As the days went by, December was just around the corner. Jin and his monsters had been working their damndest to keep up the pace so that he could fulfil the mission objectives. So far, Flame Ripper and his scouting team were able to avoid any encounter with the Farm rats.
Despite what Meomi said, she figured a bit of patience would not harm her current objective. But she took the time to learn and had already memorised the dynamic patrol patterns those farm rats had employed.
On a separate note, the Dungeon City Fortress had gone through a lot of changes since the first day. Some smaller buildings on the first platform were completed, while the larger ones had started to take form. Moloch did warn Jin that adventurers and other monsters could visit their city at any point, so he had instructed the Dungeon Core to deny entry to anyone outside their territory. He wanted to ensure that what they were building, would remain a secret until the fortress was functioning properly.
With the current timeline, Moloch felt that they could only open the dungeon ‘doors’ at the end of 7th Jan. He also started to see why Jin loved to ‘surprise’ others as even the minotaurs, orcs and goblins who were the ones building this magnificent city, were staring at it with bewilderment at the end of each day.
The platoons of Goblin mages and combat engineers eventually arrived on the morning of the second day on time for the start of construction, only to be astounded by the sheer size of the city Jin was building.
As instructed by Qiu Yue and the Sub System, the goblin mages and combat engineers were given a small workshop to start building the Sandroku Golems under the supervision of none other than Ayse herself. The craftsmen no doubt got a bit jealous but when they saw the work of marvel being created, most of them kept silent.
Those goblin engineers and mages were fast workers and had hands small enough to manage the delicate work but Head Orc Researcher Ayse had also employed some of the Orcs to do the heavy lifting rather than make the mages waste their powers lifting the metal body pieces.
It did not take long for the orcs to become intrigued, desiring to build their own version. Ayse had already prepared a special blueprint for them the moment she heard Jin and Qiu Yue discussed the worst case scenario of King Sol unable to loan them any more goblins.
Even though such a scenario did not happen and there were currently more than enough goblins to create the Sandroku Golems, Ayse already predicted that the orcs would love to try and build one. It was to prove that they were in no way inferior to the goblins. Hence, Ayse carefully picked several quick handed orcs to handle the delicate stuff while some of the larger sized ones and a few mages did the heavier lifting of the Golem armour platings.
The orcs, who were building their own version of Sandroku golems were indirectly competing against the goblin made Sandroku Golems despite the fact that they were working for the same master. Ayse purposely allowed both races to work away from each other as she could sympathise with her fellow orcs’ distaste for goblins. (Well…not exactly far away from each other since the workshops were just opposite one another.)
If not for her having worked alongside the selfish researchers, changing her narrow view of the world, she too may have looked down on the goblins. (Granted, she did not expect other worlds existed.) So while the orcs and goblins were forbidden to fight directly, surely there was nothing wrong with a bit of friendly to prove who was superior between the two through the Sandroku Golems.
So Ayse decided why not? It meant that more golems would be ready, at an earlier time frame and if successful, orcs could even participate in creating the foundation of Pand-Atlantis rather than just the goblins. She also knew how competitions might have a chance to create some friendly rivalry between the races to interact, so they break away from the stereotypes that were deeply embedded in them.
Interestingly enough, the orcs and goblins had their own ideas about further improving the revised version of the Sandroku Golems. Although some revisions were flat out rejected by Ayse, she ended up accepting a few and allowed them to test it on the next golem they were building.
However, that was under the condition that if the revised golem did not work, they had to salvage the golem and build the approved model. Not to mention paying for any parts that would unsalvageable like fried machine chips or components that broke down during the experimentation.
Oddly, not one of them disagreed with this. Despite the consequences, both races were willing to risk it all to prove who was the better one at building. The goblin engineers seemed to have an advantage at first since some of them were the ones who previously worked on the first generation models in the Northern Valley but the few selected Orcs had experience with building Lost Tech artefacts.
