On the way, Chibi blabbed about some spirit, then I began to ask him more precisely.

As far as I knew, no one below a rank 3 Mage would be able to form their spirit body even if they wanted to. Perhaps it could be due to some circumstances unknown to me, forming something like an evil spirit, but this spirit seemed to be sentient. My elemental damage was negligible, I dealt mostly physical damage, so spiritual bodies were an extremely problematic opponent for me.

- There used to be more spirits, but they all died out over time, the last old Nameless remained. Many spirits, like golems, tried to get out of the purple fog, but they all lost their minds. Other spirits died of old age. It was they who initially taught us golems a lot, including understanding the language. I've known Old Man Nameless all my life. I can tell you whatever you want about him.

- What rank is he?

- He is 2nd rank Mage. There were spirits of Mages from the 1st to the 3rd rank, but there was only one 3rd rank, he left 500 years ago and no one saw him again. Well, the old man Nameless has long resigned himself to his fate. He says he only has 10 years left to live. It will be sad when he is gone.

The overwhelming majority of magicians were extremely vile, greedy and prudent creatures. I could believe in the harmlessness of the golems, but I got to know the Mages too well, so I missed all the stories of the Chibi. It was important that this was the spiritual body of a Rank 2 Mage. Although I was pretty confident in my mental defenses, but not enough to make contact with a Mage that I can't even harm with physical damage.

I slowed down. The surrounding lands now looked very different. There were no more swamps, it seemed now there were solid jungles everywhere. It was still dark, but the level of the ground was getting higher as we moved, and little by little light was coming through.

I began to ask about other places in this zone and found out about the direction which is almost the opposite of where the Magician lived.

- Chibi, are we friends? - I asked suddenly.

- Of course! - the eagle excitedly began to fly around my construct - Sam and Chibi are friends forever!

- Great, then if you receive a request to transfer, just mentally agree. Don't go outside without a good reason and don't you dare hurt a little lizard named Rock or I'll kill you.

- You can be sure I will do anything for a friend. What is Rock? Wait, what do you mean by saying that you gonna kill me? - Chibi screamed.

A moment later, a formation appeared above Chibi and he disappeared into my subspace. If Chibi hadn't told me about the Magician, I would probably have killed him after coming to this settlement of his. There is a possibility that the Mages had a hand in the fact that the animated golems appeared.

However, a Magician with malicious intent would definitely not allow Chibi to tell me about himself. He was just a talkative and harmless living golem in the form of a bird, so it was pointless to hold a grudge against him. Stupid bird did not even realized that Mages did not care about him at all. They could do much more than just teach golems how to talk, but looking at Chibi it became obvious that local Mages just didn`t bother about golems. Most likely they just used them for their own needs and experiments sending them outside. No wonder there was not too many sentient golems left here.

Having learned about the Magician, I immediately decided to change plans and go as far as possible from his intended place of residence. Although I sometimes want to believe in the best and hope that I will meet someone like my mentor Gray again, nevertheless, I would not seriously count on such a thing.

I can meet other golems later. I have many more years to live, and this Magician will die sooner or later. The soul of a Mage of the second rank can live 800-1000 years. According to Chibi's story, he was familiar with this Mage from the very birth of his mind, about 900 years ago. At that time, there were many other souls of Mages, so this old man could not hide his rank from the chatty Chibi.

The spirit body itself was also not formed just like that, it had to be constantly supported by mental energy to avoid the dispersal of the soul crystal, it is obvious that this severely limited rank 2 spirit body. Also without a body Mage could not move forward in rank. To break through to rank 2, it was necessary to reach the required level of elemental transformation of the body itself, but I was not sure whether this level of transformation is fully transmitted in the form of a "code" as is the case with the element's affinity and other features of the body.

All things considered, I wasn't too worried about this Mage. Spiritual bodies are too weak to become a serious threat to a Magician of the same rank. Rather, they better stay away from real Mages so as not to become a useful ingredient.

Still, I didn't mean to underestimate such a creature. Even with only one soul crystal, the Mage is capable of much. I did not notice any traces of tracking on Chibi. And in general, this anomalous zone was so huge that even a Mage of the 3rd rank could not control it all.

