20: Jurassic Era

[Year 19 Month 1: 4 Month has passed]

[Blessed: 4536 – 12 + 683]

With Runehold once again slowly being repopulated as my mana capacity only increased, I could use my golems more freely.

There was still a large population underground that simply did not want to risk going above ground. I suspected that several would want to stay, especially when the overcrowding had become less of an issue.

Eh, it’s fine. I probably will separate the facilities a bit more to prevent any sneaky people from hurting themselves or anyone else in the process.

Sahil was the only person allowed into the golem production plant. For one, she was probably the only person who could actually survive the extreme heat of the forges, and her intelligence would be a boon, even with Codex’s capabilities.

“Why don’t you make them out of sand? You said that you had the ability to create golems from pretty much any mineral?” she asked, while inspecting the metal bodies and material experiments.

From what Codex had discovered, yes, the new upgrade had massively expanded my options, although many materials cost a prohibitive amount of mana to maintain.

I responded to Sahil, “Yes? As far as I know, there are a few limitations.”

Wisely, I decided to keep my unintentional attempt to create a golem out of the entire planet under wraps. Probably not the best way to assure her of my responsibility.

“Why don’t you make less rigid golems?” Sahil asked one day.

“Less rigid?”

“Yeah, like out of more loose materials, like the sand I mentioned earlier. Something that wouldn’t be damaged like your metallic constructs. Some dungeons have all sorts of golems that can do that.”

I already had Codex do some testing on that. My skill would create a golem, but it would maintain its shape, so a pile of sand wouldn’t magically become a humanoid, or even anything resembling a creature; it would stay as a pile of sand; animated, but not able to do anything.

When I brought this up, Sahil just scoffed. “Why don’t you make something like a mold, and just… animate the sand while it’s in the shape of the mold. It might be hard to get the sand to fill it exactly like metal will, but it’s not too difficult.”

Huh. That would make sense. The mana cost would be way higher to keep everything from falling apart, but still, why not give it a shot?

With a test run only taking a few hours to set up, as all of the materials were present in my storage rooms, I quickly activated [Animate Golem]

[You have created a level 25 Sand Golem]

As Sahill suggested, the new [Sand Golem] kept to the shape of the mold. The issue with this was evident, however, as it was a little less than three times the mana cost of a steel golem.

At first look, the sand golem didn’t seem to have an insane difference when compared to a steel golem; however, it was only when the new golem took damage that it stood out.

It took damage like sand would, which, while obvious, manifested in a curious manner. When hit with a bladed object, it took nearly no damage, as the weapon would simply pass through its body. If a blunt force hammer or similar tool was used, it would lose some of its mass, but the golem could regenerate using surrounding sand.

I don’t believe it would be the most useful when fighting an overwhelming force like the alpha hound that would just crush the entire thing at once, but its survivability is quite astonishing when it has enough time to recuperate.

Only when the golem was completely scattered across a large area would it ‘die’. I doubt that any of the Spyiders of the last Vexus invasion or most of the lower-level hounds could easily kill one of these constructs.

Sadly, when I turned off the golems, they would collapse into a pile of sand, with the mana being the only thing keeping them in their shape.

It just meant that they had to be stored in the containers they were made in. No biggie, just a little annoying.

I requested Codex to store several more, as they were really easy to make compared to their metal brethren.

[Year 19 Month 2: 1 Month has passed]

[Blessed: 5207 – 3 + 103]

We saw a lower number of citizens receiving my Blessed status, as the surface world reopened and people began to lose some of the franticness that had infested their emotions after the short migration underground.

Still, I had a tremendously higher amount of mana at my disposal, and my [Animate Golem] skill was only consuming 75% after its upgrade. I was still concerned about the Church, but I could now have close to two hundred steel golems running at once (albeit if I dedicated every drop of mana to them), or about a third of that in juggernaughts and alloy soldiers.

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The average level of people on this planet is roughly twenty or twenty-five, and with the power difference only widening as levels increase, I suspected that the golems could easily wipe out a similarly sized force, or maybe a little larger.

The forces of Runehold were also a bit higher leveled than average, with the highest close to level 50, and with most around level 34. This was partly because of the recent Vexus attack, but mostly because of the dungeon that the city used to farm