Apparently, those orcs came from engineering teams which were outsourced by the Military Research Department during the war since Ayse could not be bothered to handle everything herself. She had to focus on the more critical military inventions like the lost tech portal device. Thus, Ayse was also interested how those Orcs would fare against the goblins.
Therefore, it became a mini arms race to see who could build the most versatile Sandroku Golem for both construction and combat use.
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At the same time, the craftsmen had worked in unison to make batches of various clay soldiers all in different shapes and sizes. Jespa, the Goblin Runesmith, had created a magical rune that allowed the clay soldiers to be activated with just a mind command while her cousin Hespeta and some other Weaponsmiths began crafting weapons for them. Since they were ultimately expendable, quantity preceded quality.
Many of the magical clay craftsmen worked tirelessly day and night, rotating amongst themselves to create as many shapes and forms as their imagination would allow. Until now, there had been no request to create a specific sort of clay soldier model with a standard mould and tool because the System wanted as much data as possible on their magical clay.
It may look like mashed up clay, similar to the ones used for children to play with, but it was the forming of the mud clay by the craftsman that gave them their unique quality. It would seem like an easy task from an outsider’s perspective since all they did was smash it together at first glance, but it wasn’t particularly straightforward.
Similar to drawing, the magical clay craftsman would first imagine a basic structure and the form in their mind. While mashing it together, they would insert their mana into it and make sure that the clay mixed evenly with high quality spring water.
That lump of clay in their hands would then slowly change its form without the goblin touching it at all. It was all through the manipulation of the prepared mana. The bare bone structure could then be created within ten minutes.
The next step was to recreate the bodily features of the moulded clay.
Unsurprisingly nearly all of their soldiers took on the forms of Orcs, Goblins or Ogres. After all, those were the creatures the craftsmen were most familiar with and had sufficient inspiration right in front of them. However, some of the more creative talented craftsmen who were bored making orcs and goblins had started to deviate from this. (Besides, it allowed them to break their general perception of the world they had been living in.)
There were some Humans, Masked Humanoids though the majority were in the image of the Minotaurs since they were in plain sight. Suffice to say, the first iteration looked barely anything like Moloch’s servants, but it did provide the System with some feedback and the idea of letting Jin’s Monsters model for future versions.
The last step was to add minute details to the clay soldier such as broken nails, an uneven set of teeth, skin folds at the neck and joints etc. According to the craftsmen, having more distinct details on the clay soldiers would increase the durability of the magical clay models, thus also more alive and vivid once animated.
But unlike the clay soldiers, Jespa’s runes had to be carefully created. Her runes were essentially the heart, and the larger clay soldiers such as the lifesize Clay Ogres would have at least two runes inside of them.
Having two runes not only made those giant clay monsters harder to kill, it would also give the perception that the Clay Ogres were invincible. Be that as it may, in truth, destroying one rune can slow the Clay Orges down considerable. Regardless, the clay soldiers would be nothing more than glorified decorations without her runes.
Her work was of the utmost importance, which was why Jespa had not been too happy with her current predicament. She could not believe that she had been asked for hundreds if not thousands of her runes only to be placed into non living clay soldiers. Jespa initially thought the weird voice that instructed her was joking, but when she saw the magical clay craftsmen hastily building tens of dozens of those clay monsters, she realised it was not a joke at all.
“I can only make 3 of those runes a day. Any more and I won’t be able to guarantee the quality as fatigue might become a factor. I won’t jeopardise my Runesmith oath to provide only the best just because you want a large amount of quantity in a short amount of time.” Jespa tried to shirk that responsibility by talking her way out of the task at hand as she complained to Moloch, after making sure that strange Human was not about to appear again.
She was hoping they would pass this tedious, monotonous job to some other runesmith. Unfortunately for her, Qiu Yue had not hired any other runesmiths since they were rare to find in the first place, much less a proficient one.
Moloch had been given full authority by Jin to handle any other disputes. In view of the previous incident, Moloch had been strictly told not to bother Jin anymore, unless it was a REAL emergency. Since calling his master was out of the question, Moloch decided to take a gamble since the System was watching after him too.