I turned around and used the Sonic Burst to move in the other direction at top speed.

Meanwhile, Chibi ended up in subspace. At first, he squealed excitedly and began to look around with interest, however, he soon became frightened, realizing that there was no purple smoke in this space. On the one hand, he was afraid that he would lose his mind like other golems, but on the other hand, he always wanted to try himself, but was too scared.

For a while, he thought sullenly while flying over the teleportation formation, but noticing a lizard in the distance, he suddenly forgot about his worries and rushed to meet it. The little lizard was scurrying around the mountain of blue crystals, looking for small broken pieces of crystals, absorbing them intently. Hearing the intruder, Rock stared at the eagle with incomprehension, blinking his beady black eyes.

- Hi! Hello! - Chibi yelled as he landed nearby.

- Are you Rock? And I'm Chibi. I'm golem and you? Hahaha funny right? - He continued without waiting for an answer.

- You're pretty small. What do you eat there? Crystals? Great. I wish I could eat too, but I don't have a stomach. It's very sad you know.

Chibi continued to chat, and Rock listened. Although Rock understood his speech, he could not answer. But he gradually began to respond by nodding his head or other movements. Chibi was familiar with many golems that couldn't speak, so he didn't care. He began teaching Rock the sign language that the golems used.

Only after almost a day Chibi realized that something was wrong. Gradually, his already not so brilliant mind began to dull. Even control over the body began to deteriorate significantly. The chibi crawled to the formation and wished to return back to the Sea of ​​Decay.

While I was flying in the air, a formation appeared next to me and the Chibi materialized right in the sky. Folding my wings and changing the flight path with several Sonic Bursts, I picked up the Chibi and landed on the ground.

- Something happened. Something happened. Something happened. - constantly repeated Chibi.

I couldn't understand what was wrong with him, I just had to leave him in the middle of the purple mist on the ground and hope that he would come to his senses. After about an hour, he finally came to a more or less normal state.

- Tell me what happened. - I asked when I saw that Chibi felt better.

- I thought I was going to die. I don't want to die. It was terrible. I did not understand who I was and where I was, I even forgot my name. Rock is a good friend, but I'm afraid to go there again. - Chibi whined and cried helplessly.

Theoretically, I could try to fill my subspace with a purple mist. After all, there was nothing alive there except for a small amount of less valuable herbs. Alchemy wasn't my thing, I just didn't have time for it, so I didn't care. On the other hand, I could put local inhabitants and plants into the subspace.

Having made up my mind, I began to collect the thickest purple fog and the most infected vegetation like tree roots and transfer it all to subspace. It took some fiddling, but the subspace wasn't that big, so soon a more or less tolerant Chibi habitat was created. Satisfied Chibi again flew to play with Rock, and I went outside and went on.

Having flown in the region of three hundred kilometers along this extinct land, I stopped. There were hills and mountains of various sizes all around. Various types of rock formations and chaotic local vegetation with endless vines. At least no swamps.

The first thing I did after surveying the area was to set up traps and formations.

Having cleared a small space for myself near one of the mountains, I finished with meditation really fast. Usually I never spent more than 30 minutes a day wasting on it. There was a lot of work ahead.

To begin with, I decided to deal with sound vibrations. I never had enough time to properly immerse myself in experiments on this topic, now, finally, there is plenty of time.

I placed a stone in front of me and began to influence it with various sound frequencies.

The first parameter of sound was frequency or pitch. They, in turn, can be divided into infrasound, normal sound and ultrasound. Although I was no longer human and could perceive all sounds, I still remembered the boundary separating these frequencies for human hearing.

The second parameter is the intensity or strength of the sound, which in turn is related to both frequency and amplitude.

Next come the speed, duration and timbre of the sound.

If we add to this equation an infinite number of elements in nature, their mass and other characteristics that are affected by this or that type of sound, then it turns out that for such a research not only 500, even 5000 years will not be enough for me, or maybe even 50 thousand years.

Fortunately, being a True Mage of the sound element, I can omit all the details in matters of the sounds themselves and their parameters until better times. And all because any kind of sounds create those same sound vibrations.

