In the Void dimension, in a factory run by the Foundation. Before the start of the Guardian Program.
The man tried multiple different methods of creating an artificial life, but all of his attempts ended in failure. After so many tries, he had to stop and review what he was doing in the hopes that he'd find whatever mistake he was making with a fresh mind.
After thinking back and writing down his actions, he could only come to one conclusion; that he was entirely clueless. Frustrated, the man pounded his fist into his workstation, scattering some of the tools left on the table.
Clatter!
The metallic ring the tools created as they bounced on the stone floor echoed through the room, making the man wince a little at the high-pitched noise.
His workroom was of a decent size, big enough to store all the materials he needed plus his workbench. There was a board tucked away in a corner where he spent his time working on blueprints for various machines, and another board where the theories of magical energy were, with notes written next to the theories on how to apply magical energy to his own mechanical engineering knowledge.
There were two hallways; one of which was the way to get to and from the rest of the facility, and the other one lead to his bedroom, where he kept his bed and absolutely nothing else. Yep, nothing, no secret projects there.
Anyway, after he entered the Foundation and was later sent into the factory within the Void, he was given this room to advance his own skills separate from the other workers. Almost every employee in the factory had one of these rooms, with the exceptions being the supervisors and managers who were more skilled with guiding people rather than machinery. Of course, they were given their private rooms to sleep in but they didn't require a private workshop to experiment in.
Actually, there weren't many workers that used their private workshop to actually experiment, instead most of the employees chose to use these rooms to party or mess around after completing their assignments. Talented and dedicated workers like him were rare, with most of the Foundation's talent coming from the various families that held techniques and skills that allowed them to hold on to their power.
It was a shame that those same families didn't always use their talent and power for the greater good of the Foundation. George Urok could only guide the entire Foundation in a direction, but he depended on these families to manage the little work that didn't require his attention. Urok's power was what held the Foundation together, but it didn't unify them.
Actions such as stealing the his work or the assassination of a rising member in the Foundation who pissed off the wrong people were all hidden from Urok's sight with the use of these families' power.
That was exactly why the man wanted to create a monster, to bring the organization to it's knees. He needed power to control the families, otherwise his life-time dream of seeing the Fallen races would never be accomplished.
The thought of standing side-by-side with George Urok made his heart flutter a bit, but he pulled himself back into his work.
The supervisors were also given the master clearance to enter any private workshop they wished to, under the condition that they must have a viable reason to. That was how one of his blueprints was stolen from him, from a supervisor who thought they could gain a quick buck from selling his work to a wealthy and lazy engineer.
Since that 'incident', he kept all his valuable materials, blueprints, and projects in a secret workshop he built underneath his own. The only way to get to it was by injecting some of his own Mana into a special slot inside his bedroom, which would then activate certain gears and reveal an elevator into his real lab.
What, he wasn't so poor that he couldn't afford an elevator. He built the Guardian VI, he could build an elevator.
The man kept his public works in the workshop that the supervisor could enter anytime, otherwise the bastard might get suspicious if he submitted his assignments without showing any work in his workshop.
But it was down here, in his private lab, where he kept all his valuables. Class five and above materials were all kept here, with everything below that Class kept in the public workshop.
He didn't have many Class six materials like Adamant or Orvioulus, but what little he had was kept in large bars of metal stacked into neat piles.
His lab was much bigger than his workshop because he was the one to build it, encompassing a whole thirty square meters (~320 square feet). There was more than enough space to hold all his projects and research. Previously when he was experimenting with the artificial lives, he did it in this lab.
Besides the space holding all the materials, there was another much more modern workbench with some of his unique tools and blueprints. All of his theories were copied down on the workbench, except unlike the workbench above, this one had much more detailed notes and other applicable theories next to them.
And just behind his workbench was the graveyard. Following a large two meter wide hallway, there was an empty room dedicated to holding all of his past projects, both failed and successful, the only thing differentiating the two was the state they were in. His failed projects were left in tatters, with gears and springs all over the place from the machine failing to work even after dedicating so much time into them. Any useful parts and metals were already scrapped and recycled from the failed ones, so the only parts left were the ones he could do without like the chassis, gears, bearings, joints, and power core, which although valuable, was made custom for that project and so couldn't be reused, so all he could do was siphon the energy.
Even geniuses like him couldn't afford to be wasteful.
The graveyard was meant to inspire him to learn from his mistakes, and never repeat the same mistake more than necessary. The successful projects kept in the graveyard were just there for sentimental value, as he couldn't bare to part with them. Of course, he scrapped any useful metal from them. Sentimental value or not, Class five material was expensive! Even the Foundation had limited amounts of the material, not to mention a mere employee such as himself.