“Then why not switch to a lesser version of the rune, so that you can create more of them? You sure you are even up to the task for greater things?” Moloch folded his arms as he confronted the pompous runesmith.
“Now what do you even mean by that? There is only one rune capable of animating those clay things! Do you even know how hard it is to create one?” Jespa defended herself while taking out a sample rune of Animate Dead from her haversack. It was one of the many runes that she had carried with her to the capital to show Qiu Yue and the other goblin advisors her work for the interview.
“That is exactly what I mean. Can you really just produce ONE type of Animate Dead? Master Jin already has a shit load of zombie monsters that can do much more than just moving around. How about you show us something we cannot do ourselves!” Moloch tried to taunt Jespa, who only appeared confused on what it was he wanted.
“Sigh. Have you never tried combining your Animate Dead with another spell? Something like…I don’t know. An Increase Attack Power Rune or something of that sort? That way you’d get Animate Dead with a Power Up.” Moloch suggested and Jespa scoffed at his idea.
“Combining two insignias into one rune? Are you mad?! This is only possible in those legends used to motivate aspiring Runesmiths. Even the most proficient Runesmith that I’ve ever known, my own master could never do that.” Jespa stated matter of factly as she shook her head.
“Then I suggest you better pack your bags and leave. Have you already forgotten what you’ve been told? Only those who can push their limit by showing what they can do with what little they have right now will be rewarded with a better workshop and a better lifestyle.” Moloch recounted Jin’s words.
“If you are not interested in furthering yourself, then there is no place for you to be here. It is a shame, but we will be better off, finding someone less talented and teaching them. Someone who won’t give up so easily, before even trying to find ways to do what she’s asked to do.” Moloch was stern and it struck a raw nerve for Jespa.
“…Wait…Its just that… I don’t have the materials and tools!… I mean, I may have the basic tools and can try with them, but the materials needed for combining two runes would be high tier and extremely rare to fi-” Jespa suddenly stopped in her tracks when Moloch used a card trick to reveal a specific material to Jespa.
“You mean like this the one?” Moloch asked, and it completely shocked her wits away.
“…Yes. How did you even manage to…” Jespa was lost for words. Even thought this was the first time she saw mithril it matched what she saw and read upon recognising the rumoured metal of legends immediately and Moloch just pointed his thumb backwards.
“There’s a shitload where that came from. If you need to recover your mana, all you had to do was ask. I have this little birdy for you. It will do the job.” Moloch said as a blue magpie came out from his vanishing card tricks with another sleight of hand.
“So, stop complaining and start giving me results. Since you’ve come here, all you did was complain. Just take a look around you. All but you are busy with the tasks we assigned. All of them were given the bare necessities, but they all just made do with them.” Moloch said as he folded his man puppet hands.
“Give me all the combinations possible with Animate Dead. I do not care how you do it. I expect all the runes to have something special aside from allowing those figures to move. Consider it a punishment for trying to act all stuck up in front of our master earlier.” Moloch said decisively and Jespa’s face turned white and became dumbfounded upon learning it was Jin. She then recalled and remembered that the orcs who were grumbling, kept their silence when he came into the picture.
“That.. *gulp* that…that Human was the Special Royal Advisor Jin? I thought he was a humanoid…?” Jespa could hardly articulate her words correctly but Moloch managed to catch wind of it.
“He may be human, but he is anything but ordinary. I can assure you that.” Moloch replied as he spread his arms wide as if to portray that all this that Jespa was seeing now around her was all Jin’s effort.
“And that stockpile of mithril? He prepared it especially for you when he learnt that you were supposed to be the most capable runesmith.” Moloch turned his back and started to move away from her.
“Therefore, don’t you dare disappoint our master. He might have given you a second chance with that terrible attitude, but the rest of us don’t.” Moloch eyes turned pitch dark, and Jespa knew better than to mess around.
