“This looks about right. I should now quickly start the forging process before the metal starts to cool down.”
One of the listed properties of Orichalcum was its fast cooling rate because of its ability to be infused with atmospheric mana. So Liam did not even have to quench the metal before he started the next step.
He closed his eyes and zeroed his focus on the task at hand as she started his churning his mana core and infusing the metal with his personal mana.
This was the most crucial step in the process, according to the recipe. The more Liam infused the orichalcum metal with his mana and not the atmospheric mana, the more powerful the resulting golem would be.
This was also why using Orichalchum for this purpose was a double-edged weapon.
Thanks to its excellent mana conductivity, the golem would be able to self-replenish itself and perform at full capacity without any issues and without any stops, even when it was under attack or performing any other vigorous task.
Only when the limit exceeded too much would an issue arise. Otherwise, the golem would be as resilient and powerful as the day it was created.
However, the drawback to this was that the creation process in itself was that much more difficult. The metal was like a sponge for mana, so it was that much harder to prevent the external mana from leaking into it during the forging process.
Liam realized this as soon as he started the work. “Some amount of warning about this would have been nice.” He grumbled, but there was a big smile plastered on his face, which clearly showed that he was enjoying the challenge.
While he tirelessly brought down the hammer on the metal, pumping in his mana with every stroke, Luna continued to melt the second batch of metal slabs they had gathered.
The recipe demanded that the huge amounts of Orichalcum ore be brought down to the size of a small sphere, and each golem required six such spheres.
This was quite a bit of work, so the duo was pretty much busy for the next hour, with both Liam and Luna expending most of their energy, though the fox had it relatively easy compared to the human being, who was drenched in sweat from top to bottom.
Finally, after another hour and a half, the six spheres were ready for use! They were stuffed so full and bursting with mana that they couldn’t even absorb a single more speck of it.
Liam wiped the sweat off of his forehead and grinned. “Ok. What’s next?” He did not want to make more spheres before he tried these six out and created the first golem, taking things to completion.
He cracked the joints in his neck, stretching a little bit, and then walked over to the outside of the industrial space to a clean stretch of uncemented land.
He then bent down, and to Luna’s surprise, he started drawing things. She silently observed what he was doing without disturbing him.
Liam first started by drawing a star-shaped symbol on the ground, followed by a circle that connected all the corners of this star. “Hmmm… this looks about right.”
Luna as well nodded with a curious look on her face, agreeing with him.
Liam then placed the 2-inch diameter Orichalcum spheres on each corner of this star.
Compared with the chunk of metal they started with, these small spheres were heavy and dense. They also pulsed with a tremendous amount of mana that Liam had painstakingly infused.
Soon everything was in position, but that was all. Nothing more seemed to be happening. The little fox couldn’t help but wonder if their work had become a failure.
However, the very next instant, Liam silently sent a sliver of mana to the center of the formation, and all of a sudden, the whole thing lit up with mana pulsing everywhere.
With a nudge and a little guidance from Liam, this mana quickly snaked through the entirety of the formation and started interconnecting all the orichalcum spheres.
All of the six spheres, the star-shaped formation, and the circle connecting everything sizzled with mana currents.
In the beginning, the formation looked very tame, and everything seemed to be working, but as a few seconds ticked by, Liam quickly realized that it was a pipe dream.
The challenge in forging this golem was clearly not yet over.
With every second that passed by, the formation started drawing in massive amounts of mana currents from the surroundings.
As per the description, Liam had to make sure that these currents did not flow haphazardly and only flowed through the design drawn on the ground, following exactly those specific paths.
While this was easy at the start, as the formation started gathering more mana, things were quickly getting out of hand, and the difficulty was exponentially increasing.
“Come on!” Liam gritted his teeth and used all of his mental strength and physical strength to grab the mana on the field and take charge of the turbulent currents.
Soon the dazzling energy of the formation became so intense that even Luna, who was standing so close by, could hardly see anything.
This intense aura increased and increased, and a couple of minutes later, it unexpectedly started taking the shape of a dome.
From within this dome, Liam groaned loudly and shouted colorful words every now and then. The forging process was so damn painful that it was almost akin to him trying to forge another high-level draconian soul.
At a certain point, the mana gathered became so powerful that air around them started whipping about, and the ground started cracking. Even Luna’s skin prickled because of the mana surge in the area.
“Master…” She worriedly licked her lips.
And the next instant, without any explanation…
BOOOOOOOM!
A loud explosion rang out, and both Luna and Liam were tossed away in opposite directions.
***
Mass Release chapter 3~
Please thank PleaseDontLaugh for sponsoring this mass release!
