The hero Josh is dead.
Will made a hole to bury his dead body. He didn't want a dead body to be seen out when it was close to his kingdom.
"I'm… tired." Amelia said.
Amelia sat down on the grass feeling beyond satisfied. Finally, the one person she hated most in the world had died. Her hands and clothes were covered in blood.
Her entire arms were numb and were slightly shaking as a result of swinging the metal bat non-stop.
She couldn't help but touch her neck, it was still bruised but not as much as before. She had taken some healing and regenerative potions provided by Will, but even they could not fully heal her. It seemed that the damage was forever to be left permanent on her neck.
Sandra told Will that perhaps the collars were made like that so if slaves somehow found a way to break free of their collars, people could still see the bruised mark on their necks, and it would be easier to identify runaway slaves.
Will agreed with her logic. Potions could not fix everything. He still had the scars on his face when that scorpion tail tore off that part of his face.
Once Will respawns the scars would fully heal.
"Let's go back. You need to wash off that blood." Will extended his hand to Amelia.
Amelia extended her hand to Will but retracted. Will wearing dragon scale armor always made her feel uncomfortable.
"Oh, shit, right. Sorry about that." Will realized what she was thinking. He took off his dragon armor and placed it in his bracelet. All Will was currently wearing is his ordinary clothes and his {Builder's touch} gloves.
This is the first time she had seen Will without armor. He doesn't often take off his armor except for showering, and sometimes even when he is sleeping.
"Is that better?"
Will almost failed to notice how weird or disgusting it must feel to Amelia to see him wear dragon scale armor, considering that she herself is a dragon.
This won't make him not wear dragon scale armor on a regular basis. The bonus armor set ability that it gives him was too good to give it up.
"Hm." Amelia stood up and took his hand.
Will helped her to the back of the truck. He then tried to bring his couch with him, but struggled a bit to carry it with one hand but still placed it on his truck, he made the Golem trucks with the mind to carry as many monster corpses as possible.
Without the strength of an apex dragon that his armor provides, Will could not use the {Builders touch} to its full potential.
"Take us to the kingdom. Except for the spiders, go back to where you were, I am still not done with those Golem models yet." Will said.
The Golems rolled and drove back to their original spot. The spider Golems headed straight to the kingdom underground to find that scorpion.
Amelia looked at the Golems, she found them weird.
While they were being driven back to the kingdom, Will couldn't help but ask her, "Sandra thinks you are hiding something important, is that true?"
Amelia looked at Will. She had something to say, but wouldn't.
"I know your English, or 'human tongue' as others call it, is getting better enough to talk to others at a basic level. Do you have anything to say?"
Will envied her. He didn't know if it was because she's a genius or something that made her understand English so quickly. He has studied Elven tongue for months, but still cannot hold a proper conversation with an elf yet.
"I…" Amelia hesitated.
Will could not tell what she was thinking but had the feeling she was hiding something.
"It's okay, you don't need to say anything. Even I can't tell the one I love everything about my abilities, for our sake of course. If you don't want to say anything to protect your family or for whatever reason, that's alright, I believe many others would do the same. But, you can trust us. If it's something we should know you should tell us. If not, that's alright."
The entire way back Amelia did not utter a word. It took a while because the truck was not designed for speed.
Will wondered if he should build vehicles meant for speed for occasions like this, only he had a method to fly around using his chair and {Builders touch} and even Adaline could be used to ride with her incredible speed.
How he would love to make flying Golems, but he had absolutely no idea how to do that. Building a helicopter might be a good way to start.
Once they arrived, Will helped Amelia down from the truck, and placed his chair beside the gate.
Before they could reach the gate, Will felt a tiny hand pull on his shirt.
"I… I think you should know something."
Will got down on his knee to match her height. "What?" He asked in a gentle tone.
"There is… a dragon… in the mountains."
"Hm?"
Will knows she means the black mountains, but that's the home of every dragon.
"This dragon is very big."
"How big?"
Amelia stretched her arms out as far as she could, leaving Will a bit confused.
"This big."
