The Land: Monsters

by Aleron Kong

  That thought brought his desiccated throat to mind and he swallowed hard. There was pain and it felt like he was feeling a small tearing. Part of him wanted to see if his parched tissues were actually bleeding, but no good would come of that. He just worked his mouth for a few seconds until his body reluctantly made enough spit to swallow. He ignored the faint coppery tang. It was time to make a golem.

  CHAPTER 27 – Day 151 – Juren 2, 0 AoC

  Richter had seen some amazing things since coming to The Land. One of the most magical was the fact that knowledge could just be downloaded into his mind. Purchasing the Golem Enchantments Talent had been like that. The basic process of how to make a golem had been conveyed to him. It was only the broadest of instructions, but it was enough to get him started. He’d have to figure out the rest as he moved forward.

  He placed the cylinder of elemental stone on the rocky ground and held his hand about a foot above it. Then he reached inside of himself and triggered his new power. Pale blue light sprung into being around his outstretched arm. The glow grew brighter. After a few seconds, the blue light began to drip off his hand like water. It fell upon the cylinder, making the green lines of the stone grow brighter with each drop. A prompt appeared.

  The power of your Enchanter Profession has come into contact with a magically active substance. Do you wish to create a golem? Yes or No?

  Richter chose “Yes” and another window opened up.

  Know This! The characteristics of a magically active substance will determine the type of golem that can be created. The Elemental Earth Stone has a Mana level of 3 and is perfectly attuned to Earth and minorly attuned to Life and Light.

  A multicolored table appeared, reflecting the colors of three of the Basic Elements: green for Earth, gold for Life and white for Light.

  Based upon the magical focus you have provided, you may choose to create 1 of 3 golems. The greater the attunement, the stronger the golem that can be created.

  Do you wish to create an Earth Golem: Maximizing 100% of Elemental Stone’s potential?

  Do you wish to create a Life Golem: Maximizing 8% of Elemental Stone’s potential?

  Do you wish to create a Light Golem: Maximizing 6% of Elemental Stone’s potential?

  It wasn’t a hard choice. He chose to make an Earth Golem.

  The color of the energy around his hand shifted from blue to the rich green of Earth mana. The drips of energy decreased in frequency until they stopped, but the cylinder glowed brighter. The light pulsed slowly, waiting for Richter to trigger the next step.

  Another prompt appeared.

  Know This! The power of an Enchanted Golem is determined not only by its level. While golems possessing a higher level will be stronger, increasing their rank can increase their power by an order of magnitude. The ranks of enchanted golems are as follows: Inferior, Lesser, Minor, Intermediate, Advanced, Major, Greater, Grand, and Supreme. Each Rank is substantially more powerful than the one before, and the gap widens as Ranks progress.

  The maximum rank your golem can achieve will be determined by the magical focus and the expertise of the Enchanter. By feeding your mana into a golem, it will reach the lowest rank of Inferior. At that time, you may claim your golem or attempt to increase its rank.

  Be warned! If you fail to reach the next rank, there may be consequences, including but not limited to: creation of a lower-ranked golem, destruction of the golem, explosion of the spell matrix, perversion of the arcane energy, mana feedback into the enchanter, and/or disruption of the Enchanter’s Profession. Choose well and beware the lure of power.

  Well that’s not ominous at all, Richter thought.

  Your magically active substance, Elemental Earth Stone, has reached Mana Level 3. It can create Earth Golems of the first three ranks, Inferior, Lesser and Minor. Each rank also requires a greater amount of mana.

  Golem Rank

  Inferior

  Lesser

  Minor

  Mana Required

  1,000

  2,500

  5,000

  A sharp stabbing pain came from Richter’s abdomen. At the same time, his stomach growled loudly. The chaos lord closed his eyes and breathed through the discomfort. This was starting to happen more often. The happy mood he’d had after defeating the slime was also starting to slip. He could feel the hangry coming back.

