"What's it made out of?" Devin was too enthusiastic, even ignoring my insult.
"Cedar, the same one I read under."
"What do you use it for?"
"It will be my house in the future, for now, it's just a workshop."
"Will you make your golems in there?"
"That's a good idea."
'Devin asks too many questions.'
'Yeah, tell him to put a sock in it.'
"That's enough questions, let's get inside."
We entered the tree, and I hadn't done any work in the workshop so it was still pristine.
"Wow, it's just like the shed! Except it's not trashed."
"Hey! It wasn't trashed, it was chaotically organized!"
'Trashed' Spirit said after looking through my memories.
'Shush!'
"Not gonna lie, it was completely trashed." Orin chimed in
"Goddamnit, you too? Why doesn't anyone understand the life of an engineer?!"
"I'd consider it chaotically organized, my workshop looked the same." Father's voice came from behind me.
I turned around and saw a familiar pointy hat. "Dad!" I thought for a second, "wait, why are you here?"
"The school needs me to build a protective field in the forest to keep students and trespassers out."
'Oh, yeah, dad's an engineer too. Forgot about that.'
"Hey Devin, this is my dad, he's an engineer too."
"I see that."
"Dad, this is Devin, he squeals when he's excited."
"Hey! I do not!" he squealed
"Liar."
Father laughed through the whole exchange.
"Well, aren't you two tools in a toolbox, I gotta go, son, I've got work to do."
"Bye, dad!" Dad walked away into the forest. "So, what were we talking about again?"
"I don't remember, wanna get lunch?"
"Sure."
--------
Days turned to months, and at last, I had finally rebuilt Denny, I even improved him.
"Assess," I said to my glasses.
[Golem Glass active, scanning...]
[Done!]
Apprentice Golem
-Traits-
{Musculature} Weaved Copper wire
[Tough] (Look, Ingen, you know what being tough means)
{Chest}
Armored: Weaved and Enchanted Tungsten
[Enchanted to be Light] (increases speed but decreases stability)
[Flexible] (Improves range of motion in arms and legs)
{Arms}
Armored: Enchanted Cedar and Weaved Iron
[Clumsy] (Precision tasks are impossible.)
[Auto-Repair] (Repairs efficiently using Eneru over time, doesn't apply to armor.)
[Strong] (able to lift heavy things, obviously, you dumbass)
{Legs}
Armored: Alchemically-Enhanced Birch
[Flexible] (Has an increased range of motion)
[Shock-absorbent] (can fall from almost any height without damaging itself if it lands on its feet.)
-Statistics-
Armor Integrity: 50%
Eneru Efficiency: 30% (Runtime: 8 hours before sleep mode)
Top Speed: 15 kilometers per hour
Coolant efficiency: 79%
Core Capacity: Superior
I had turned Denny from a half-assed archer into a frontline warrior. It was at the expense of speed, coolant efficiency, and dexterity, but now I just need to arm him and he will be a perfect guard.
"Hey Devin, what kind of weapon do you think fits Denny?"
"A giant hammer obviously, what else?"
"You got it, dude!"
I started making the hammerhead out of metal, I didn't plan on weaving it because it was more effort than it was worth so I manually smithed it. Using Denny's strength and my Eneru, we got done in two days, it was a little crude, but it did it's job. The handle took barely a minute because I just made it out of living wood.
I handed Denny his hammer and told him to strike a dummy with it.
He obediently turned the dummy into dust.
"Seems good."
Some more months passed and I gained more knowledge of Eneru, enough to draw a conclusion about Eneru conductivity, it was yet again time to do some experiments. I went to my tree, my organized chaos was back, but now instead of scraps, there was paper and ink everywhere. Because of metal weaving, I learned how to perceive Eneru, and I can only do so in my range, however, I learned that I can extend my range with Eneru conductive things.
Therefore I theorize that I can see with Eneru into the forest by connecting tree roots into a network of control, as a side effect, I should be able to cast in a huge range compared to normal. All I need to do now is test. I ran my Eneru into the enhanced walls of my tree, trying to sense my range, and to my surprise, I found only my tree in the network.
"Hmm, what's limiting me?"
I searched for an anomaly.
"I can't let my test results be tainted by some defensive field." I thought for a moment "Wait! A defensive field! Dad was working on one in the forest! Geez, I can't believe I forgot. Testing will have to wait until I can move the tree."
'Or does it?'
Spirit started injecting Eneru into the field, probing for weaknesses in it. After a minute or two Spirit managed to forcibly bring up the spirit paper of the field. It was huge, bigger than the floor of the workshop. Spirit used Eneru to write in an exception for me and him.
'Isn't this a little reckless?'
'That's rich coming from you, little wreaking ball. Besides, it's just an exception for you and me, not core hunters. I'll erase it later.'
"You can erase Eneru ink?! Why didn't you tell me before?!" I couldn't help but shout out loud.
'I couldn't until recently, I haven't been idle, I'm awake all the time, even when you're asleep. During that time I practice, and I've managed to unlock a unique sub-affinity: entropy, the ability to decay.'
"Tell me next time damnit."
'Don't worry, I won't. I don't have to imagine what you would've done had you known you could decay any of your mistakes, I can read your mind, and really? Explosives are the first thing on your mind?'
Recognizing my defeat, I changed the subject 'Let's get on with the experiment then.'
'Yeah, let's.'