"Sorry, I don't know how much 'this big' exactly means."
Will smiled a bit. She might be an intelligent dragon but she was still a child.
"I'll… show you." Amelia walked towards the gate while holding onto Will's shirt.
She might be better at English, but she could not find the words to describe exactly how big the dragon is. She thought it would be better to show.
The gates opened. The first ones they saw was Amelia's entire family, scared and shocked to see her covered in blood.
"AMELIA!" They ran up to her.
"Oh, god." Everyone gasped in horror to see blood all over her.
"Not my blood. Not my blood."
"W-w-w-what happened?" Amelia's father asked, very worried and scared.
She flew away without giving them the chance to catch up. Next they were worried for her for hours, but were sort of relieved to hear from Sandra, after she brought Felicia with her, that Will was with her. She didn't elaborate further.
"She's fine. Sandra and I were there to protect her." Will added.
"Come." Amelia dragged Will to her house.
The family had been worried sick all this time. Where were they all this time? Why was their daughter covered in blood? Is what they wanted to know.
Amelia brought Will to her room. Her room was normal, with one bed, some toys that were made by the villagers, and some paper lying around.
She touched her stuff, but not blood got on anything because it was already dried.
"King, I respect you and am indebted to you for saving my daughter, but what the hell happened?" Amelia's father asked.
"I'll… prepare a bath. Kat, prepare Amelia's clothes." Amelia's mother could not let Amelia be covered in blood any further.
Kat, who hadn't said anything, slowly gathered clothes for her sister.
"Remember the hero that enslaved her? He's dead." Will said.
"The… she killed a hero?" The father could not believe it, a hero was dead?
"I delivered the finishing blow."
"I… I think I get it now. But, that blood on her…"
"She beat him up with a bat until she was satisfied."
"Oh… good. But, that was still a hero, a disgusting hero, but still a hero. Aren't you worried about what might happen if the kingdom were to know about this?"
Will looked at Amelia's father. Before Josh arrived, he had imprisoned and killed 3 heroes, Josh was the fourth. At this point what was one more?
Up to now 5 heroes are dead, and 4 of those heroes were killed by Will.
"It's too late to think about that."
'I was already planning to go to war with them anyways.' Will thought.
The one threat he did not want to face was the Great Sage, not to mention he still wasn't as prepared as he would like to be.
Will looked at Amelia, she was drawing something on her papers using a pen but her arms were shaking. Will was able to craft pens since using ink was too troublesome, he was able to make one using his {holographic platform} which came in handy.
It was a bit difficult to make at first, but he was able to make pens. It was better than using ink or pencils.
Problem was these pens were not as advanced from his homeworld but Will did his best. And the only colored pens available are black because Will only had ink at the moment.
'Now that I think about it I think I should tell Sandra to come here.' Will send her a message.
"King, I know that the death of a hero will not go lightly with the kingdom, so please, protect my family if something horrible comes."
To him, nothing mattered more than his family.
"I already have plans for that, don't worry."
After he was done re-building the kingdom, Will had built a secret, deep, underground bunker for people to escape. If war does come at least the people, including Adaline and Sandra would be safe from harm.
It was easy to make because the 'secret underground bunker' was actually just his Golems mining area. It had space, food, water and protection. One thing it lacked was a lightsource.
"Thank you, King."
'I will probably never get tired of hearing that.' Will liked it when he got called 'king' by the people.
"Before I forget, what's your name?" Will asked.
"Donatello."
"Oh, like the ninja turtle."
"What?"
"What?"
"...Anyways, my wife's name is Flora, and you already know Amelia and Kat, and my newborn son is Julien."
"Amelia, we have to wash that blood off of you." Amelia's mother, Flora, brought with her clean clothes and a towel on hand.
"Mom… please wait." Amelia was quickly drawing something. At first calling her adoptive parents 'mom' and 'dad' was weird, but she was getting accustomed to calling them that.
*Knock* *Knock* *Knock* Three knocks could be heard from the other side of the door.
"It's me." Sandra's called out from the other side of the door.
"Come in!" Flora said.