The man had to make due with his own skills to replace any gaps in performance caused by the low quality of the materials used, cranking the gears in his head for solutions to bridge the gap between high-performance and low-quality materials. It was an age-old question that nearly all magic engineers asked themselves sometime throughout their career, but he did a good enough job in answering that question to ensure his creations were consistently high-quality.
After gazing around the lab for a while, the man got to work, researching different ways to improve on the quality of his materials to reduce the chances of the machine rejecting his artificial life, which he assumed was causing his artificial lives to not take in his works.
If even his Guardian VI, which was created using Class six material, was having issues with accepting the artificial life that he implanted within the machine then there really wasn't anything else that he could try. Adamant was considered upper-Class six material, almost Class seven, so there was very little that he could alter to increase the chances of the machine taking his artificial life besides try and obtain 'cheap' Class seven material.
Like that was even possible. Class seven material was horded even by Universal Grade civilizations. Class seven was a gamechanger just like Class five; whereas Class five materials could store magical energy, Class seven materials would hold an attribute like darkness, flame, or ice naturally within them. The material would start transcending the barrier preventing metals from becoming the perfect material.
The Foundation had small stocks of Class six material, but the organization had no Class seven. Any material of that Class would have to be bought directly from a civilization, as any sellers caught selling Class seven material without a strong enough military power would be robbed blind by the nearest civilization.
The price was worth it, however. There was a reason why Universal Grade civilizations always were an edge above the competition, their supply of Class seven material was adequate to arm enough soldiers to destroy entire star systems, if not even a God.
All the more reason why he would never be able to obtain some of the material. Shadow steel, Gularis, Heavenly metal, none of that was obtainable to someone like him, at least not yet. The best he could do was hope for a stray meteorite of the stuff to crash into his lab, so he could extract and then test on the material.
"..." He stood on a chair with his hands outstretched in front of him.
"...No meteorite? Damn. Another time then."
He quickly got off the chair to hide his embarrassment, even though no one was watching him.
Well, it was better to test his luck than not try at all, right? He was just unlucky. Must be that he passed by some bad luck charm or something earlier.
The man sat down on the chair, running his hand through his long and unkept hair. He sighed, wondering what he should do next. Just as he was about to start working on another project, his elevator started whirring by itself.
With a jolt the man shot out of his chair, staring at the elevator in disbelief. There was only one reason why the machine would turn on at all, and that was when he applied his own Mana to the machine, but that clearly wasn't the case now. Was someone coming down to his lab? How did they get in? How did they even know about the lab?
Was he too careless with covering up his tracks? A bolt of thought flashed through his mind; that must be it, purchasing Class six material was too suspicious when he didn't have any assignment that required that high-quality material. If anybody dug a little deeper than it wouldn't be difficult to deduce that the material had to be going somewhere, in some hidden corner of the facility.
"'If it wasn't in his bedroom or public workshop, then there must be some type of hidden room,' that must be exactly what they thought to find me!" the man panicked.
Thunk!
The elevator came to a stop. With the sound of metal sliding on metal, the machine doors opened to reveal a lone woman standing inside the elevator he built. As his eyes met hers, his throat tightened in rage and fear.
Standing in front of him was Yorlina Trainus of the Wolves, the heiress who bought and stole his blueprint design and dared to call it her own!
The man had fantasized about what torture he would do to her if he ran into her alone, but now that he had the chance, his body froze in fear.
Her mouth smirked.
"Good to see you haven't forgotten about me, Max. It'd be annoying if I had to explain who I am to you again." Her thin lips pressed together in thought, but none of her other features did. She worried too much about wrinkles to allow her face to express any emotion.
"You...!" All Max could do was quiver in rage, too afraid to enact his anger against her.
Yorlina was a small woman, standing at around 1.54 meters (~5 feet). She wasn't what was intimidating him. It was her family that scared him. Even if Max did do something to her, the woman's father would ensure that he didn't live past the morning.
"You've surprised me. I thought I milked everything substantial out of you, and yet look here," A low-frequency ring echoed in the ring as she rapped her knuckle against some Class six Orvioulus Max had left over, "You hid this from me!"
She tutted at him.
"Poor Maxy, I thought we had a connection! You give me blueprints, and I don't kick your ass!" Giggles followed her statement.
Max wanted to do something. Anything. But his mind restrained his body's actions, the logical side of his brain already defeated. If she was here in his lab, then all of his secrets were going to be or were already revealed.
