Chapter 97

With the mana engine in his hand, Tom focused on what was by far the most valuable individual threshold benefit he had gained. That he possessed it at his class level and age was proof about why competition species were broken. There was no way anyone under a class level of two hundred should have access to it, as it was completely broken at lower levels. Give him two years and his golem would become so upgraded that it would fight dozens of ranks higher than him. Conversely, Tom guessed his experience in the arena showed how terribly weak the competition races, or at least humans started. He had fought enemies whose training was pathetic yet by dint of birth or just by growing up in the magic environment they had higher ranks than him. They had clearly never truly fought for their lives, yet they had been materially stronger than he was.

Swings and roundabouts.

Tom pushed away his philosophical thoughts and concentrated his golem threshold ability on the strange device that he held. Tom felt his mind connect to something far vaster than he was. The mind that underpinned the threshold benefit focused on him and not a small part of its intellect, either. Most of it scrutinised him. It observed the nascent mana engine, and Tom felt it draw away. Its purpose was only for golem creating and fixing a random piece of magic tech did not count.

He shoved his intention for the use of the object at the controlling mind and the intelligence hesitated. It was surreal to think that this threshold ability had a lowercase-god-like entity behind its use. He had never considered the possibility, but he should have. His assumption that the GODs would do it was flawed. Why would they do that to themselves when they could create something to do the work for them? It was same with the trial administrators like Susie, only more specialised. Now that he had touched its mind, there was other stuff he knew.

It would not always respond.

If it was busy…

His request would go unanswered.

This was not an ability to rely on as a desperate last move in battle it was a tool that could only be used in advance and preferably with advanced planning.

He wondered why they had chosen to build sapience into a function. Then shook his head, annoyed at himself.

It didn’t matter. While he was at the level of an insignificant microbe, none of the whys mattered. Only results were important, and for now, that was fixing this golem component so he could use the spell. This was not something that he could do himself and if the engine wasn’t fixed, then there would be no golem.

The part is going to be key to the golem I’m building. I sourced all these materials… Mentally he projected everything that he had purchased. This mana engine brings it together. Look spell. And here is stone to form the base. Sensory organs… and… The thoughts ran out of his mind like diarrhea.

“Fine,” the word was the equivalent to an old lady smacking him on the back of the head, delivering quick, instant discipline for making a mistake. There was a subtext to the admonishing. He should have led with what he was doing. And presented structured arguments. And to treat the interaction with an appropriate level of solemnity. And to prepare properly.

Next time…

Next time he was to do better or…. The rest was left unsaid.

The entity shifted focus to examine the engine.

Tom’s own sensors were turned to the task. Fate, magic, identification, sight. His arm muscles twitched, and he shook the device vigorously while his mind strained to absorb the signals that were coming to him.

At its prompting, his hands rotated the Engine to allow it to examine it from every angle. Beyond his ability to comprehend, it could feel the mind both frowning at the lack of senses he possessed and also a sense of excitement as it sought to untangle the problem using the flawed tools it had available. The weakness of his abilities was a serious impediment even for the mighty intellect helping him.

Tom realised an unfortunate truth.

The threshold ability did not cast a spell to fix or upgrade what he was playing with; instead, it augmented his own capabilities to achieve the task. Tom’s mind almost shut down at the implications of that realisation. What happened if he lacked the power to upgrade something? He hoped it would contribute those resources, even if it relied on him for everything else. The one thing perfect finesse could not cover was the tyranny of energy levels. If the threshold ability needed raw power, it was useless.

The mind still examining the Nascent Mana Engine ignored him. A flare of mana left his hand into the engine, and the internals spun slightly. Satisfaction came from the linked mind, and Tom knew it had a solution for him. A bombardment of images hit him around how to proceed. It was basically a list of instructions, sort of similar to putting together flat pack furniture with the delightful addition of being specified across multiple dimensions.

A process Tom realised he was expected to follow. The threshold ability, just like it did not scan the object itself did not fix them directly like he had feared. Instead, it provided him with the knowledge to do the repair work. Internally, Tom was once more unsure whether to be excited by this bit of news or appalled.

On one hand, he would be taught techniques to fix an upgrade component with the rather immense downside that if he didn’t take it seriously or got distracted, the process could fail entirely. The upside to the lessons was tremendous, but the downside of failure might swamp that minor advantage.