Sandra entered the house in a hurry.
"I'm here." Sandra hurried when she saw Will's message.
"What's going on here?" Flora was confused.
"Your daughter wants to tell us something important… I think." Will said.
"Oh. Kat, honey, take your brother to your room." Flora did not think they should be here for this.
"Okay."
After a few minutes had passed, Amelia got up to show Will her art which consisted of three pieces of paper. The art looked exactly how a kid of Amelia's age would draw, not very good, shaky, and barely understandable.
"Mountains. This is my… used to be home." Amelia pointed to her art. They looked like squiggly lines going up and down.
Amelia placed the paper on the ground along with another piece of paper.
Everyone was staring at Amelia's pictures.
The second piece of paper did look somewhat like a cute dragon.
The third piece of paper was basically a small shaky potato but was meant to be a circle.
"This is dragon. When I transform, this is my size." She pointed to the small circle. She was comparing her dragon size to that of a shaky potato.
"This is mountain. This is big sleepy dragon." She pointed to the bigger more detailed dragon.
"Mountain and big dragon are both da same size. They are both ta same."
She then brought them together to compare them size by size.
It took all of a few seconds for everyone in the room to process her words.
"Is she saying that… that…" Flora couldn't believe it.
"Can such a monster even exist?" Donatello found it hard to believe.
"Oh, god." Sandra thought Amelia's dragon transformation was already huge and powerful, but that size she just described could flatten kingdoms with its belly.
She of course heard of the one place where all dragons live.
Will was doubting her words. One time he accidentally went to the black mountains with Adaline and Jasmine(chapter 41) and he didn't think that the black mountains is a dragon.
Granted he didn't get close to the mountains so he couldn't personally investigate with all the dragons living there.
But having witnessed how large the black mountains are, despite him being far away, the thought of such a huge being like that is… terrifying.
'I don't think my entire kingdom, all my golems, and all my weapons combined could beat such a giant monster. I don't think I can leave a mark.' Will thought.
Would just the claw of that dragon be able to crush his kingdom? If so there was really nothing he had that he could use against the dragon.
Amelia saw their expression, and it was to be expected. This was the dragon race's greatest secret.
"Please, don't fight it. Big dragon is sleeping. His scales are too strong, stronger than all metals."
There was silence again.
Amelia heard from the dragon that 'it' had woken up from its slumber, but went back to sleep. She was relieved, but then heard the reason why it woke up, and it made her all the more angry with Josh even after his death. Made her regret not having been able to hurt him more.
She didn't include that part because she didn't feel that it was necessary. Yet it had woken up, but if it went back to sleep then that is all that matters.
"For now… I think it's best we don't say anything about this dragon." Will said, he appeared to be calmer than the others.
Donatello and Flora have never been to the black mountains, but have heard of its immense size and thus had a rough idea on how big it was.
Sandra also never went to the black mountains, but she had gone on a few family trips across the world with her dad and younger brother, on the way she was able to see some snowy mountains and remembered just how huge those mountains were.
Now she imagines what would happen if those mountains were alive… the thought alone scared her.
"Hey!" Will raised his voice, which caught their attention.
"Look, I know how scary this dragon sounds, but I am guessing it's been alive for much longer than all of us combined. And according to what Amelia just said, chances are that it's still asleep and it will continue to be asleep far after all of you… all of us are dead."
They all looked at each other, and they somewhat agreed with him.
Will was calmer as he has faced death many times by now.
"I may not be good at these kinds of speeches or making other people's worries go away like that , but just for today take a day to relax, take a bath, sleep, eat whatever you want. And don't say anything about this dragon to anyone, it won't do us any good."
Will exited the building. Closing the door behind him he couldn't help but lean against the house's wall and softly say "Fucking hell."
He had no idea what to do. He said that this dragon will continue to be asleep for a long time, but he knows that he could be entirely wrong and he could wake up today, tomorrow, 2 weeks, no one knows.