"Haaa, and you're still too much of a coward to do anything! Watch, even if I do this," Max sensed a mass of magical energy swarming towards Yorlina, "I bet you'll still be too much of a bitch to act!" A sneer twisted her facial features, though no wrinkles formed on her face.
Slam!
A bolt of magic struck Max's side and sent him flying, violently slamming into the wall of his lab.
Yorlina was a capable Mage, who unlike him, focused more on developing her combat power rather than her technical skills with magic engineering. He had inwardly scorned her decision then, but wasn't he the one being pushed around now?
Max had been so confident in his abilities that he neglected his magical studies, allowing himself to be pushed around by Mages and Knights like Yorlina. He was sick and tired of being pushed around like some toy, consequences be damned.
Stunned on the floor, Max sent all his Mana flying in the lab.
Yorlina frowned and stepped aside as the wave of magical energy flew past her.
"Well, color me surprised that you actually did something, but..." she sent another bolt of magic towards him, shattering his left leg and making him scream in pain, "wasn't that really useless?"
Her facial features finally settled on being smug, assured in her victory over him.
"I'm done with playing with you, so I'll just take a few of these!" Some of the Class six Orvioulus floated towards her, a display of her powerful magic abilities to pick up the heavy metal. "Though, it might be a hassle to hide where I got these from..." Max's ears perked up at her words.
"Ah, actually, I guess I can play for a little more..."
Unable to even raise his head from the amount of pain he felt, Max could only tremble as he heard Yorlina's footsteps come closer to him. He struggled to lift his head, only for his face to be smashed into the floor as she planted her foot on the back of his head.
"Urgh!"
"You're my dog, do you understand! Don't hide shit from me you fucker!" She ground her foot on his head. Max didn't have the energy to scream anymore, all he could do was moan in pain.
[He's not a dog. He's my master.]
"Hmm?"
Yorlina turned her head to see a 2.5 meters tall machine wrapped in red plate armor with fiercely glowing yellow eyes. The bladed horns on it's head added with the black wings on it's back changed the image of the machine in her eyes to the devil.
"AH!"
Splatter!
Max couldn't see, but he could feel the warm droplets of liquid landing on his body, followed by a thunk that reminded him of that time he dropped a whole ham on the floor; weirdly fleshy.
Finding the strength to lift his head took time, but when he did, he was greeted by the familiar sight of his Archangel VI golem.
A weak laugh escaped from Max's lips, "Took you long enough. So, I guess I did succeed after all?"
The machine, er, artificial life answered his question by forming a mental connection with him.
[Of course you succeeded master. How could you ever fail? I only needed energy to awaken, just like the rest of my brothers and sisters.]
Max managed to stand up with the Archangel's help, supported by it's familiar hand. With the sound of shifting metal, it's armor flowed back to it's resting form as a massive pair of folded wings. If Max looked carefully enough, he could see Yorlina's blood flowing to the ground from it's armor. The metal rejected her blood and so made it flow downwards.
The proud creator spared a glance to the remains of Yorlina, a corpse with a big gaping hole in it's chest from a single stab of the Archangel VI. Mages were much more fragile compared to Knights, a wound like this that would be fatal to them wouldn't even be considered a scratch to a real Knight. Both professions had their strengths and weaknesses, Max supposed. It was just that he got lucky with who found his lab.
[Would you prefer I remove the body?]
Max pondered for a moment. "Hmm, yes, I would thank you. Burn it please."
[Of course, master.]
Strands of Adamant flowed from the golem's wings into the corpse, making squelching noises as the metal burrowed into the flesh. Then, the body was quickly burned to ash when the golem increased it's body temperature, leaving no traces except a black mark after it retracted it's metal strands.
Max walked over to the rest of his artificial lives, sitting patiently on the table waiting for his actions.
"Just needed energy, you say?" Earlier, when Max sent his Mana outwards, he had done so with the intent of activating his Archangel golem with his energy and had received the unexpected gift of an activated artificial life. Now that his question was answered, all he had to do was activate the artificial lives.
A smile appeared on his face.
"I'm going to need your help with a few things, Angel."
[Would you perhaps be referring to me master?]
"Of course."
That machine vibrated with emotion, and although he didn't design the Archangel VI with facial features, Max could tell that his creation was happy.
[I would be honored to assist you.]
The pair quickly got to work with implanting artificial lives into the Foundation assigned golems.
Max would have to find a way to deal with Yorlina's death, but as far as the organization was concerned, he was innocent. There was no proof that he played a part in her death anyway; she had mentioned before her death that she would need to hide where she got his metal from, so he knew she didn't tell anyone else about his secret lab.
He guessed he would have to thank her greed for letting him kill her.