Returning to Wailing Mountain, I dug out boxes with my belongings and tiny lizard. Taking Rock in my hands, I opened the doors to the head of my construct and directed the lizard inside. The properties of dark gold under the influence of honey allowed me to easily make changes to the structure of the golem. Seeing the small human-shaped doll with my face, Rock's eyes froze in surprise.
- It's me kid. Get used to it, now this is my real body. - I sent Rock a message.
At first, he simply opened his mouth and began to look doubtfully at the little white man, seemingly hesitant to bite without permission.
- It's okay, this doll is invulnerable, you can do whatever you want. - I gave permission.
Rock immediately rushed at me and bit the doll in the chest area. The doll was the size of a little finger, while Rock was the size of a palm. So I became a perfect victim for the lizard to bully. Rock jerked his head back and forth, beating my rag body against the inner walls of the construct's head. He seemed determined to take full advantage of such opportunity.
- Very funny. - I commented.
I myself was thinking about whether Rock could get into the Sea of Decay anomalous zone. Lizard was entirely made of gold, at least for now, even those bead eyes seemed to resemble glass. I decided to try a couple of poisonous fumes on it, but it didn’t seem to matter to Rock and he continued to beat me against the wall and stomp on my rag body.
Rock was still a child despite the years that had passed. Usually, in his eyes, I was an all-powerful giant, like most other creatures. Seeing that I suddenly became so small, he apparently immediately decided to demonstrate his power to me and show who is now in charge from now on. In any case, I hardly felt his efforts, so I decided to let him do what he wants.
Dark gold saved my life many times, so Rock for me was now the closest being in this world and I was ready to forgive him anything.
When Rock finally finished frolicking, I took the boxes and moved deep into the deserted territories away from Wailing Mountain. It was worth checking the strength of my rank 1 Sonic Burst first. Of course I was not going to use massive Sonic Burst which could destroy the entire area right now. Only narrowed version for body jumping.
After walking about fifty kilometers and making sure that there were no settlements in the nearest kilometer from me, I hid the boxes away and went into a small depression. A river flowed nearby, and there was a rather ordinary coniferous forest around. Hills of various sizes surrounded this lowland from almost all sides.
It is interesting that since I left the Melrose tower it started to rain a little and it gradually became stronger. Now dark clouds completely filled the sky, thunder and lightning began. Of course, this could not interfere with me, so I did not pay much attention to it.
Now I didn't need formations, I could use my innate spell in a certain radius around me with a single thought. And I was still able to model the radius of impact, the direction, the frequency of the sound wave, and so on. Moreover, the innate spell was applied almost instantly and spent a fairly small part of the mental energy.
Using a directional Sonic Burst below myself, the construct took off into the sky. However, despite the enormous force of the blast wave of my spell, it was not so easy to lift a construct weighing two tons into the air. Rising into the air about 20 meters, the construct abruptly flew down at great speed. The force of the impact on landing shook the ground and I plunged almost half a meter into the ground. At least the dark gold still withstood the force of the blast.
I will have to first modify my body by adding a gravity reduction formation to it. Although it cannot completely remove gravity, it is quite possible to reduce it by several times. Such work will take at least a couple of months, but I had enough time in reserve.
Moreover, I could create a two-sided gravity formation, thus adjusting the weight of my construct right during the battle. Of course, I will do experiments in this direction later.
My construct consumed about a hundred crystals per hour while actively running. The amount of mental energy needed to fuel all the formation mechanisms for this two-ton carcass was enormous. If you reduce the weight, then the cost of magic crystals will become smaller. On the other hand, the gravity formation was also extremely voracious. The optimal solution would be to minimize the golem's actual movements and move around only with the help of blast waves. At least they don't cost me anything.
Initially, I thought about creating a huge golem, but given the cost of the current golem, it became clear that I simply could not afford such a thing, not to mention other problems associated with such a size. I felt like a beggar again.
Suddenly, my thoughts were interrupted by lightning that struck straight at the construct's head! Immediately after, a deafening thunder sounded. The control formation that contained my true body in shape of white ragdoll was partially damaged.
Does dark gold attract lightning? Never noticed this before. I decided to leave the construct and fly away from it. I stopped in an open clearing and looked at the swirling clouds. Suspiciously, they were darkest just above my head.
Suddenly, another lightning came, this time as thick as a tree. Flew straight into the body of a rag doll. There was no way to dodge. The power of this lightning was incomparable with the previous one, there was a small crater under me. Although the doll still remained intact, I still felt what mental pain is. I even for a split second felt sorry for the poor gargoyle that I tortured in the tower. Now it became obvious that the lightning was aimed specifically at the doll.
I immediately remembered passages from the annals about the great war of the Mages two thousand years ago. It was stated that even Mages of the 6th rank, and possibly even higher, participated in this war. But it all ended with the fact that all Mages of the 4th rank or higher were simply expelled from the Mage World.
Of course, I found few details. But presumably since that day, the Mage World has completely isolated itself from communication with other worlds. Until now, there have been records that earlier it was possible to move to other worlds, summon various creatures from there, and much more. But after the war, the World of Mages rejected everything foreign.
Apparently, the Mage World was sentient to a certain extent. At least this natural phenomenon I could only explain in this way. It's hard to believe that some high-level Magician capable of controlling the forces of nature has nothing better to do than torturing a Rank 1 Magician like me.
The conclusions suggested themselves. I remembered the Reaper, and then I remembered the eyes of the doll in which there was a bottomless darkness. This humanoid clearly left something unnatural for this world in me. I symbolically closed my eyes, the light in the eyes of the doll instantly went out and in place of the eyes there were again two black gaps from which my soul felt chills.