'How can I get stronger? Okay, calm the f down… Let's see, I have an apex dragon corpse that I can use to make magical items which I have been putting aside for now. I also have my Golems, especially that 'one' I have been busy building, and not to mention my Golems are nearly able to gather enough mana ores so I can make the rip-off 'pack-a-punch' machine.'
Realizing he can't take a day off for himself, he needed to get to work.
Walking towards the center of his kingdom to talk to his Golem, he saw something happened to the entrance of his cave.
"What happened here?" Will asked his Golem.
The entrance to his cave was 1.5 meters wide in diameter, now it was bigger and messier as if something forced its way through.
"Master, when the spider Golems arrived at the kingdom they couldn't fit through the entrance, so they used their 'drill' to make the entrance big enough to fit in."
"Oh, well at least the spider's 'butt drill' works." Will likes to call it that. He found it funny at the time.
"Anyways, how long until you have enough materials to make the 'pack-a-punch' machine?"
"Pack-a-punch? You mean Sovereignty?"
"Yes, that one."
"The materials to create that machine are 1000 High-tier mana ores and a bunch of abundance of rare metals, Master. Every day we get 2, sometimes 3 high-tier mana ores a day. It would take at least 500 days to gather the materials, if we are unlucky that is."
"How many High-tier mana ores do we have now?"
"43. Thanks to the mask you gave me that allows me to see rare metals through walls, the Golems have mined more mana ores more accurately, but not enough to meet your demands soon."
"Hmm…"
Will looked at his exclusive crafts. Nothing else could help him at the moment. Unless…
"Gather enough mana ores to make 10 High-tier mana ores."
"Yes, Master."
Will teleported to his cave. The cave had a few noticeable big holes. His spider Golems have long since started their search to find that monster with the scorpion tails.
Not long after, a soldier Golem made of titanium brought him an iron chest filled with nothing but an abundance of low and mid-tier mana ores.
Will left the Golems hundreds of empty iron chests so they could fill it up with whatever they mined. Each chest can contain a large number of items inside.
Combining all the mana ores in the chest, Will made 10 High-tier mana ores, then combining those 10 ores he made his very first High-tier Golem core.
The core was slightly larger than an Advanced-tier golem core. It glowed a bright white color with beautiful little stars falling gracefully before disappearing.
Will could not help but stare at the little core in his hand. It was very pretty.
"Master, are you sure? You need to save as much mana ore as you can to make {Sovereignty} and you just used ¼ of your total amount of mana ores."
"I know, but like you just said in order to make Sovereignty I need to wait a long time, and I need something right now that could help me right now rather than later." Will said.
It did hurt to use up a ton of mana ores, but he felt that it was necessary…
That was a lie.
Frankly, he didn't even know if this was the correct move to make, and was afraid he was going to waste his mana ores.
Will isn't smart, strong, charming, wise, powerful, skillful, a leader, he was just an average Joe who was given a system, Will knew that it was his only positive factor.
But he wanted to use this system to protect not just himself but others as well, especially ones he loves.
He had already lost his best friend, he nearly lost Adaline recently, and he was not going to let Sandra die.
He doesn't want to be left alone again… it is a horrible feeling to be lonely.
Will knew he was never really alone as he had his classmate, his parents, and his annoying little brother, but just because one isn't alone doesn't mean that they don't feel lonely.
Will took out the mid-tier Golem core from the soldier Golem in front of him, replacing it with the High-tier Golem core.
The Golem stood up slowly.
The other nearby Golems paused for a second before resuming their activities. This was new, and Will noticed it.
"How do you feel?" Will asked.
"I feel different yet the same. I feel more… alive."
Will could not understand what he meant. The description for the High-tier Golem core doesn't provide too many specific details apart that the core is the toughest to break out of the other Golem cores, and that it is the highest level of intelligence his Golems can achieve.
Will knew to trust in the higher tier Golem cores. It has shown nothing but improvements.
But what exactly can he expect from a High-tier Golem?
"I see nothing but flaws on my several bodies, Master. Can I make a few tweaks with them?"
"Sure. Do you need some help?" Will asked.
"Thank you, Master, but I am now able to handle it."
"Since you're the first High-tier Golem, I think I should give you a name." Will just thought of it.
