Chương 37: 37 loop 1 part 17

I was in the corridor before the Keeper could add something else for me to do. I felt like I had done more work for her than for anybody else in my entire life. I really needed to get away from her, but until my uncle was awake, there wasn't much I could do about it. Thankfully, I had no real need to rush anymore, so I could delay returning to her for a little bit. And for what I wanted to do, I needed full mana. Sadly, it didn't take as long I had thought to get to the workshop.

I'd been itching to use my new passive since I exited meditation. The anticipation was killing me. But it was worth the wait. [Cascade] and [Recursion] could potentially revolutionize everything—if I understood how they worked. Which, in theory, I did. I was going to test it first just to be safe, and figure out if there were unwritten limitations before I tried casting a spell that would fully deplete my mana pool.

And while the passive was written plainly, it was never a good idea to assume every spell would work with it the same way. I decided to start with [Subtitle]. [Wideview] was still active, but I hadn't been able to cast [Subtitle] when I woke up this morning. And while it was only 47 mana, and I'd probably have to waste around 70 to get it cast, it was still worth experimenting with it. I wanted—I needed —to test it. The researcher in me was curious. A part of me was sure the Keeper was watching. Somehow watching.

But I went ahead and started practicing the spell passive. I raised my wand." [Scarecrow]." The spell settled over me. I cast it again and again. Because the spell was already active, the mana dissipated into the air uselessly. But it worked. It didn't matter if the spell took effect or not. Simply casting a spell multiple times activated [Recursion]. I let out a whoop before casting [Scarecrow] within the timer. It seemed like [Recursion] wasn't interested in the usefulness of the spells.

When I'd cast [Scarecrow] ten times, I pointed my wand and cast [Subtitle].

The cost dropped to 24 mana. Not life-changing by any means, but proof of concept was proof of concept. With my test a success, I continued walking. By the time the mana battery room was in sight, I'd already pushed Enchantment to [Recursion]'s cap through repeated casts of [Dress] and [Undress]. Which meant there was only one thing left to test. Without letting the [Recursion] timer fade, I pointed my wand at a storage chest and cast [Move]. The chest lifted into the air.

A second cast grabbed another chest, and a third pulled a crate off a nearby shelf. The fourth completed the chain. [Cascade Activated] And then I cast [Move]. A battery rose into the air—then another, then a third. The fourth cast triggered [Cascade] again. I had barely made a dent in the batteries in the room, and yet the spells had barely made a dent in my mana pool. There were a lot of batteries, crates, and other things in the room. But my mana could get them all. Then, I looked around the battery room.

There were rows of batteries on shelves, and multiple workbenches full of tools and parts. Five minutes later, I was no longer testing the passive. I was abusing it. I was so successful I only needed one trip to clear out the room. The corridors were quiet. [Wideview] showed me empty rooms on either side, storage alcoves and sealed doors I hadn't opened yet. One of them had a crack running down its center that looked recent. The Frollarts had been through here. Or something had.

As I left the room, mana batteries floated behind me in loose formation. Some hovered lazily. Others drifted in at odd angles because I'd stopped caring about organization several minutes ago. A workbench followed behind them, and a stool followed the workbench. Crates stacked on top of each other followed the stool. One of the crates tipped over and began scattering metal clamps across the floor. But I didn't care, because there were twenty more crates just like it following behind.

Somewhere around the fifteenth [Move], I'd stopped counting mana costs. Somewhere around the twentieth, I'd stopped counting casts. By the thirtieth, I had started grabbing things not because I needed them, but because they were there and I could. A rack of copper conduit drifted off a wall mount and joined the procession. I had no use for copper conduit. Half of it I couldn't even name. But [Cascade] had activated again, and the next four casts were cheap, and it felt criminal to waste cheap casts on nothing.

The floor was getting crowded. If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. A glass jar full of something that rattled floated past my ear. I had no memory of picking it up. Behind me, two stools had somehow stacked on top of each other and were drifting at a slight angle, listing left. One fell, clipped a floating battery, and both of them caromed into the wall. Neither broke, which I counted as a win.

