Chương 53: 53 Loop 2, Part 7

The Keeper's answer was to move a wall. With a groan of stone, the wall behind the desk ground sideways and opened into a corridor I already knew. Magical lamplight filled the space. It ran straight and pointed at the dead queen's private wing, and it was a much faster route than the one I had taken last loop. I wondered if I had annoyed her back then.

"The workshop is at the end of the hall," she said.

"The kitchen is two doors before it. Bring me my body, Lazlo Yarrow, and every door on this floor will open for you." Without further ado, we walked around the desk and headed on down the hall. The workshop was exactly as I remembered it, which was a nice change of pace from everything else today. Rows of construct frames stood along the walls in parade formation. The armor was articulated but decayed. Therumia's seal was on every chest, gold boots dusty and unpolished. There were workbenches around the room.

Tools hung all over the walls, arranged by somebody who had cared more about tools than I had ever cared about anything. It was kind of weird. I spared a quick glance at the tether between my uncle and myself, thankful it was stable.

"Alright," I said to Finn.

"How's your mana pool?"

"It's fine, I think. I haven't meditated or slept since the match ended, but I didn't really use that much." He looked at the rows of frames. He paused, his eyes widening.

"No."

"What? You don't even know what I'm going to say."

"You're going to say 'we,' and then you're going to describe some task that's going to be hard to do, and then you're going to make me do all of it. Even though you said 'we.'""We're going to build an army."

"There it is." He dropped his head with a sigh.

"What am I going to do?" I walked him through the numbers, because Finn argued less when there was arithmetic in front of him. [Wake] ran 150 mana per golem, and that was the most expensive spell. Everything before it was the stuff I would cast myself, and I just needed him to power the hard part.

"So we're going to have to meditate a lot," I said with a sigh.

"That's all it takes to build a golem?" he asked incredulously.

"Yep. Kind of surprised nobody else got it right, to be honest. But that's what happens when people hide knowledge from others. Usually the answer's right in front of your face, and somebody's kept it just out of reach." Finn squinted at me, doing his own math on how a speech about hoarded knowledge was going to be his problem soon. I walked over to the copy of Golems and You and handed it to Finn.

"Read. I'm going to set everything up and then you're gonna cast the costly spell."

"Damn it, Laz, I'm a healer, not an enchanter."

"You can do a beginner enchantment. This thing's really not that hard. And besides, you watched me do the sequence on Flag already." I pushed the manual into his chest.

"You're a caster with a larger mana pool and a friend who's going to do the hardest part of the work. Look at me. I'm working for this. So be a good friend and read before you meditate."

"How many are you planning on making?" Finn asked.

"Six, but you're making fourteen." One day, though, I'd have enough mana, and Flag could make more for me. Visions of a field of golems making more golems spread out before me. I started casting. The work settled into a rhythm. [Dust] to strip the joints, [Slot] to seat the cores, [Align] to line up the channels, [Bind] to lock the array. I went down my row in the red to prep in bulk, four frames at a time, because [Recursion] made it easier and cheaper, and I really enjoyed abusing my passives.

But I waited until the very end. Once I had six golems prepped for me and another fourteen prepped for Finn, I finally stopped casting. And then I collapsed.

"Come on," I said to myself.

"It'll be okay. It's just a little bit more effort, and it'll all be worth it." I dragged myself into position on the workbench, crossed my legs, and closed my eyes. This would be meditation number one. The mana crawled back in, drop by miserable drop. I sat there, hating every fucking second of it. But then, about forty minutes in, the chime rang. This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

[Enchantment — Level 50: Adept Tier Unlocked] Prestige Unlocked: Choose Your Path [Recursion II — Passive] Each successive cast from the same school within 4 seconds costs 6% less mana. This passive cannot reduce a spell below 60% of its base cost. [Spell Merge — Passive] Combine 2 spells from different schools into a single sustained effect. I loved that the system was offering me a second level of a passive I already had. I had assumed it wouldn't be available to me until Master tier.

But apparently, I could just keep getting these passives every time I looped. Holy fucking shit. The more I looped, the more powerful I was going to become. And then eventually, I would never have to work… ever again. I took [Recursion II]. At the rate it was going, spells would be free.