He never gave any Golem a personal name, he would only refer to them as their 'body type' name. If they were the worker Golems he would just call them worker or miner Golems, same goes for the fighter Golems, spider Golems, Incredible Golems, and the 'Truck' Golems which is more of a placeholder name until he could come up with something better.
"As you wish. What would my name be?"
"The Intelligent Golem."
"...okay."
"You sound disappointed. Whatever, you're the brains of the Golems now, meaning that you can never put yourself in danger. I cannot risk the High-tier Golem core being damaged or broken."
"I understand, Master."
"Now bring me enough ores to make 10 High-tier mana ores, as well as the Apex dragon's remains."
"Are you planning on making magical items?"
"I don't see why not."
The Golem obviously followed his command and brought the items. Will was basically going to spend half of his mana ores in a day.
Will thought of increasing the worker Golems numbers to at least double the amount of what they are now, and he was going to do it but he couldn't be able to make too many on the count of how time consuming it was to make not just their bodies and tools but enchanting them as well.
The titanium tools are more durable than steel tools, and yet they will break. It took him little to no time making Golem bodies and tools using the {Holographic platform} as long as he had the materials.
The same thing could not be said about enchanting them. He needed to personally enchant every tool, every limb with the best enchants, and each part has more than 3 enchantments. That was the part that took him the most amount of his time.
Will always made sure his Golems had extra pickaxes, but every other week he needed to make more because they break from being used to mine his cave 24/7.
If he made too many worker Golems, he would never stop enchanting and making mining tools.
And no, he had tested out several methods for his Golems to enchant and craft stuff. They could craft stuff but were of poorer quality compared to his, and only he could make titanium ingots, and also only he could use his enchantment table.
Will also asked his blacksmith friend, Jack, and his family who are also experienced blacksmiths, to help him enchant tools, but they had no way to enchant items because Victoria had destroyed their enchantment table. And they could not even use Will's 'creepy enchantment table' because that is not the method other blacksmiths use to enchant items. Apparently only Will could use it.
Even if Jack and his family could enchant his items, their level of enchantments would be too low compared to the enchantments Will uses. No other blacksmith is capable of making level 5 enchantments, at best the most skilled blacksmiths could make level 3 enchantments, perhaps 4 if they were extremely lucky.
Will had no one to rely on but himself for now.
In front of him this was a normal stone furnace with a large steel pan on top, a chest filled with 10 HIgh-tier mana ores he just crafted on the spot, and another chest filled with nothing but Apex dragon parts.
The only way to make magical items was to burn a mana ore along with a monster's body part, which would then leak their 'essence' which was a gold liquid, and then he would pour the essence on a tool and hope it turns into a powerful magical item.
He wanted to use Advanced-tier mana ores instead so as to not waste as many mana ores as possible, but that would be a horrible move.
The best mana ores blacksmiths use to make magical items are Advanced-tier mana ores and apex monster parts, the odds of getting a powerful magical item from using Advanced-tier mana ores is very low.
Knowing his own luck, Will knew if he was cheap about this he would at most get one decent powerful item out of 100 Advanced-tier mana ores.
But according to what he knows, blacksmiths who used High-tier mana ores and apex monster parts, it's guaranteed that he gets a powerful item.
High-tier mana ores are incredibly rare, yet Will could combine all his current mana ores to make more than 30.
"RNGesus, don't fail me now." Will then proceeds to extract the Apex dragon's essence.
Meanwhile…
At the black mountains, no dragon could be seen near the black mountains because no dragon wanted to be near it.
After the mountain dragon had gone back to sleep, it found itself unable to find a comfortable sleeping position. It had spent the rest of its days like this between a state of half-awake and half-asleep, moving around every so often.
Due to his immense size, moving a tiny bit caused earthquakes, it could kill hundreds of dragons by extending his limb to stretch.
The dragons nearby held hope that he would go back to sleep soon. But if it continues to act like this, how long would it take until he gets bored and tired of finding a comfortable sleeping position and destroys everything, hours, days, weeks?