I can directly reproduce these very vibrations, for this I do not need to literally create a sound of a certain tonality, pick up an instrument or use vocal cords. Ranging from the lightest vibrations with such a low frequency that they are almost impossible to notice, and ending with vibrations so powerful that they can lift a two-ton golem into the air. I could recreate any sound effects using just vibrations.

In the case of vibrations, there are fewer different parameters to consider. If I want stealth, I use the lowest intensity. If I want the most powerful explosion then I use maximum intensity I am capable of.

However, after becoming a True Magician, I can honor and even see vibrations all around me. Stones, water, people, golems, air, light. Everything around has vibrations and I can influence all these things in one way or another.

One option is simply to use vibrations of great power and intensity on everything and observe the results which is usually the destruction, the other option is to search for resonance. To do this, I need to select the intensity of vibration in such a way that it coincides with the vibration of other matters, entering into resonance. And having already entered into resonance, try, without violating it, to increase or decrease the intensity of vibrations to influence certain elements.

The problem here is that two seemingly identical stones of slightly different sizes have different vibrations. Therefore, despite the fact that there are fewer parameters in this experiment, there are still an infinite number of them. We can say that the study of vibrations is akin to one of the professions of Magicians, and perhaps much more difficult.

Initially, I planned to write down all the results of my experiments, but quickly abandoned such thoughts. Given the number of possible variations, a ton of books would not be enough for me. The memory of a True Magician may be better than that of mortals, but I am far from perfect memory.

Thus, I decided to write down only the so-called "recipes" of this profession. If I manage to find a certain kind or type of material the resonance with which will give some useful results, this result will become a recipe, like in alchemy.

Sitting over any one piece of material testing it with all sorts of vibrations would be too counterproductive. So I gathered a bunch of stuff around me. Various plants, herbs, stones, roots, rocks, crystals, and in general everything that I could find. After that sat down and released vibrations of various ranges and frequencies around myself, while simultaneously following with my feelings the reaction in the materials around and changes in them.

In the future, I was going to make these vibrations permanent, so that wherever I went and whatever I did, I could simultaneously conduct some kind of experiments. Of course, it takes time and practice to get used to it.

Some of the materials around me moved, trembled, or the sand gathered into various shapes. But that's not what I needed. Although after thinking about it a bit, I decided not to ignore the behavior of the sand. Might come in handy in the future.

Between experiments, I was going to completely redesign my construct to fit all of my current capabilities. For example, to improve the structure and quality of the formations that feed the movements of the limbs. Addition of runes of resistance to magic, runes of durability and so on. All these runes I had to try to reproduce and test in various circumstances.

I created a formation to test for damage numbers. It turned out that the hardness of the blue crystals in the subspace was as much as 27 units, which is much higher than even dark gold.

The crystal tails that rock left behind were even stronger, and they became the colors of the sun. At first it seemed to me that this was due to the fact that rock simply ate too much gold. So much so that despite eating the crystals, its color has not yet changed at all and lizard remains a walking gold ingot. Sun crystal hardness was an amazing 40 units.

It's just a pity that their processing was not easy and took a lot of time, trying to increase the efficiency of the machine in subspace, I simply broke it. However, this was not a problem. I can fix and maybe improve it.

Alternatively, I was going to finally get serious about the 0th rank spell Sonic Sword. The spell itself wasn't that useful in combat at the moment, but whoever created it was still a genius. I still could not repeat the sound cycle itself, due to which the sound was closed in this way in the model of this spell, I could only copy the principle. But I was going to create vibration blades with the maximum possible destructive effect without changing the essence of the spell.

Although I have not yet been able to find a way to influence sun crystals, as in the case of dark gold, I was still going to create weapons from these crystals and create a new construct from this material.

The flexibility in processing dark gold always saved me a lot of time and effort, allowing me to rework the golem almost on the fly, however, even without this feature, I would be able to process this material one way or another. Dark gold will still be useful to me in the future for creating other golems or something else.

I studied all kinds of artifacts as well as the runes inscribed on them and how they work, trying to expand my capabilities.

Day after day, month after month, year after year. Every day I had something to do and I continued to work hard.