuitable, he still had the friendly lesser elemental that was still pressing against him. To it the gesture was friendly, but to Tom, it merely weighed him down and made everything more difficult.
He drilled toward the distant presence. Crack, he was sure that was a toe bone breaking, but focused on his movement. It barely registered to him. Thankfully, he found that dropping through the plane was far easier than pushing up. It only cost time and not mental energy. When he got close, it was unclear if it was a lesser elemental or a wisp.
Tom reached out and connected his mind. The impression his sight had given him was accurate. It was ridiculously weak. Either it was a failure of an elemental or a wisp that had just upgraded itself.
Which are you? He thought to himself and then deepened the contact. Personality was more important than power. A full connection was created, and he was able to gauge its personality. Intelligent, detailed and helpful, it had three traits but no power… but… the golem would grant the power.
Tom communicated what he wanted. Four hundred mana available, and a commitment to do its best to finish the trial.
Time bound? The thought came back to him hard and unyielding.
Until you finish.
Time bound!
Twelve hours or until you finish.
This wisp would be better than the lazy one even if its cooperation was more limited. It burnt time and mana, but Tom connected to its mind and pushed across or the relevant knowledge about the challenge. It might take minutes, but probably hours, Tom didn’t know.
There was a long pause as it considered. The friendly lesser elemental would have accepted straight away Tom knew that, but this one was intelligent and was assessing the parameters. If the contract went on too long, it would emerge weaker than it had started, but if it could finish the stage quicker, then it could be immensely profitable. It was a gamble and Tom had nothing to offer to help it accept.
Now. Tom thought unyielding.
He was out of thinking time either it would accept, or he would contract the friendly elemental who was purring against him absolutely ready to accept the terms he had sent to the smart one.
Guarantees?
No. Tom shut that down immediately. He was not about to enter negotiations, as it would take too long.
Mentally, Tom crossed his fingers.
Acceptance flowed through the link. The contract clicked into place and with his mana almost exhausted he opened his eyes in the safe zone.
Step one was complete.