At the same time, the clouds thickened even more. A hurricane wind rose, it seemed to me that I felt the wrath of the Mages World . Finally purple lightning struck the doll. I twitched in a painful fit, the soul crystal trembled, but still survived.
The attack was not aimed at me, but at what the alien from another world had left in me. All I had to do was try to survive, this alien energy was of a completely different order and I could not interact with it in any way.
Suddenly, the stream of purple lightning stopped, or at least left me alone. At the same time, the hurricane only intensified and dark clouds filled the entire sky in the visibility zone, darkness fell on the world, but not for long. Multi-colored lightning began to fall to the ground in hundreds of places. It looked like a real apocalypse. I couldn't even see what exactly they were attacking.
Ten seconds later, everything suddenly ended, most of the dark clouds dissipated, the wind died down, the sky brightened up. Light rain continued to drip onto the ground as if nothing had happened. I went to the river and looked into the eyes of the doll. Now in place of the eyes was the usual white cloth. It all happened so quickly that it caused me sincere bewilderment. It had just been almost the end of the world, and the next moment everything suddenly returned to normal.
It only remained to assume that the Reaper left in me something like a piece of the soul. When the Mage World identified the threat and began to attack, these particles tried to separate and hide. In any case, I was glad that I survived, the rest did not bother me too much.
I was lying on the bank of the river and drops of rain fell on my rag body. For me, these drops were as big as melons. However, I was happy that I was still alive and could feel the drops falling on my body.
The sensations were very different from those of a living person. I can no longer make love, eat human food, feel the cool wind on my skin. However, I was not at all upset about this. Perhaps if I were young and strong, I would never want to lose my human body. However, I was a disfigured old invalid on the verge of death. In such a situation, my body brought me more suffering than happiness. No matter how I tried to hide it, but my crippled body put pressure on me psychologically. Young and healthy people would never understand this.
Now, being a kind of living golem, I again felt healthy and free. As long as I'm alive, I will have countless opportunities. Maybe one day I'll even be able to restore my human body. Although time erases everything, so perhaps after many years the memories of how wonderful it is to be in a living body will also become dull and I will prefer to remain a construct forever.
I plunged into meditation for the first time since becoming a True Mage. My soul mind was inside the soul crystal. The sound blast became part of my spiritual body. I will never be able to change the essence of my innate spell again.
However, the central mind rune of this meditation technique allowed me to make many changes to my spell. As soon as I wanted to change the frequency of sound vibrations, the amount of elemental energy or the strength of the explosion, the central rune began to rotate, adjusting to my desires.
My advanced meditation technique was only for True Magicians. It didn't contain any information about Rank 2 Mages, at least for now. However, I could and would continue to use this meditation technique to its limit, namely the peak of the True Magus stage. Changing the meditation technique is possible, but this can lead to unpleasant consequences. However, if I complete this meditation technique as intended by its creator, then there will be no problems with mastering a new one.
According to the general information received at the academy, in order to break through to the 2nd rank, a True Magician must reach the next limit of mental strength, as well as the necessary level of elemental transformation of his body. Of course, there were many barriers along the way.
The problem here is that without additional resources, even hundreds of years will not be enough to achieve success in both the first and second. Therefore, True Magicians are ready to risk their lives killing each other for the opportunity to take the next step forward.
But even if these resources are available, it still does not guarantee success. Attempts to forcibly increase mental energy by external factors can create many negative consequences up to damage to the soul or death. Solving these problems is not at all easy, many Magicians get stuck at a certain level of mental energy for their entire lives. Similar consequences should have awaited me after breaking through to the True Mage, however, it is possible that the Reaper solved my hidden problem for some reason.
The same goes for the transformation of elemental essence. If it were possible to simply gobble up a bunch of fire crystals to raise the elemental essence of fire, then there would be a whole abyss of Mages, but everything is far from being so simple.
On the other hand, I have about 500 years of life ahead of me, so this is unlikely to be a problem for me. Even if I do not use external factors at all, my life should be enough to slowly but surely get the desired result.
If the Magician reaches about 50% elemental conversion, then his body becomes immune to his own element. At 80% conversion, the selected element can receive additional properties, although everything here depends primarily on the Mage himself, his experience and his meditation technique. Accordingly, the elemental damage of the Mage's spells also increases.
An attempt to transform the body above 80% may result in the Mage's body passing the point of no return and he will turn into a kind of elemental. Although such an elemental will theoretically be stronger than other Mages of the 1st rank, but his body will cease to be alive, in fact it is nothing more than death. Usually the soul and body are simply destroyed due to such a transformation. Even if the Magician can somehow survive, such an elemental will have to look for other methods of advancement, since human methods will become useless for him. Usually in such rare cases, the Mage forever remains at the first rank.
Initially, my affinity for the element was not connected with the soul, but with the body. However, the breakthrough to the True Magician meant the transfer of information from the body to the soul during its transformation. The same thing happened with the human brain and other features of the body. During the breakthrough to the True Magician, all the information and experience of the body turns into a kind of "code" that passes into the soul, forming its essence.
A similar situation with the breakthrough of the Mage of the 1st rank to the 2nd. They continue to focus specifically on the human body, increasing their elemental conversion. Finally, during the transition from 1st to 2nd rank, the soul receives an updated "code" from the Mage's body. Accordingly, improving the elemental conversion with the element of the newly formed soul.
Thus, my current level of affinity for the element of sound was preserved in my soul after the breakthrough. On the other hand, elemental conversion of sound element is basically no longer possible for me and will not progress like other Magicians who had living bodies. The standard path of the Mage is closed to me.
