Spending My Retirement In A Game

Chapter 280 - Golems and Sorcery

And so, quite swiftly, Stahl made the copy of Des move around, and even fly around as it was weightless mana he was playing around with, and like that gained the ’Mana Doll’ skill.

"Alright, and what exactly is the difference between ’Mana Double’ and ’Mana Doll’?" The young man asked curiously, before Xenia swiftly explained it in the best way that she could. "Well, at the start, there’s not really much of a difference, just as I said. But later, Mana Double will really be able to copy you. At Rank 5, like many other skills, it might even rank up to become a ’Higher Grade’ skill. Some people that use it a lot got a ’Perfect Double’ skill, which quite literally creates perfect copies of yourself with all your skills. You’ll be able to ’switch’ between those doubles as well and control it completely. Mana Doll will simply become more potent at ltaer ranks. You can control more dolls, your dolls will gain sentience, and will become actual creatures. That’s basically the biggest difference." She explained to him, before Stahl nodded his head with a smile.

"Huh, nice... That means I have a lot of skills that can make me the absolute commander of an army right now, huh?" Stahl asked with a grin, before Xenia slowly nodded her head with a light chuckle. "I guess you do. Necromancy, taming, Mana Double and Mana Doll... And then Golemancy, when you learn that skill as well. And on top of that, there seem to be a lot of different skills with that kind of behaviour. Who knows, you might even be able to get summoner-type skills depending on what kind of occupation you end up getting." Xenia said with a smile, finally having at least somewhat relaxed, before Stahl cracked his knuckles.

"Alright, then let’s get to it! You just mentioned Golemancy, right? How do I get that skill? I already controlled CB-1, and I commanded Cabarum and Aulu before as well. What else do I need to do then?" He inquired a bit confused, and Xenia nodded her head. "You see, so that you can actually properly learn the skill, you need to become the master of a Golem first. And then, whatever kind of control, even the control over CB-1 and Eisen’s automata, will end up giving you some proficiency." She answered the young man, who nodded his head, although he tilted his head to the side.

"Don’t I need to get my Enchanting skill to Rank 2 for that to get Ability Enchanting?" He asked, but Xenia shook her head. "Not really, I can just give you a golem core for that. You only become the ’Master’ of the golem if you activate it, not by making it." She explained, so Stahl slowly nodded his head.

"I see... Well, then should we do that? I can level the skill up over time that way then." Stahl suggested, and Xenia slowly stood up and walked over to her bag, out of which she grabbed a few small balls, handing one of them over to stahl.

"Search a good body for it, and then come back to me." She said with a light smile, and Stahl simply ended up grinning. "Only gonna take a minute!" He exclaimed, jumping up from the chair and running out of the meeting room and then down the stairs, before swiftly making his way to the, currently empty, Atelier, where he grabbed all the wooden body parts that he made as part of his Sculpting lesson from Evalia the other day.

And so, truly after just a few minutes, Stahl had already returned with the numerous decoratively carved wooden parts, which he laid down on the ground in front of Xenia.

"I already have a body for it!" He exclaimed, before Xenia nodded her head slowly. "Yeah... I can see that... Or at least parts of a body." She muttered confused, before Stahl simply squatted down onto the ground and laid the parts down in the exact right shape. And then, it seemed quite obvious what this was. It was a wooden mannequin, although not one in a shape that you may expect.

The small carvings on the outside of the body made it seem like something was supposed to go inside of them to create a different kind of body altogether, although Xenia wasn’t sure which ones were actually there for the actual parts, and which ones were pure decoration.

There was just one area where something was missing. In the center of the chest, there was something like a deep, gaping hole with spirals moving down inside of it into a ’slot’ for something, and Xenia quite swiftly understood the use for that hole.

"You meant to turn this into a golem all along?" Xenia asked, and Stahl nodded his head with a smile. "Yup! Well, not any kind of golem, but you’ll see later when my skill ranks are a bit higher." He said with a wink, before taking the spherical golem core that he was given by Xenia, trying to push it into the hole in the center of the chest. It took a little bit of Transmutational help from Xenia, but in the end, the core was sitting as tightly inside of the chest as possible.

"Although... I have to admit, this isn’t necessarily the best place for that core. The crystals as well as the process that allows you to place multiple enchantments on it make it so that the crystal can be shattered with a bit of concentrated force, different to regular mana crystals which are basically un-breakable." Xenia explained, but Stahl just replied with a shrug.

"That’s fine. This guy’s not necessarily going to become a combat-golem anyway. More of an all-rounded assistant, I guess." Stahl said with a smile, and Xenia just slowly nodded her head before watching Stahl activate the golem core.