"What are you smiling about?" Finn asked, not looking up from the manual.

"Compounding interest." I grinned. The next few hours felt like a betrayal of everything I stood for. I'd never said I'd take every effort out of my life. But I knew what waited at the end of the tunnel: an entire army of golems doing my bidding. It became a mantra in my head. More golems, less work. More golems, less work. Flag had gotten bored. He floated in midair, meditating and occasionally humming to himself. The time ticked on. I meditated, then I'd do my casts. [Wake], meditate, [Wake], meditate.

I did this as many times as I could, and then I watched Finn do the same once he'd finally finished with the book. I closed my eyes. Somewhere past the point where hours stopped meaning anything, the last golem got its mana core, and I ran out of excuses to stop stalling on the expensive part. By the time the last cast of [Wake] landed, six golems stood in my row, and another fourteen stood in Finn's. I gave a standing order for the golems to rearrange themselves by size.

And then we cast [Mana Tether], one after the other. I had lost track of time, and I could feel the occasional tug of the tether. I really needed to go after my uncle soon. But I had a plan to make things go much smoother against the Froll this loop. And, well… it required help. The wake-up itself never got old for me. The core lit first, a dull amber glow behind the chest. Then the light ran outward along the channels I had aligned, joint by joint, until the whole frame hummed.

Therumia's seal caught the lamplight on multiple chests all at once. The armor shifted as each golem found its balance, gold boots grinding a century of dust into the floor. Then they went still. They were meant to be an honor guard for a dead queen, standing at attention. But now, they were here for a tired student who was ready to be carried around in a chair. Somewhere, a royal armorer was rolling in his grave, and I hoped he was comfortable. Then came painting.

There were other, faster, easier, more convenient ways to do what I was about to do. But in the long run, they'd end up causing more of a headache. And again, why big work when small work do job, too? But I also wasn't a dumbass, despite Finn's protestations otherwise. Because, see, normally, if we just went about and cast a couple of manifestations, like numbers or whatever floating above the golems' heads, or something else to identify them… yeah, it would've been quick. Yeah, it would've been easy.

But then I'd have to cast it again and again and again. If I just took the time to paint each one a different color, I could cast the Enchantment spell [Freeze Frame] afterward and permanently lock in the color, and never have to worry about it again. So I did it. I cast [Paint], and a brush popped into the air beside me, its bristles already wet with primer. [Paint — Manifestation] Cost: 40 mana. Manifests a self-directed brush and pigment.

The brush applies coats to designated surfaces without further input from the caster. Duration: 30 minutes or until dispelled. It had more work ethic than I did—which was not a high bar, but it cleared it with room to spare. It slapped a base coat across the ranks while I considered what to do next. I followed each one with the spell [Color Change]. [Color Change], blue. [Color Change], green. [Color Change], purple, et cetera, sorting them into squads of four based on height.

[Color Change — Alteration] Cost: 12 mana. Alters the hue of targeted objects to any color the caster envisions. Affects only material the caster chooses. Duration: Lasts as long as the altered material. The Alteration spell only touched the paint the brush had already laid on the golem, nudging it into one of five chosen colors. Red, blue, green, purple, orange. I ran it across the entire line. Bright colors for the shorter golems, darker colors for the bigger golems.

The workshop looked ridiculous, and I meant that as a compliment. Five squads of parade armor in colors that would have gotten the original armorer executed. Especially given all the gold boots. And I saved green for Finn, because Finn was nothing if not predictable.

"I'd have picked green anyway," Finn said.

"I know. That's why I saved it for you, dude." I locked the colors into place. [Freeze Frame — Enchantment] Cost: 20 mana. Locks the current state of an enchanted, manifested, or altered effect, rendering it permanent. Frozen effects draw no further mana and cannot be altered again. Duration: Permanent. [Freeze Frame], cast across each golem down the line. The Enchantment spell held the construct's whole state and locked it down. And this was what I had been dreading.

Thirty-one casts, and my pool was scraping bottom. Which meant meditation number five, maybe six? I had lost count. I climbed back onto the workbench, arranged my legs, and glared at the inside of my own eyelids until the universe paid up. And then I heard the chime. I had more passives to unlock.