  It didn’t help that swallowing felt like two razor blades rubbing together in his throat. Struggling to control his emotions, he realized that even the elated feeling that was now fading was probably due to his debuff making him emotionally unstable. He was trapped underground in monster-infested tunnels. It wasn’t exactly a happy place!

  Richter reigned in his mood. Several breaths later, he was in control again. He blew out a slow breath and tried to focus. He had to make this golem, then he could get the hell out of here. He’d find food and water and everything would be all right, but first things first.

  Richter mentally reviewed everything he’d learned about golem creation. Higher-ranked golems were more powerful. The downside was that each rank required a greater investment of mana. Higher ranks were also more difficult to create. Finally, there were consequences if he failed. Which meant he had a decision to make.

  Of course, he wanted the highest-ranked golem the elemental earth stone could make. A higher rank meant a stronger helper. A rank three, minor golem might have seriously increased combat abilities compared to a rank two, lesser or rank one, inferior golem.

  The problem with that was Richter had long ago learned the dangers of overextending yourself with magic. He’d caused an explosion more than once while enchanting. It almost always happened because he was using more energy than he could control. When he’d blown up the spiked mace, he’d ended up with a several-inches-long shard of metal sticking out of his chest.

  He’d been lucky enough to be wearing armor when it happened. If he hadn’t, the spike would have blown a hole straight through him. He’d also lost access to his Enchanting powers for a time. When it had happened, it’d been an inconvenience. Down here, if he made a mistake it might be his last.

  The prompt had even warned him of the danger of making a higher-ranked golem. In his experience, The Land didn’t care about anyone. When it gave a warning, it was because so many people had died that the warning was necessary for the common good. Richter took such cautions seriously.

  It had even listed some of the consequences of failure. Explosions didn’t seem to be the worst of it. “Perversion of the arcane energy” had stuck out to him. Not because he knew what it meant, but because it sounded fucking horrible. Richter knew one thing for sure. He didn’t want to pour a bunch of magic into this golem and have it turn on him.

  He’d narrowly escaped from the ichorpede nest. His summoned creatures, even after he’d evolved them, had barely slowed the monsters down. The spider had been torn apart in seconds. His evolved saproling had basically just been a toothpick the centipedes could pick their creepy, venomous teeth with. He needed an ally, and he needed it to be as strong as possible. Otherwise, summoning this golem might just be a waste of time and resources. If it couldn’t go toe-to-toe with something like an ichorpede or nesting stone slime, then what was the point?

  Richter thought it over a few more times before arriving at the decision he’d already known he was going to make. Difficult or not, he needed to make the strongest golem. That decision made, he forced his hunger- and thirst-addled mind to focus on the task at hand.

  When he had bought the Talent Golem Enchanting, the basic knowledge of how to make one had come with it. In a strange way, it felt more like unlocking information, rather than learning something new. It felt like remembering the words of a forgotten song once someone sang the first few words. It was only the most rudimentary of understandings, however.

  Reading the prompts had filled in some of the gaps, but the truth was, making this golem was going to involve some trial and error. When starting a new project, Richter had al
ways been a big fan of measure twice, cut once. That was why he was looking at the facet of golem creation most likely to trip him up, the mana required.

  Anyone that had tried to do math while hungover or hungry would sympathize with him. Richter lost his train of thought several times before he was able to run the numbers. He currently had a magic pool of seven hundred and eighty. The inferior golem was pretty much paid for by just his initial pool. With his high Intelligence, making the lowest rank was easy. The third rank was a different story.

  The minor golem needed a whopping five thousand mana to create. If his Wisdom wasn’t so high, this would have been an impossible task. With a Wisdom of fifty, his base mana regen was thirty. Thankfully, his magic rings hadn’t been destroyed along with his armor, and he still had the Ring of Flowing Thought. The rare ring increased his regen by 20%, up to a very respectable 36 MP/min. It was way better than the six per minute he’d had when first born into The Land.

