Luckily Clara's threats were actually empty, and after some really intense physical training and rune casting practice, Clara wanted me to repeat my task from the morning. Luckily for me, I had devised a plan mid-workout.
"Go." Clara signaled the beginning of the trial
Orin hopped out of my shadow and took three of the seven dummies to the other side, and Denny barged into class and took another three. I grabbed the last one with my artificial arm effortlessly and sprinted to the other side. Denny was planting dummies quickly, he planted two by the time I was there. Soon, Devin joined the fray and started to plant dummies. At the end of the one-minute forty-three-second timer, we had seven dummies planted haphazardly in their place.
"Well goddamn, I was not expecting you to call reinforcements! unfortunately, that is not enough." Clara flicked a dummy and it fell over. "You will attempt this every day until you succeed. Now, everyone who sat on their ass and did not help in any way, you will do forty pushups every day until Devin and Ingen succeed in putting up the dummies."
There was an awkward silence as the students processed what they had just done and what they will have to do as a consequence.
"NOW!" Clara was impatient
The whole class except me and Devin started doing pushups.
"Justin! Those are garbage pushups! All the way down!"
"Yes -huff- Ma'am"
'This class might just get me killed, now everyone is going to resent me for not succeeding.'
'That's probably why she did it, now you have to succeed or face the consequences, plus this punishes the other kids for ignoring her before.'
We were dismissed from class and I was free to start on my second golem. I didn't have enough conductive metal left to make decent armor even if I could get into my workshop so I started with wood. My strategy was to basically make my Full Guard armor, and put a spirit core in it, and adjust from there. As it turns out, that doesn't work. When the golem powered up, it fell flat on its face. The musculature was so weak that it couldn't hold up the golem.
"Assess"
Hot Golem Garbage
-Traits-
{Musculature} Wood
[Fragile] (lacks structural integrity)
{Chest}
Armored?: Wood, may stop slow-moving stones
[Inflexible] (decreases range of motion in arms and legs)
{Arms}
Unarmored
[Clumsy] (Precision tasks are impossible.)
[Weak]
{Legs}
Unarmored
[Inflexible] (Has a decreased range of motion)
-Statistics-
Armor Integrity: 2%
Eneru Efficiency: N/A
Top Speed: N/A
Coolant efficiency: N/A
Core Capacity: None
"Wow." I was astonished "How did I fail so miserably?"
'Don't worry, it's your first try, and to be fair, you worked for ten minutes to get this. Work at your golem and you will get it.'
'I need to establish a role for this one, I built the last one as a tank. This one can't be built in the same way, it's too expensive.'
I was snapped out of my thoughts by Yomo's screaming.
"Ingen! Ingen! Ingen! I did it!"
I shook the golems and enchantments out of my head and asked: "Did what? You madman!"
"This!" He put his hand together and focused for a moment, and a spark appeared, sputtered and flared into a raging inferno. "I mastered fire!"
"How in the hell are you burning air!? Laura can't even do that!"
"Well, I'm mixing in a bit of Flow Manipulation for fuel."
"That was a way more boring answer than I was expecting, anyway, how does it feel, is it consuming more Eneru than your cold does?"
"Nope, as soon as I got accustomed to it, it was as natural as using cold."
"Let me examine you. Denny, hold him."
"Wait what I neve-" Denny seized him like a vise
"Rive," I said, amplifying my spell.
"Hmm, you don't seem to have any issues regarding your spirit core, so don't worry about that. Denny, you can let him go."
"Bro, what's all that about? Why you gotta restrain me?"
"I have to take very precise measurements or I could miss a side effect that might have cost you your spirit core or your life," I said while recording data at supersonic speeds. "This process is so painless that I'm surprised nobody's figured it out yet."
"About that, I've heard that the Crown Prince can also wield both heat and cold. He uses his ability to prove that he's the rightful heir to Gluaze."
'Hmm, he's clever then, perhaps also another otherworlder if he knows how thermal energy works.'
An image was projected into my mind, it showed one of the four gods that sent me to this world with a spear to a creature right out of a horror story, like a shadow, it was incorporeal and dark. It boasted the largest horns I had ever seen and a physique reminiscent of well-trained humans. Something else was off about it, but I couldn't quite place my finger on it.
The god that I instinctively recognized as Truth looked towards me and mouthed the words:
"End him"
The vision ended and I stood up from the floor I had just collapsed onto.
"Yomo."
Yomo stopped fussing with me and looked me right in the eyes.
"You wanna become the king of Gluaze?"