“Focus.” The voice thundered in his head.

Why, best, less, whatever didn’t matter, Tom reminded himself yet again. He needed to stay in the present.

Every bit of his conscious mind focused on what had been shared with him. The engine from his diagnosis had four large visible conduits and six invisible in an alternative dimension. One of the physical conduits instead of being white had an ugly dark green stain through it where it was blocked and five of the invisible ones had similar problems afflicting them.

Tom needed to unblock all six before he could proceed to the next step.

The technique was classed as… trivial.

As far as Tom was concerned, it was not trivial. Focus a torrent of energy down to be pin sized, push it through the conduit, and then allow that energy to diffuse slightly and pass it back and forth until the pipe was fully open.

It was easy to describe with words but the process was far harder in practice. The mental instructions shared already gave him a headache.

Tom focused with everything he had. The connected entity fed power through to him and he sighed in relief that he would not be limited by his own mana levels.

The energy kept coming, and it rapidly felt like he was trying to hold back ocean waves with his hands. Tom could feel his very soul straining under the deluge. He tried to hold the raging torrent, which was the first step before he could shape it, but the crashing waves washed through his defences.

Help.

The entity heard and ignored him. As far as it was concerned, the task was beneath its notice and it had given him the tools to achieve the outcomes.

Internally cursing his own deficiencies, he kept trying to stop the smashing waves. Then he realised the entity was no longer sending him energy and the surrounding background levels weren’t decreasing. It was a closed system. In fact, now that he was aware it was like he was caught in a container with waves sloshing from one side to another. He did not need to master all of it instead just sufficient to poke a hole in the conduits. He extracted a smaller amount of energy that was manageable. The background rhythmic blows still slammed into him, but because he had prepared for it he adjusted to the shifting pressure, effectively surfing the waves rather than being overwhelmed by them.

His newly formed needle of energy was threaded through the physical conduit. The exertion was draining and the hole he created was off centre. Tom ignored the mistake and stubbornly continued. He turned his point of force into a brush and scrubbed the insides. Most of the green stain was cleaned out of the conduit, the substance evaporating when it hit air.

Boom, boom. His heartbeat pounded his brain. Tom marshalled his concentration to move to the first of the invisible pipes to clean. His brain twisted his perception like the entity had taught him and he could see the one he was targeting.

He wiped sweat off his brow, created a new needle, and pushed it through. With shaking hands, he progressed from one to the next not daring to take a break in fear of his concentration breaking.

Then the Nascent Mana Engine had all the connections open, and he was ready for the next step. It was far from perfect both in the physical conduit and the invisible ones. He could see the stains where the blockages used to be as opposed to the pristine condition that the technique was supposed to have restored the Engine too.

Mirth and annoyance radiated from the entity and a fair bit of embarrassment on his behalf. Images of how easy the process should have gone versus what he had managed kept getting sent to him.

Tom waited patiently for the next set of instructions.

It was simple… He just needed to simultaneously energise the four gems and put negative energy into three of the pipes and positive into the others.

The entity quietly showed him how to do it.

He was a skilled mage. His control over spark was impressive, but it was built from a muscle memory, so to speak, rather than god-like processing. For a human he was good, but he was still very much human and this task was better suited to creatures far smarter than he. What it was asking him to do was like being handed; two swords, three throwing stars, a brick and an umbrella and being told to juggle them when you had never successfully juggled even three balls before.

“Easy!”

Once more, it showed him the process.

Tom wasn’t sure how to start. He looked at the dodgy job that he had done with opening the blocked connections and now what it wanted him to do.

The jump of complexity was incredible.

The entity reassessed him and he felt the power that it had given being taken away like it was a dangerous toy. Then it expressed emotions of a patronising but indulgent pat on the head of a young kid. Tom was familiar with the process. It was what he had done to Em when she was younger. Taking the deadly scissors off her before she hurt herself because she was too young to know better.

The energy that had been seized reconfigured itself in front of him with a complexity that was mind-boggling. That framework interposed itself over the mana engine.

Woosh.

One second it was broken and the next the magic flowed within the internal bizarre structure of the device.

Once more, his senses were borrowed, and he tilted the device and examined it with all of his senses. Observing the engine over multiple seconds so that quantity of data was made up for the lack of precision in the information he was gathering. The mind was applying complicated mathematics with the extra data to improve the resolution of the scan. There was a feeling of quantified satisfaction and the entity that had helped him faded away till it was gone and in front of him unaspected mana began trickling out of the now working device.

