Chapter 163 – Skipping ahead.

*Click*

“It should work now…”

A certain Runesmith that was wearing protective goggles inserted a certain metallic cylinder into another part of machinery. This machine from the outside looked like a six-legged spider complete with a large sparkly eye on where a spider’s cephalothorax would be.

This was a new and improved version of a golem that Roland had been working on for quite some time. It was the size of a drone, not really that big. It was somewhat elongated in the back which made it look as if it had the iconic spider abdomen.

With a little click, the construction was activated and the drone sprung to life by raising itself up. It possessed a functional head with a large red eye through which it could see its creator standing right in front of it.

“Everything seems normal… energy readings are all in the green.”

Roland nodded while looking at his newest creation that had come a long way. Its more slick design to its predecessors made it look a lot more futuristic for the era that he found itself in. The chassis looked as if it was polished to perfection and could reflect light thanks to its chrome outlook.

“Are the testing dummies ready?”

“Aye boss.”

Rolland called out to Bernir that was on the opposite side of this large chamber. The two were in a location devoid of windows and the source of light was a set of magical crystals that gave enough light as modern-day light bulbs.

It looked like a large warehouse and at the end, there were several wooden testing dummies that had the vague shape of a human. The walls looked like they were made from hardened stone that formed in a natural way. The ceiling as well looked to be quite smooth and painted white which made the whole place quite bright.

Thanks to the earth magic that was prevalent in this world, building underground spaces like this was simple. With enough mana and the correct spell, it was able to harden the walls on a molecular level by binding the smaller grains of sand to each other. It made it as sturdy as concrete and there was no danger of the place ever falling down on their heads.

Even if there happened to be a sore spot or if the walls got damaged in the process of testing magic. It would be quite easy to repair the walls as soil was an easy commodity to come by here. The only big limitation was the look as the hardening had to be done along the way of digging up the larger space.

“Good, go behind the protective shielding then, I’ll start the test.”

Bernir ducked behind a special wall that had some cut out spaces to allow a person to see through them. These spaces weren’t left blank but had thick glass that was quite resistant. Safety around the workshop was paramount, after suffering through various explosions, one that even left him bedridden for a few days Roland had decided to put safety first.

With that in mind, he was unwilling to let any large shrapnel get embedded in his body ever again. Luckily the healing potions in this world as well as healing magic allowed people to get healthy quite fast. Even scarring tissue didn’t form as long as you got the right treatment.

“Drone, activate battle mode.”

He gave the command and the red gem that was the spider golem’s main sensor started glowing. A little compartment opened up in the middle of its body and something started rising out. It looked like an elongated tube that was placed on a jointed robotic arm of sorts.

It was clearly a cannon that had been hidden in the golem’s main body. It was almost as long as the robot’s entire body. The whole length of this cannon was covered in runic symbols that were visible to the naked eye.

“Drone, engage.”

Roland pointed at the left-most training dummy with his finger while giving the order. The spider drone shifted its body towards the dummy and took aim. The cannon that was on its back adjusted to the target, soon the runes that covered it started glowing as it activated.

A bright blue bolt of condensed mana energy emerged from this cannon and quickly connected with the test dummy. The wooden construction promptly exploded sending splinters everywhere.

The top part of the dummy was blown right off but the golem didn’t stop. It continued to fire at the target while bracing its body with those spider-like legs. Each time it fired a bolt of the magic energy it was pushed back slightly and the legs took the recoil nicely.

“Drone, disengage.”

Roland shouted to give the golem the order to a ceasefire. When he looked into the distance he could only see the charred remains of what used to be a dummy.

“Damn, does that golem have something against the targets I made?”

Bernir called out from behind cover while standing next to his boss. Both of them clearly saw the golem continue to shoot at the wooden target even though there was nothing left of it. The only thing that now remained was the log that was placed in the ground to hold it in place.

“I guess it needs some adjustments but this is within the predicted calculations, let us move on.”

Roland on the other hand was not that concerned about the golem’s tendencies for destruction. He could turn down the setting but this was supposed to be a test for a battle golem. Making sure that the target was dead would be one of its functions.

“Drone, battle mode off, engage shield.”

While walking out from behind cover Roland gave the next voice command. The smoking cannon slid back into the drone’s body while it started to glow. The runes became clear again as a blue energy shield appeared. The shield looked like a small dome that covered the spider golem’s whole body and connected to the ground.

Roland walked over and placed himself a few meters away from his creation. On his arm, he was wearing an inconspicuous glove. He raised his hand and opened his palm towards the drone.

Within a second the glove gave out a similar bluish glow before a bolt of magic energy emerged from it. It traveled at a high speed and connected with the mana shield that the golem was producing.

The construction buckled a bit and the golem was pushed back but it managed to survive the first hit. With another bolt of energy, the shield started buckling under the stress, and with the third one it shattered instantly.

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“Three good shots huh?”

Roland moved his hand down as even though the third shot caused the barrier to crack, the golem was still there. He did lower the output of his mana bolt to something a regular mage would be able to perform. If he actually used his whole magical energy to perform this test he feared that his creation would blow to kingdom come with one shot.

“Drone, shield on.”

After destroying the golem’s shield he regave the command for it to reform it. This time around it wasn’t as fast but with time the shield spell was reformed and operational again. With another salvo of mana bolts, he confirmed that the shield was just as sturdy as before.

“As long as the power source is intact it will be able to reform this shield.”

While Roland was rubbing his chin in contemplation Bernir decided to pop his head out from his spot.

“Hey boss, want me to give it a wack?”

Roland spotted a large sledgehammer over Bernir’s shoulder. His assistant had quite a grin on his face after going through several testing golems this was mostly how the tests ended.

“No, that’s fine, we’ll leave this one alone.”

“Is that so?”

Bernir looked a bit saddened by this revelation. Roland could understand his sentiment as it was quite fun to destroy things, even more, if you spend months making them.

“Boss you did it, I didn’t think I’d be able to assist in making a new type of golem! Are you going to try selling it? I bet it would fetch quite the price!”

“Sell it? Maybe later… it’s not really finished.”

“Not finished? It looked capable to me…”

“I still need to test it in the field, the voice commands are bit of a problem too… “