  With an irritated harrumph, Richter realized his mind was starting to wander again. He made himself focus on the numbers. He’d just started to calculate how long it would take to make a minor golem based on his regen rate when something occurred to him. If his eighth-grade math teacher knew how much he was relying on algebra, he’d probably be laughing in his grave.

  At least Richter hoped the man was dead. The guy had been a serious asshole. He’d also somehow become the coach of the girl’s swim team. Years later, a scandal made the local news. The man had been shtupping the students. Why it had taken so long to figure out, Richter had never understood. The man drove a van for god’s sake. It there was ever a warning sign…

  No! No! Focus! Richter thought to himself angrily. Even after getting some sleep, these debuffs were seriously messing with him. He slapped both of his cheeks, stiff and hard, to get his mind back on the subject at hand. After a couple of deep breaths, he started to talk his way through it. “Subtracting my existing mana pool, I’ll need to supply the rest with my regen. That means…

  Irritation surged in Richter again. Why in the world was he having to do math of all things when he was dying of thirst and hunger? “Gah!” he shouted, standing up. He kicked at the air and swung his fists around wildly. If Sion was there, he’d have thought his best friend was fighting an invisible enemy… and was losing. Anyone that had sat through a four-hour Baptist church service though would recognize the telltale signs of irrational hangriness.

  It took the chaos lord several more minutes to master himself again. The anger wasn’t gone, but it was like a banked fire. There were still glowing embers that might spring up again at any moment, but at least there weren’t any active anger flames. That was how hangry operated. She was a sadistic bitch that said you were done arguing, but you knew, you knew, it was just a matter of time if you didn’t feed her.

  Praying for a better result this time, he tried to focus once again. The total mana he needed to make a minor golem was five thousand. Subtracting his starting mana, he’d need forty-two hundred more. With his regen rate, that would take about two hours. Richter rubbed his eyes. That was easier said than done.

  This was hours of attention and control he needed to commit to. Manipulating magic wasn’t just a question of focus. The very act itself eroded mental control. That wasn’t usually a problem when casting a spell. The few seconds it took to throw a fireball were barely noticeable by Richter, especially with his mental boost from Alma’s Psi Bond. Right now though, he was anything but at his peak.

  Using magic was a lot like using muscles in some ways. There was a strain that prolonged use would put on his mind. It grew harder to concentrate, headaches bloomed into migraines, and if you weren’t careful, you could do serious damage to yourself channeling power that you couldn’t control. Richter’s mental strength was nothing to scoff at, but he’d never done something like this before. The longest he’d ever channeled mana without a break before was about thirty minutes when he made dual enchantments. Doing it for two hours straight was going to be a serious test.

  Richter cracked his knuckles. He wasn’t someone to hem and haw when there was work to be done. He never had been, and his will had only grown stronger since surviving the trials of The Land. The chaos lord gingerly settled into a relatively comfortable seated position. He held his hands out over the glowing cylinder of stone and prepared to begin.

  Enchanting a golem required three components: an object of concentrated elemental power, copious amounts of material consistent with that element, and an Enchanter with the prerequisite mana and Talent. He triggered his will and a tether of blue mana connected him to the stone.

  For the first minute, nothing seemed to happen. His mana poured out of his hands in two thick streams. It splashed upon the cylinder like water pouring on rock. Some of the mana fell off the sides, but the rest was absorbed by the stone. The green light in the soda can-sized rock grew brighter. Then, with no warning, the rock in the floor started to flow over it.

  The liquid grey rock gathered around the cylinder. Richter kept his mana flowing into the elemental earth stone, and the rock started to flow faster. He kept pouring his mana into it at a measured rate. Over the next several minutes, a rough humanoid figure began to appear, lying on the ground. It had two arms, two legs and a featureless head. As opposed to just being made of stone, it was constructed of a collection of packed earth, roots and rock. He was a bit underwhelmed by the fact that it was only about two feet long.