Mana Engine (Tier 2)

A slightly damaged tier 2 mana engine with imprecisely cleaned channels. Energy output reduced by 17%.

Tom frowned at the description. He knew the penalty resulted from his lack of precision and if the entity had not guided the last step, he could hardly imagine how terrible the outcome would have been.

Curiously, he reached out to the ability to see if anything was offered in the downtime. It was like reaching into an empty loot portal. There was nothing there and no matter how many times he was going to swish his hands through it nothing would be revealed. He stopped trying to actively engage it and concentrated instead.

Instinctively, he could sense the countdown timer and till it was reduced to zero there was no way to contact the entity behind the bonus. It was a hard cut-off.

Tom now that he had experienced the ability he assessed it. The restrictions of using his own capabilities meant it was not as overpowered as he had hoped.

He was not upset.

Long term, this would be best. For example, it would help him to learn how to upgrade tier two basalt to tier three. The threshold ability would supply both power and expertise for the upgrading material in his golem, but if he was smart, he could learn what it did and then use that to enhance other basalt to either use in another golem or sell. Power he was not too worried about that was something that he was sure Harry could solve.

With a start he realised everyone was watching him and while he had been busy Keikain had been summoned.

“It’s a mana engine.” he told them. “I had to fix it and it’s going to be a key part of what we’re building.”

No one said anything.

“What happened at the end?” Sonya asked finally. “That last spell you cast. It was tailored for the engine. I’ve never seen any…” she stumbled to find appropriate words. “Can I see it again? Can you repeat it?”

Tom shook his head, but he guessed he should have expected that reaction. Even with his limited crafting skills he could recognise the value and opportunity of what he had done. If it was something he could do regularly, then he would have confined himself in workshops and forgone the battlefield because of its value. Luckily, his skills did not lie in that direction, so he could continue doing things he actually enjoyed. “I can’t. It’s an ability I got from the challenge trial. A four day cool down. And limited to using on parts of golems.”

Sonya and a lot of the other crafters nodded. If it was anyone else Tom knew they wouldn’t have bothered to ask as they had known deep down that the only way anyone could afford something so powerful would have been to accept large downsides. Unfortunately, amongst some circles, Tom knew he was developing a reputation of being capable of the miraculous.

He turned back to organising his work and thinking about the best instructions to give to Keikain.

“When you use it next, can I be there?” Sonya asked.

Tom was startled at the unexpected question. He had thought his cumbersome conditions would have caused them to lose interest.

“Me too.”

“We should all study it.”

There was no advantage in him keeping it secret and if they believed they could get something out of it there was only a single answer. The greater good for humanity triumphed over any concerns of him becoming a spectacle and given the future genuine chances of failure that was not a non-zero possibility. “Of course. Can I have a moment to focus, please?”

In his mind, he went through the steps that were needed to create the golem. Shaping the wire, incorporating the artefacts, then the rock and finally his magic to bring it all together. Then mentally he clicked his fingers. He had a crowd of people watching him, and most had chosen to be crafters. He was not alone.

Tom looked up at the gathered crowd. They were standing there observing him many of them fascinated. They could be used. “Can I get these turned into coils of wire?” He waved a hand at the pile of jewellery.

There were nods, so he started handing out the ugly pieces.

“How?” someone asked.

“Strip off the ornaments and cut the connections between wires.” A crafter answered for him. “Do you want it formed into a new shape afterward?”

Tom thought for a moment. He was not going for the spherical ball this time. This golem had to fight, and that was best served if it could hit with its natural shape.

From his inventory, he extracted one of his pebbles. Almost instantly, it transformed into the shape he had pictured in his mind. A four-legged design and three upper limbs and no head and because of the Crystal Eye had a large middle section. “I need a shell of wire shaped like this. And…” he warned before pulling out another pebble. This one spread out with unnatural precision. What was left was a rough diagram of the wire structure of the core. If the material hadn’t been a tier one material, it would have crumbled to nothing in a moment. It held its shape… barely. “Then a core in the central section that looks like this.” He raised the fragile construction.

The transformed rock rested across his two hands. If he was careful and used his magic, he should be able to place it on the ground and they could reproduce the design with the heavier wires.