The next morning, Vulcan was ready on standby at the medium-sized automaton factory control room. All of the last day, he had witnessed the process of his two new bodies being formed. He watched as the advanced machinery and robotic limbs inside the assembly lines attached his limbs together one by one, then placed the core that powered his body. It was a surreal experience. He imagined it would be the same as a human watching a fetus grow from a baby to a grown adult in a capsule. Either way, he had to say it, his new body was already looking fierce. Unlike his rank 1 and rank 2 sentry bodies, which had more of a shiny grey tone, this one was black with gold highlights all over it. It made him look really fancy and meant to be sold for higher nobles to buy.
He could make a body out of gold; he had found plenty of it in the ravine. That was how he was able to entice the group of thugs to attack that noble lady. But the metal was considered rank 1 since it was very malleable and not as strong as steel. Just then, his new bodies were being lowered down into the finished section of the factory. He could already tell they were a head taller than the steel sentry and far thicker in size. He looked like an absolute unit. The connection to the two sentries was felt, and he did his thing. The connection to the new bodies was instant.
"POOOOWWEERRRRR!!!!" He yelled out from his new bodies. The two new sentries turned around and gave themselves a high five. The clank reverberated throughout the factory.
He then remembered something and left the factory to head towards the shooting range in his fortress. A large crowd of sentries gathered and watched. Just about 50 yards away, he lifted his palm up and with quick calculations in his head, he adjusted the aim. A ray of red energy zapped from his palm to the wood and hay dummy set up. It burned a hole right through the dummy and continued going through the stone wall in the back, leaving molten rock dripping inside the hole in the wall. He hadn't expected it to be this strong; it just went through 10 meters of stone like nothing.
He then had an idea; he felt it a little when he fired the blast earlier. He aimed this time straight into the sky, then fired the blast, but this time he kept it firing and turned it into a beam instead of a single shot. A minute turned to five, then ten, and he finally felt his core overheating and stopped. So he could keep the blast going as long as he fed it energy; that was good to know. He then had several steel sentries fight him. As the sentries threw punches, kicks, and even grappled him, none of it worked on this unit. The grappling only worked when more than five of the steel sentries held onto him, but even then, he still couldn't be taken to the ground. By his testing, he figured maybe this new black gold unit was at the peak silver rank stage of what the humans called it.
Finishing his testing, he then headed over to another part of the training grounds. Here, he was able to see Jess fighting two of his steel sentries. The human woman had been training her cultivation over the couple of months since she had the breakthrough using the nano stim. Her rate of cultivation had leapt from low Iron stage to peak iron stage at this point and had even been taught new martial arts fighting techniques. The new training regime had never been seen before on this continent. Martial arts like taekwondo, karate, judo, etc., had never been taught in this world. Their style of fighting was more akin to boxing and simple wrestling moves. The woman took to it like she had been doing it her entire life and impressed Vulcan, who had been a major talent in the fighting scene in his past life.
In another corner of the training ground was Jason. He was weight training in a gym Vulcan had made for him. The young village chief had a moment of realization from his past mistake of being so helpless against the mercenaries that he asked Vulcan to help him get stronger. Vulcan hadn't considered it since he always saw him as a weak man, but this new resolve of Jason's made him see the man in a new light. He would need people he could use in the future, so why not help the guy? Jess and him sat him down to explain how it was possible for her to increase in strength so quickly and that would have him take a nano stim. The problem was that he needed to be critically injured for it to work. With a determined face, he asked for Vulcan to hurt him. Vulcan didn't ease him into it and went straight to first breaking his arms and legs. Feeling the pain, Jason cried out, and Jess turned around, not wanting to see or hear her him suffer. Vulcan beat him hard enough to the point where he was near death, and that was when he stimmed him. Like Jess experienced, he fell asleep, and the next day he woke up feeling stronger than ever. Overnight he had formed his core and reached the low earth stage. The two weeks after that were spent increasing his muscle mass for his body to handle the strain of his cultivation. Jess explained the stronger their core gets, the more strain it puts on the body to handle all the mana being put into their bodies. Jason soon reached middle earth stage after the weeks of training. The village chief felt like a whole new person after that. He was no longer the weak and useless man he used to be. Now, he was a warrior in the making, one that Vulcan could use for his plans in return for helping him.
Vulcan then stopped the training to get their attention, and they both ceased what they were doing to huddle up for a meeting.
"Damn, and here I thought I was finally catching up to you. Are you going to become giant-sized in the future?" asked Jess as she walked up to him.
"Maybe, who knows, maybe I'll grow an extra arm or leg," he said. The woman cringed, "God, that would actually be unpleasant if you suddenly turned into a spider."
She then turned to Jason, "You're looking great Jason, how's the training going?" The man froze, and his face went red at her compliment, "Well, you know. I'm barely getting the hang of it, but I can already feel the changes. If I knew getting this strong felt this good, then I would have tried forming my core before. But thank you for the compliment." He smiled happily at the end.
Vulcan was starting to feel like a third wheel, but more like a 10,000 wheel with all the sentries around.
"All right, huddle up. We have finally received the new shipment from the lord like he promised. We now need to accomplish our end of the deal like we set out to do. Jason, how are you feeling about the new changes to my plan? Are you feeling confident about going to the capital as the character Geppeto?" asked Vulcan. After finally being introduced into the plans, the man had asked to help out. He had felt excluded already when Jess left with Vulcan for more than a month before. This time he wanted to feel like he returned some of the help Vulcan had given him. His duties as the Village chief had almost disappeared. Vulcan had almost completely taken over the duties of taken care of the village. He had only been signing and writing documents more than being an actual village chief. Even then, Vulcans sentries could do that for him in his stead. Plus, he had noticed the villagers had lost a lot of respect and trust in him after the incident. He felt that he needed to get stronger to prove himself again, which is why he reached out to Vulcan for help.
"Give me a moment," he prepped his voice, "Hello, my name is Geppeto the magi-craftsman," he said in his best old man hoarse voice.
"Not bad, all you need to do now is hunch over and it will be perfect," said Vulcan as he made an 'Ok' hand gesture.
The reason he had the man act in his place was that he had felt that sooner or later, the lord or when meeting the king, he would be asked to reveal his face. Since Jason was young, he would give the man a new makeover using several products he got back in Roriksten. After applying the makeup, he would look older than he was and even gray out his hair with dye Vulcan made since he didn't find any for sale in the town. Jess had said that such a product wasn't a thing and that had Vulcan thinking of a new idea to start a store and sell products that haven't been made yet to gather more funds. Who knows, he might even build a merchant company and become powerful through financial value. Maybe then he would have more influence in other kingdoms. Just like on earth and the many large corporations who grew so large and powerful that world governments had to kowtow to them for favors.
"Excellent, tonight we will transport the convoy of sentries and exit the village while everyone is asleep. There is no going back after this; we must succeed. Failure is not an option anymore."