- How dare you! I'll kill you! Your soul will suffer for thousands of years! - continued to yell Melrose.
It seemed that my stream of insults completely pissed him off, the chaotic energy of darkness covered everything around. Melrose himself continued to scream like a fit, throwing threats and insults at me. It seemed that he was about to attack, but second after second went by, and the old man did nothing but continue to grimace. Unfortunately, he was limited to threats only.
Realizing that I was wasting my time, I decided to just ignore this clown. I couldn't rob him using this little body. I flew out of his office and went to my room. There I found a communication imprint created for my golem and sent a signal.
The golem came to life and rose from the ground, after which it ran towards the tower. I flew towards him.
My current body was incredibly light and strong. I could fly pretty fast with just a little wind element. On the other hand, even crashing into an ordinary tree at full speed, my rag body did not cause any damage to the tree. The weight of the rag doll was negligible.
The only method of actual fight was innate variations of the 1st rank sonic burst spells. I didn't have any other rank 1 sound spells. However, I was afraid that this spell might harm Melrose, so I didn't risk using it around him. On the other hand, the golem will help me rob Melrose without spells. At least it was worth trying.
The contract didn't say anything about my property or Melrose's property. Naturally, I didn’t have anything of value with me, but the old man clearly had something to profit from. Melrose subconsciously did not had much faith in the success of the experiment, so he did not pay proper attention to the possible consequences of my survival.
Soon I met with my dark gold golem. Initially, I calculated a place for the Soul Pearl in it, but the doll was also quite small, so there was enough space. A small opening appeared on the back of the golem's head, and I climbed inside its head, taking a place in the formation and taking direct control.
The golem's eyes lit up with white light and I rushed towards the tower again. The poisonous fog could not harm either the doll or the golem. Although, from now on, I was more like a living construct. Due to the two tons of weight, each step of the golem slightly buckled the earth and created a tremor on the ground.
Meanwhile enraged Melrose released his anger on everything around him, cursing me and all my ancestors like I have any. If there were any acolytes in the tower, they hid in their rooms. While I was waiting for my new body, Melrose calmed down a bit and descended frowningly watching me approach from outside the tower.
- I am ready to offer you anything, artifacts, magic crystals, knowledge. You've seen my golems, they're living golems. Only I have such a technique, even among the Mages of the 2nd rank you will not find it. I will teach you how to use the souls of True Mages to create living golems. Such golems will always be loyal to you alone. There is nothing even to compare them with those bobbleheads that you saw in the academy. I don't need a family anymore, I'll create my own golem family. But I need time. Just use the Soul Pearl, leave the doll to me and take whatever you want instead.
My suspicions were not unfounded. They were really living golems, and Melrose seemed to be able to limit them so much that they had no choice but to behave like faceless statues. This technique was really interesting to me, but in nearest future I will be able to coup without it.
- Show me your techniques and then I'll think about the doll. - I tried to scam the old man.
Melrose raged again, it became clear that he did not intend to share secrets with me. Losing interest in him, I rushed to the tower. It was too huge and could not be completely isolated by the formations. These were only in important parts of the tower.
The golems between floors ignored me. They were under the control of Melrose, which means their attack is equal to the attack of Melrose himself.
I climbed the stairs and stood in front of one of the stone gargoyle golems. Being a True Magician, I was now able to scan the insides of the golem. However, apart from the formations for the operation of the structure itself and a couple of runes unfamiliar to me, I didn’t feel anything in its head, no signs of a soul.
After cutting off the golem's arm, I heard the golem let out a guttural growl, staring at me with anger. I was a bit surprised, does the golem feel pain? Then I decided to cut off his head as well, the gargoyle tried to resist but it was useless, the forces were not equal. The head of the gargoyle was separated from the body, but the golem remained alive, although it clearly experienced not the most pleasant sensations.
- Moron! The soul of a golem is its body. They are merged into one. You won't find a damn thing inside.
Unification of body and soul. Didn't the Reaper do the same to me? Although I did not remember his specific actions, but before entering another dimension, I was just a soul without a spiritual body, and returned already in the body of a doll. Given what I could see and feel, this is very similar to the technique of creating a living golem. The only difference is that my soul crystal and memory remained completely intact.
Melrose followed me all this time, continuing to curse and threaten me with reprisals. He blocked the doors behind the golem leading to the second floor. He even tried to penetrate my construct's body with his mental energy, but my own mental energy filled the construct, so he would have to sweat a lot to force it out.
Although his mental energy and elemental energy transformation level was clearly higher than mine and he was much stronger than me, but in terms of mental energy, the difference was not so great. At least not big enough to overwhelm me with mental energy alone.
Even the tower could hardly bear the weight of my construct, the stone staircase partially collapsed.
- But what if the golem is huge, ten meters or more, you need a bigger soul? - I decided to ask a question continuing the experiments.
