Armanda was a petite blonde with a small face, a lean figure with short hair, and a calm aura. She wore a pair of black tights and a T-shirt with a pair of yellow sandals and was covered with a yellow mage's robe.
She gave off the vibe like she could do no harm. Her expression here though was serious and her eyes sharp as she waved her hands and threw out some unidentified items. Three two-meter-tall golems appeared in a rumble of earth towering over her figure. They were traditional earth golems with blank faces and huge hulking builds.
Her opponent was another mage, a man with brown hair and a blue hooded mage's coat with large sleeves. He slapped his hands together and chanted as a wave of water appeared in front of him with a roaring power and rushed towards the golems.
Armanda also chanted some incantations and a massive earth wall appeared to block off the water as her golems began to move.
She then created a platform for them over the wall with another spell and they charged straight over the flood. The man was not standing idle either, he created several blasts of water which aimed at the golems walking above him.
The water blasts were immensely powerful and the sound of them tearing through the air was heard as they collided with the golem in front with a resounding smack!
SPLAT!!!
The golem stumbled a bit but managed to tank the hit. Several other blasts of water attacked the golems as they moved and caused them to stumble but they eventually managed to keep moving forward.
Armanda was still standing in her original position as she slowly waved her hands and a giant pillar appeared below her slowly raising her into the air. Several clumps of earth rose from the ground and turned into elegantly shaped spears which she fired off at her opponent straight over the wall.
The mage, sensing the danger waved his hands as he controlled the water below to rise and freeze creating a massive ice wall taller than the earth wall and successfully cutting through the golem's bridge.
The earth spears came raining down as they smashed through the ice wall with some making it through. The mage ran around dodging as many as he could manage. In all his flustering, he didn't notice a golem made it through to the other side.
A dodge to the wrong side landed him straight into the line of attack. The golem ruthlessly raised its fist and smashed into the mage!
BOOM! CRACK!
There was a loud bang and sickening crunch as the hit landed on the mage. Everything went downhill after that. Although the mage recovered from the hit and tried to make up for his mistake. Countless earth spears and punches made him unable to retaliate.
Armanda's other golems arriving later on made his situation more hopeless as he died without even landing a single hit. The match was finished in barely 3 minutes!
Reo watched all this with an impressed expression on his face. Armanda was very powerful and seemed to be adept in effectively redirecting her opponent's attention so she could win. All through the fight, although she looked serious, her facial expression never flickered and she performed all her actions with confidence.
Her golems were immensely powerful too. But Reo with his basic knowledge of golems saw that they had no cores which meant she was manually controlling them.
He decided to go back to the game and try to make a golem before he slept. He logged in and found himself in the dungeon. The immortal sculptor's golem which previously had its eyes closed suddenly opened them with a flash as it sensed his presence.
Rastel chuckled at the scene and got to work. He went straight to a wall and started cutting out large chunks and pieces. He first carved out two arms according to the book's guidelines and worked on them.
He made tiny intricate carvings around the elbow, wrist, and shoulder joints and linked them together. These lines were referred to as mana lines where mana would be circulated all over the golem to supply it with power.
He then carved out a pair of legs and did the same thing. For the body, he cut out a thick circular chunk to give it more defense. He then shaped out the head from a smaller piece.
After getting the individual pieces done, the main problem was connecting them. He inserted the pieces where they belonged on the main body and started connecting the mana lines to the center of the main body where there was a larger circular carving drawn.
This was where the mana would gather before distributing around the golem to ensure movement. He spent about 3 hours finishing up the golem.
Looking up at his finished creation, Rastel nodded silently to himself. It wasn't bad for a first try. He decided to test it out. He had to create a blood link with the golem to give it life. That way, the golem would only react to his mana.
He cut his thumb with the carving knife a little and wiped a bit of blood on the circular carving while activating the basic golem skill. The blood seeped into the carving as it glowed with a dull brown colour. The carvings all around the golem lit up and the golem rumbled a bit.
Rastel felt an inexplicable connection to the golem, like a puppet master to his puppets. It was like he had a controller in his brain and any swift thought from him could cause the golem to move.
He felt the presence of the golem from its head, two arms, body, and one leg...…... Head, two arms, body and one leg...…. One leg...
"Why the fuck am I sensing only one leg!?" he abruptly woke up from the sensation.
He noticed that the carvings around the left leg were not glowing, there was probably a problem there. After 20 minutes of trial and error, he finally got it right. Immersing himself in the feeling again, he sensed his connection to all the body parts of the golem.
'Okay that's perfect, now let's try moving' he suddenly commanded the golem to move forward a step. The golem rumbled as it slowly took one step forward.
'Too slow' Rastel frowned. The golems of Armanda were far faster than that. He commanded the golem to go faster.
RUMBLE!
The golem took two more steps, each faster than the last but Rastel still frowned. Although the golem did move faster, he finally noticed that a significant amount of his mana was taken. Fighting with golems was extremely mana taxing.
'If it's a high paced fight with a lot of moves I will probably not last long if I am also to fight. Probably around 5 minutes' he thought to himself. He was now extremely grateful for his high intelligence and mentality stat.
Although he thought that, he still took the golem for a full test run, walking, running (which was basically a slow rambling trot for the large golem), and throwing out a few punches.
After his mana finished about 8 minutes later, he was satisfied with the result. He gestured with his hand as the golem compressed into a smaller version of itself and flew to his hand. It was a perk that came with the golem making skill.
"Time to test this bad boy against the boss!"
He sat down for a few minutes to recover his mana and ate some buns for his hunger. When he was done, he took the golem and went towards the last cave where the golem was constantly staring at him all this while.
As soon as he stepped into the boundaries of the room. The golem stood up with a deep grunt and started moving towards him. Rastel threw his golem as it expanded with a loud rumble and ordered it to face off the incoming foe.
The two hulking constructs moved at each other with speed as they both aimed wide punches. Rastel's golem was a good head shorter than the immortal's golem and its punch went straight to its chest while ducking low as the immortal's golem's punch went flying over hitting nothing.
The immortal's golem merely shuddered from the punch before instantly bringing its fist down onto the golem below it.
BOOM!
Rastel's golem was smashed to the floor as it took a hit to its back. Rastel commanded his golem to stand up but it was too slow, the immortal's golem aimed a kick at its head which accurately hit the base at its neck and sent the golem's head spinning with an impressive force towards Rastel, narrowly missing him and lodging deeply into the hard cave wall!
WOOSH! BANG!!
He broke into a cold sweat as he saw the golem turn to stare at him while smashing its foot down hard at the center of the golem's body, breaking the connection with a sickening crunch with what could be considered a mocking smile appearing on its face as its mouth's slit widened. The golem really did have intelligence!
"I…. I'm really fucked!"