  A prompt appeared.

  Inferior Golem being constructed. 5% completed. Enchantment Efficiency: 47%

  Reading the prompt gave Richter pause. It was good news that the golem was being made, but for the first time he could see how efficient he was being. Rather, he could see his lack of efficiency. This was only because he was now a Tier 2 Enchanter. He remembered what the prompt had said when his ascended Talents had been unlocked.

  You now understand the flow of soul stuff and the binding of magic to items at a much deeper level. Whereas before, an enchantment’s outcome was determined by absolute success or failure, now, your enchantments may increase in power due to your Enchantment Efficiency.

  When he’d first read this, he’d thought that knowing his efficiency meant if he did well, then his enchantments would get stronger. He’d never thought it was a barometer to show how badly he was messing up. He supposed that was a bit of arrogance, assuming he was already doing great. According to that 47%, he was effectively failing.

  With a frown on his face, he checked his mana, making sure not to stop the mana flow. If he did that, even for a moment, his creation would fail. Looking at the MPs he’d already spent, his suspicions were confirmed. There was a problem.

  It was good news that the golem was being made. It was crap news that his efficiency was so low. He’d wondered if the fact that he saw his mana spilling to the side when it struck the golem was just a visual effect, but it clearly wasn’t. Even without the Tier 1 bonus to his Profession which told him about his Enchantment Efficiency, he’d have known there was a problem.

  To make a rank one, inferior golem, it cost one thousand mana. Simple math meant that 5% progress should have cost 50 MP. The problem was that he’d already expended 77 MP. At this rate he’d still be able to make a rank one golem, but making a rank three would be a pipe dream. Seeing some of the mana he was investing spilling to the sides of the growing earth, he now knew he was seeing physical proof of the magic he was wasting.

  Richter didn’t lose heart. The good thing about being crap at something was that there was a lot of room for improvement. He decided to try different things. He sped up the mana flow and then slowed it down. He moved his hands over other parts of the golem. At one point he put them close together, and another further apart. Then he moved the magic tether to different parts of the golem’s body.

  While he experimented, his Enchantment Efficiency did indeed go up sometimes. It happened randomly, however, not in direct connection with anything he was doing. It would just as su
ddenly go down again. The overall number remained between 48-55. He just couldn’t figure out what helped and what hurt. The two tethers of blue mana coming from his hands just kept splashing onto the golem, wasting nearly half of his efforts.

  He groaned in frustration. He just couldn’t see what the problem was. That was when it hit him. He couldn’t see what the problem was. The construct was slowly getting bigger while it absorbed more rock, but his mana was still draining faster than it should have for the progress he was making. Thankfully, he might finally have the solution for that. He just hadn’t been using all the tools at his disposal.

  With a mental flexion, he channeled his mana not just in the two tethers, but in a third direction as well. It was a mental exercise that would have stymied a normal man. Thanks to Alma, it was no more difficult than rubbing his belly and patting his head.

  Magic flowed through the Monocle of Niclewis. It took a full minute to activate, but when it did, he was able to see the tracings of power that were forming the golem’s power matrix. Seeing the glowing green lines that had previously been hidden from view, the problem became absolutely clear. He couldn’t help but let out a soft and surprised, “Oh.”

  What had once been just lifeless grey stone came alive in his eyes. Just like Neo finally seeing the beauty of the machine city, Richter was able to see the delicate, glowing lines of power that were bringing the golem to life. He actually looked around in wonder, curious if he could see any hidden power in his surroundings. The rock walls remained dormant, but the emerald core from the nesting stone slime lit up like an intricate galaxy of green energy. Richter got lost in it for a few seconds, before the falling bar of his mana meter brought him back to the task at hand. He reduced the flow of mana going into the golem as much as possible, and the blue bar began to slowly refill.