- No, soul size doesn’t matter, just need to create a much larger formation and the chance of failure is higher. Melrose frowned. - I can't attack or restrain you, but this armor of yours is just a shell, if you continue to stagger on my tower, I will disfigure this golem body of yours.
- Really? Hmm, I'm also wondering how the contract will react. Come on hit me with strongest spells you got.
Melrose was speechless and frowned. And I continued.
- I can destroy your tower and plunder your goods and you will not be able to stop me. If I'm wrong then do it finally. Well, if you can't, I'll either do as I plan, or you'll tell me everything I want to know. At least all of your treasures including the Soul Formation Hall will remain intact. You don't want to start over, do you?
I can even offer you something in return, maybe it will even increase your chances of soul transfer success. We can make a contract if you don't trust me. We both swear that the information is true and no one will tell anyone else the information received for the rest of their lives, what do you say?
Gradually, by threats and persuasion, I got it my way. Although I wouldn't mind getting the wealth of a True Magician but if I will destroy the tower, information about what happened here might leak out. In addition, during the time spent at the academy I looted a lot, so I had a decent supply of magic crystals and other materials.
Interestingly, when Melrose finally calmed down, he suddenly said something about the fact that my soul should be damaged. From the looks of it, the Ascension potion was supposed to damage my soul in the process of advancing. It is almost impossible to heal such wounds on your own, the only way is to enter the service of one of the 2nd rank Mages organizations in the central part of the Southern Continent or offer them something valuable enough in return.
It was a kind of way to control Rank 1 Mages, without the participation of the existing Rank 2 Mages, almost none of them would be able to break through to Rank 2. For the same reason, there weren't many True Magicians here, most of them went to the central part of the Southern Continent and stayed there joining one of the factions.
However, I did pretty well with the spirit of the potion, even if there were some consequences, I didn't feel them at all. My meditation technique did not grant special abilities and did not form an innate spell for me automatically like some higher meditation techniques, however, my mental energy was quite pure, mind rune formation defense was really high, and finally I could use almost all the formations and spells that I had previously used with ease and almost without spending mental energy. The mere ability to generate sound vibrations was priceless!
We signed a contract. I gave Melrose an ancient rune that could help stabilize the spiritual body. I was going to use it on my Soul Pearl after the experiment. I don't know if this will help Melrose in any way, but the rune interested him anyway. He will come up with the formation for it on his own.
He also gave me full research on the creation of living golems, including the process of extracting the soul.
Apparently, this required a True Magician, or an acolyte who, as in the case of this experiment, broke through to the True Magician. The essence of his ancient formation is that when the soul dies and the soul crystal with the mind runes is destroyed, the Magician is essentially already dead. There remains only an empty remnant of the soul without memory and consciousness.
Of course, it is not always possible to successfully extract such a soul remnant, usually the soul and the soul crystal disintegrate at the same time. Besides, this soul is really just a shell. It is no longer able to create mind runes, it does not have mental energy.
Even if you succeed in catching this soul shell into the Soul Pearl, in order for this soul to gain memory and the ability to think, you yourself will have to gradually fill this memory and transfer the necessary knowledge. After that, the soul was connected to the body of the golem with the help of an ancient formation and became immune to mental energy. Thus, it will forever remain faithful to the instructions which the creator of the golem originally added.
This method was not only suitable for creating golems, but was also used to create advanced artifacts. Theoretically, such an artifact or golem, after many years, could become a truly intelligent being. Although usually this happened long after the death of the owner.
As a bonus, I requested other information as well, such as the damage-determination formation I used at the academy's training ground.
In the end, I left Melrose alone. I originally planned to come back here in three years and kill him to find out everything I needed, but now it was no longer necessary. He didn't have much time left anyway.
Since I had three years in reserve during which no one would know about what had happened, I did not have to rush to escape. I was already convinced in the power of the contract, so I believed in the safety of this secret. Although Melrose did not dare to attack, but his fear of the contract itself told me a lot.
On the other hand, the fact that I went to experiment with Melrose was known not only by Nocturne. If I appear in public, then questions may arise, and there are not far from problems. I was not yet ready to face even a rank 1 True Mage, let alone a rank 2, in a serious fight.
It would be a bit of a pity if the people in the newly formed settlement of Tarrister died, but there was nothing to be done, at least I informed them of the possible outcome. On the other hand, the insane Melrose is sure to go to Outland in an attempt to find another figurine. Even if he understands that these are just insignificant dreams, this is unlikely to stop him. There was nothing I could do about that, if he decides to kill the descendants of Bertram or other people associated with me, then this is their fate.
Since I took the surname Tarrister, I have never run away or hid from anyone. Even now, I didn't really want to do that. But no matter where I go from this, my plans for the near future do not change. I had to remake and improve my golem until I was satisfied. Conduct many experiments and tests with sound vibrations. Learn artifacts and how they work. Do some research and test the ancient runes from the Francis book and much more.
I decided to just imagine that I was not hiding, but taking a short vacation.