Immediately, all the different smaller wooden ’body parts’ that were just pressed against each other up until now started clackering around and moving until they turned into a real, properly connected body while the golem core began to glow in a faint light, although so far it was just laying on the ground without moving.

"Well... It gave me the Golemancy skill, but what the hell is this guy doing?" Stahl asked confused, before Xenia simply shrugged. "You didn’t give it any commands yet, and it doesn’t really know how its new body is supposed to act. It’s different from Eisen’s automata, which immediately knew how to move their bodies due to the fact that their bodies were specifically built to be able to work in a specific way, while also being created with the help of Beast Crystals, which made them used to the body of a beast. This guy here knows nothing, though." Xenia explained, so Stahl just scratched the back of his neck and nodded.

"Alright... Golem, stand up." Stahl commanded, before the wooden parts began to rattle and the Golem perked the center of its body up, although it was standing four-legged right now.

"Golem, Copy how I’m standing." With a loud sigh, Stahl corrected the golem, and it soon tried to stand up like Stahl was, although, as it was doing so quite clunkily, it fell a few times and showed a nice, peculiar ability.

Because it was made of multiple parts simple pressed together, it could de-tach parts of itself and then quite simply re-attach them. Stahl would most likely even be able to switch the different body parts over time to make the golem stronger as well.

And while Stahl was thinking about this, the Golem finally managed to stand up straight on its two legs. "Good enough, I guess?" The young man muttered out as he looked at the slumped-over figure and then turned to Xenia, who did seem quite curious about this type of golem.

"What are we doing next?" Stahl asked, to get her out of her hypnosis-like state where she couldn’t think of anything else but what was in front of her, before the High-Elf perked her head up in a bit of surprise.

"Oh, right... Well, next is Sorcery. We’ll figure out proper spells once you get your element, so until then, you should use these to cause strong effects. And in general as well, because Sorcery lets you be a lot more all-rounded than by only using your element, because it can quite simply support every type of action. It just depends on the magic circle." She explained, so Stahl slowly nodded his head as Xenia swiftly demonstrated what Sorcery really was once she grabbed her wand.

With a few swift motions, she formed a large circle in the air with her pure mana. Then, she created a pentagram inside of that circle, filling each of the five triangles out with different runes, before then adding runes to the outer ring as well. And at last, she simply tapped the center of the pentagram, before the Magic circle shattered into pieces as if it was glass, and those pieces then began to envelop Stahl. And a few moments later, the pieces simply disappeared.

[Your INT and WIS stats have temporarily been enhanced by 10 points each]

"Oh? You gave me a boost?" Stahl asked surprised, and Xenia nodded her head. "It’s only going to last for about half an hour though, so it’s nothing too special. But as you could see, a Magic Circle works much in the same way as an enchantment circle, just that the Magic Circle disappears after one use." She explained, so Stahl nodded his head, although he was a bit confused about something.

"Then why didn’t you need to sketch the effect into the center of the Pentagram?" He asked, and Xenia swiftly explained.

"First, it’s a Pentacle, the base of quite a few basic magic circles that are supposed to cause an effect." She said, and Stahl sighed loudly. "Right, Pentacle... Don’t know the difference, but go on please." He replied, so Xenia continued to explain.

"Well, quite clearly, because it wasn’t necessary. An enchantment is something constant that continues to exist after many uses. It’s always the same no matter what you do with it. That’s why it needs a directly specified image, because borrowing one from the user might cause some issues. But a Magic Circle isn’t something that can be ’saved’. It’s a one-use thing, so it’s enough to use your own mental image while you’re activating it. That actually helps it be specialized toward every situation. If you have something that shoots a ’bullet’ it, lets you aim more precisely, for example."

"Huh... Got it. And just wondering, is this something that has different ’styles’ as well? Brody told me a bit about it, and that any skill that gets an upgrade at Rank 5 has different ’styles’, although it’s usually called other things. Does sorcery have that as well, depending on what kind of Magic Circles you usually draw?" Stahl inquired curiously, and Xenia nodded her head with a bit of surprise.

"Oh, good that you already knew! Exactly, yes. There’s a few different ways to cast sorcery. Evalia is actually trying to use her element to make ’Sorcery Painting’, so that’s most likely going to turn her sorcery skill to become something like ’Art Sorcery’. Some Scribes had their Sorcery turn into ’Word Sorcery’. It all depends on what you do with it." She answered with a smile, so Stahl crossed his arms with a grin on his face.

"Interesting... So Sorcery also has free-form things like enchanting does?" Stahl asked, so Xenia swiftly answered. "Yes, although there are a lot of forms known to be quite good for certain types of effects. Such as the Pentacle is something amazing for boost sorcery." She answered, before Stahl took the simple wand that Xenia had prepared for him and poured his mana inside of it before holding it in front of himself.

"Then I’ll play around a little now!"