Chapter 95 – Weighting the options.

Roland was now glancing at the evolution options that he was given. there were five of them, with two uncommon variants and one rare. There was one peculiar option with the hellhound that caused the puppy to stay as a young type.

From what he knew these types of evolution options were a rare sight. They would more or less reset the current monster progress and turn them into a different type. Here his Ruby Wolf would transform into a Hellhound puppy which would change it from a wolf to a dog and also give him a ‘Fiend’ type along with the ‘Beast’ type.

‘A rare type doesn’t mean that it is particularly better then an uncommon one…’

He rubbed his chin while reading through the explanations. There wasn’t much information given about the skills these evolution options would give. Normally he wanted to go for the Ruby variant at first as that was the original type of monster Agni was.

Now there was another option with the Gemstone Wolf which was probably there due to the new mana stone eating skill his puppy gained. The Volcanic and Ashen Wolf types looked like the more generic ones, with the Ashen one even losing the fire type in the evolution.

There was also the option of going with a Hellhound and starting anew. Then when the time came to evolve again there could be some rare options for the Hellhound type. Though these types of monster were considered the more violent type which could pose some trouble down the line.

“What do you think Agni? Ruby Wolf or Gemstone Wolf? or maybe a Hellhound?”

“Bark!”

The little guy started barking and running around. It was clear that he wouldn’t get much out of this baby monster and would have to make the choice himself.

“Let’s go back home for now Agni.”

Roland decided to stall this evolution. He needed to get more information about these advancement options. The mana eating skill wasn’t fully matured yet either so there might be some other evolutionary option if he maxed it out.

There was no rush for something as important as an evolution. There were sometimes options to reset like the Hellhound one but those were super rare. The Ruby Wolf options would not be there again, it was impossible to go around in circles until someone made up their mind. The only thing he could go off of is books or by experience from tamers.

The two returned home to discover a quite drunk Bernir hammering away while shaping some nails. There was also a use for those and a lot of scrap metal to go around. His assistant was also very close to reaching level 50 now which would also let him advance further.

“Ey Boss, w-elcome back. I put the cables where you wanted. Want me to help you undress?”

Bernir noticed Roland walking back into the house as his runic armor was quite characteristic. The half-dwarf’s face was quite red but he was actually able to work in such a state. If he would be able to do the same thing when power tools were introduced was something Roland was afraid of. It was one thing to swing a hammer and another to handle a runic saw that could take out a limb.

“No it’s fine, we’ll connect everything tomorrow.”

“Aye.”

He didn’t bother his assistant as Bernir was clearly working hard to get his level up. Since hitting the 48th level he was tirelessly using his smithing skills to grind up towards this important occasion. It was also getting late after spending most of the day down in the dungeon.

When Roland opened up the door to the house Agni was quick to jump in and go to his spot. He had one right next to Roland’s own bed and even though there was a perfectly fine Dog house outside the puppy liked to sleep here. With time Roland gave in to the whines and barks not being able to fight against the deadly puppy stare.

“Here, catch.”

Roland tossed Agni a nice looking mana stone and the puppy began munching on it almost instantly. Enough time had passed since the last one so it was fine now. After getting undressed it was time to look over some plans.

The wind turbine would be getting connected tomorrow so he needed to go through some things. At this point in time, some months had passed since his new assistant had arrived. Even though he didn’t want to reveal his secret lair below his house it was inevitable that it would be.

It was clearly obvious that he was doing runecrafting somewhere in his house. Even with some sound-canceling runes to keep the noise of his smithing away from prying ears it was easy for Bernir to figure things out. The decision was made to show his assistant his secret workshop that he had now locked behind a special magic magnetic lock.

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By being able to focus on studying the runes he started to crack the code slowly. With time he hoped to not need to look at other people’s work or use his debugging skill to just steal the working designs. With the knowledge of the magic programming language he wanted to construct his own magic, maybe even make something new that never existed in this world before.

‘If I can’t install any mine runes for now, I could go with a normal alarm system…’

Roland was still on the fence on what to do instead of the mine approach. It was too deadly with his puppy and new assistant around. He needed something different, maybe something that could tell the two apart from unwanted guests.

‘I could make something akin to a photocell alarm system.’

With some knowledge of his old world, he came up with one of the classics. By placing some light sensors around the fence he would know if someone passed through it. He recalled one of the popular movies, where the hero had to evade many red laser beams that would trigger the alarm. It was an easy solution and could be placed around the fences away from his assistant and puppy.

‘I wonder if I could make some automated magical weapons…’

Then there was another thing that he wanted to do. His land was fenced up in a square shape. At each corner, there was a smaller tower made of hardwood. Thanks to Bernir that was good at building things the fence had been redone to actually be proper.

Roland was thinking about placing magical devices at those corners which would turn them into sort of defensive towers. It would be easy for him to connect the alarm system to this sort of attacking device. It would only require some mana from his generator to run. He could also use a reusable scroll system that didn’t use up much of his mana reserves in the generator.