I wanted to round off the year with an achievement, and I figured making two golems in four days would be quite sufficient.
"If I just steal a bit from Boel's blueprint here..." A blueprint flashed on my Spectacles. "So you can do that now, it woulda been nice to know that before I spent so much on preserving my blueprints." I copied Boel's arms and legs.
"I'm definitely going to have to borrow from my previous plans." I pulled up a bit of Denny's armor, using its structure to reinforce key areas. "I envision a sword and shield knight. He storms through the battlefield, using his enhanced agility and keen reflexes to take hits for his allies without crippling himself." I beefed up his legs and reinforced his chest armor.
I had very little left to do with the main blueprint, so I turned my attention to the armament. I used a layered shield design that incorporated the latest material in my roster: duratite. The shield had a total of three layers, the first one being made of normal iron, the second of fabric, and the third being duratite. Duratite's advantage was that it was an amazing implement for defense, it shrugged off arrows, swords, hammers, and the like easily, but had a major flaw: fire resistance.
"I'll have to focus on keeping heat down, duratite melts at a measly 93 degrees C (200 F)."
I put down my blueprints next to me and started drawing on my spirit core. I molded wood and wrapped metal into lightly armored legs, then I moved on to the waist, using Entropy whenever I made a mistake that couldn't be corrected easily. This was a wasteful process and added to my expenses, but it was worth it for the amount of time it saved.
I tried to look happily at the fact that no one would come inside to bother me, but it felt wrong.
"My spirit core is nearly depleted by a quarter, I guess that I'd better go get lunch." I walked to lunch, but before I got there, I heard Orin yawn in my head.
"I've smoothed things over with the God of Beasts, he let me off the hook for taking more than my fair share of mass, but it came at a price."
Orin came out of my shadow and was as large as a medium dog.
"This is the largest form I can maintain for now."
"That sucks. How are you holding up?"
He reduced his size to normal fox levels and hopped into my arms.
"About as well as you, considering you're holding me up!" Orin laughed like a child at his own joke.
"Very funny." I chuckled a bit. "Let's go eat really quick so I can get back to work."
I ate extremely fast, as soon as I left my lab I immediately regretted it, I wanted very much to be back in front of my latest job.
I wasted no more time when I finished my food, I dashed all the way to my workshop and got back to work. I didn't sleep, but I managed to finish everything but the 'veins' of the golem.
"You see Orin, you need the fluid put in the muscles so that the core has something to interface with." I injected the vital fluid into the golem's 'veins' and let it settle, the fluid didn't have to circulate because it was just an Eneru conduit. "You can use a different process with enchantment or Imbuement to achieve similar results."
"I just need the weapons now." I easily formed the duratite plate with a mold and minor application of heat from my imitation-thermal manipulation. The cloth was a different story, I was so bad at handling the fabric that I ended up delegating the task to Devin, who was a master with it somehow. I chalked it up to past experience and moved on to the iron. I spent some time infusing it so it could be manipulated precisely and I could fit an Eneru battery to it later.
'Mental note: devise a plan to fix the Eneru battery's flow leaking.'
I finished the infusing process and molded the metal onto the shield that had been forming from the other parts. It was at this moment that I realized that the morning had come.
"Doesn't bother me much, I just have to finish the sword and I can go to bed." I modeled the sword after the ones that the royal guards used, but only in aesthetics. I used a ryustitite edge and a mithitite core. This gave the sword enough give to not instantly shatter while giving it enough structure to not bend too far. I couldn't use manipulation for the mithitite, it didn't allow the quality I needed for the sword. So instead, I took a trip.
Spinning up Rift Garden myself for the first time was... not quite a happy experience. Nevertheless, I stepped through the portal and spoke.
"Hey, John, what's up bro?" We had kept up with each other via mail. "You want another project?"
John was hamming away at a practice piece. "If it's anything like that spear you ordered, I'm not interested, you're boring," John said, turning his attention away from his piece for only a few seconds to address me.
"Oh, it's nothing like it." I handed over the specifications. "I'll have to do the ryustitite forging myself, but the mithitite and woodworking is up to you."
His hammer skipped a beat while his heart followed. "You want ME to forge mithitite?! At MY level?!"
Mithitite was very infamous for being unforgiving to those who were forging it for the first time. Any error they made would be magnified. Also, if they tried to fix it, they would make it worse by overcompensating because they are used to forging far tougher materials.
"Have your master help, he is super skilled."
"Sure, I'll do it." Fabiru Smith said from the inside of John's house.
'This guy is really rich, he even managed to buy a last name without being awarded it. Plus, he's a human.' Spirit warned.
'I'll keep that in mind.'
"We can work out the terms if you'd like." I said, hoping that my wallet wouldn't bleed too bad.
"No need, this will be a good teaching tool for little Johnny." Fabiru appeared in front of me.
"My name is John! I'm not little! Stop teasing me, dad!" John complained.
"If you don't want to work out a deal, then I'll just leave this here, I have to have this done within a day."
I dropped my mithitite on the ground along with some enhanced wood from my tree. Rift Garden spun up for the last time today and I walked through the portal.