I spent another twenty minutes clearing out the golem workshop as well. By the time I got back to the study, I looked less like a student and more like a natural disaster. Somewhere behind me, something fell over with enough force to shake the floor. I decided not to investigate. If it was important, it would probably still be there later. The Keeper stood perfectly still in her golem body as the final battery drifted into the room. Then, a stool and a crate drifted in after, and a second stool.

Forming a giant pile, mountains and mounds of materials filled the room, leaving almost no space. The Keeper watched all of it in complete silence. And when I was finished, she finally spoke up.

"I have questions," she said.

"I get that a lot."

"How did you move this much material with your limited mana pool?" I almost regretted my actions.

"Carefully," I responded.

"Now, what do we do with it all?" She had to choose between taking my bait and letting us move on. She walked between the batteries, inspecting them one at a time. Stone fingers brushed against crates and odds and ends. She stopped beside one of the five half-finished golem bodies. The walls shifted a few moments later. Not much, a foot or two on each side. And then the walls stopped.

"Unfortunately, the wards limit the amount I can expand the room."

"You couldn't have done that before I brought everything in?" I asked. Well, at the very least, it was less cramped than it had been before. I moved a golem part off my chair, shifted it a few inches to the left, and sat down. The Keeper began lecturing the second I sat down. I hadn't asked. I was tired, overworked, stressing about my uncle, and most definitely not in the mood. Until she said the magic words.

"Golems will make your life easy." I could see stars as I daydreamed about all the things golems were going to do for me that I would never have to do ever again. Carrying books. Carrying supplies. Carrying me. Standing in lines. Attending lectures. Taking notes. Potentially attending entire conversations on my behalf. The possibilities were endless. Then the Keeper started talking again, and most of them died immediately.

"A golem body is not alive," she said.

"That is the first thing a practitioner must understand."

"I know. I read the book. You don't have to repeat everything in it."

"The book is a primer for novices, but what I am about to tell you is what the primer leaves out." I considered arguing with her, but decided the effort wasn't worth it. As long as she was telling the truth.

"Fine." She moved to the workbench and gestured down at the command core pieces of a not-yet-assembled golem. Whatever she was about to say, she'd clearly been sitting on it for a while.

"As you know, enchantment convinces objects to act a specific way. When used on a golem, it convinces the body to be more capable than it should be. Every motion the golem can perform must be negotiated with the stone, never commanded. Stone wants to be still." Honestly, same.

"You must persuade it patiently." This sounded suspiciously like more work.

"You must persuade it that stillness is but a state, and that the sooner it does the task for you, the sooner it can go back to that state. The command lattice tells the object when to move." Finally. A part of the process I could relate to.

"Show me," I said. She didn't answer. Instead, she walked to one of the half-finished golem bodies, the one closest to the workbench. It was roughly my height, broad-shouldered, with a chest cavity that gaped open like a missing ribcage. She placed one stone hand flat against its arm. Nothing happened. Then, only the fingers moved—a slow, grinding curl, stone scraping against stone.. And then it stopped.

"That," the Keeper said, "was a negotiation. The stone agreed to move once. It will not agree again without a lattice to formalize the request."

"Yes. And when?" I was still imagining a future where I never had to leave my chair. Then the Keeper ruined everything.

"However, without a soul in the golem body, there is a limit to the commands a golem can perform. A crude lattice produces a crude golem. It can follow three explicit commands only. Walk, stop, and carry." I waited for the rest. I would have been waiting forever. My heart sank. That was it? It could only walk and carry things? I mean, yeah, sure, once I figured this out, I would never need to cast [Stride] or [Float] again, because I'd just be carried around by golems everywhere. But that was really it?

I felt ripped off. The Keeper continued talking through my rant.

"Hold on," I said, interrupting whatever she was about to say next.

"You're in a golem body. Right now. And you can do a lot more than walk, stop, and carry." She went still in a different way than usual. Stone was stone. This was calculation.

"That is correct."

"So the three-command limit doesn't apply to you."

"It does not."

"Because you have a soul in there."

"Because I have a soul in here. Yes." I waited for the rest. She didn't give it. The ticking in her chest was the only sound—that faint, rhythmic clicking I'd been trying not to think about since I first heard it.

"And the process of putting a soul into a golem body is..."

"Not something I will teach you."

"Ever?"

"Not today." Which wasn't the same thing, and she knew I'd noticed.

"You are building crude golems. That is where you start. That is where everyone starts."