"It was a good idea to leave your sword on your hip," Durand complimented Jacob as they began to break up back into their groups, with Jacob's friends getting into position to spar and train once more.
Jacob was on his way to the barn to check on Caleb and Bran, who hadn't come out of the barn even after all the commotion. He turned back with a smile and pointed at Oren briefly as he explained his reasoning.
"Your apprentice told me to limit using the sword and magic together as much as I can, at least until I can get my sword master up a bit."
Durand looked to Oren, who gave his master a quick nod of confirmation. With that, the lieutenant smiled a bit and looked back to Jacob, who was still trying to get to the Barn.
"I suppose," Durand yelled out to Jacob, who was already on the other side of the field, "my apprentice must have a wise master!"
Jacob just laughed a bit as he waved goodbye to the lieutenant and his friends, who were now hitting each other with sticks as Sera sang a soothing melody on the side of the field.
Upon entering the barn, the first thing Jacob noticed was that Bran and Caleb had somehow managed to get the unfinished golem into the barn all the way from the wainwright shop in Ruvka.
Before gaping in astonishment, Jacob considered the situation.
I must have been enchanting longer than I thought I was, he thought to himself as he approached the two tinkerers who had their hands covered in machine oil and joint grease, trying to get the golem project up and running
They didn't even notice the young mage enter the building.
Without disturbing them, Jacob watched as they adjusted gears and internal pulley systems that were linked directly to his rune clusters. It was like they could see the runes and interact with them directly, even though he knew the runes weren't physically there.
Rubbing his chin, he was about to approach the duo, but he nearly jumped out of his skin as he heard a voice speak into his right ear from directly in his blind spot.
"They've been doing that ever since they started yelling at each other about some sort of breakthrough."
After jumping about three feet into the air and instinctively wrapping himself with a kinetic dampening field, Jacob spun around to see a young woman with dark skin and pitch-black eyes tracking his movements with but a bored expression on her face.
"I didn't expect to see you come out of the shadows," Jacob said as he dismissed his spell and stopped preparing attacks.
The B-rank adventurer just shrugged and looked back at the duo working on the golem.
"Golemancers are rare in this kingdom," she said while ignoring Jacob's jab, "I always thought they were interesting."
"My brother isn't a golemancer, though, and Bran is a tinkerer," Jacob said with a confused reply.
The young woman turned to him and grinned, "Do you know anything about how skill evolutions work? Also, it's rich hearing how someone isn't something just because they don't have the class for it, coming from a tier-1 mage with the farmhand class."
Jacob facepalmed, realizing he was being quite a hypocrite, much less a bit of a prude about the class system. He hadn't even been cultivating his own class, and he had the gall to talk about what his own brother could and couldn't do with or without the aid of the system.
When he was done wallowing in his own admission of stupidity, he looked back at the shadow-stepper just to realize she was gone again.
Turning back to his brother talking with Bran, he realized his brother had essentially changed his own class without the system upgrade and had been working as a tinkerer long enough to keep up with Bran's unique jargon.
Sure enough, Jacob thought to himself, Caleb would likely develop a new class if he ever completed the 'Big 3', and it would also be a good change for the family as a whole, considering how a freehold works.
Without dwelling on the changing events in his life too much, Jacob finally approached the duo as it seemed they had decided to take a break from their tinkering.
Bran looked over at the approaching boy as he wiped some sweat from his brow, smudging his forehead with a bit of blackened grease.
"Ah! Jacob! Just the mage I wanted to see!" Bran exclaimed as he threw his hands wide in excitement.
"I can see the two of you have been hard at work," Jacob replied, "What exactly is it that you're doing to the golem?"
Bran nudged Caleb in the ribs as the older farmboy also approached for the conversation, "Why don't you tell him what we've gotten into? It was your idea after all."
That caused Caleb to smile widely before he started his explanation. "Well, Bran was telling me how the two of you were having trouble with the controls, and I misunderstood what he was talking about, and I suggested adjusting the controls to be directed more around these runic clusters Bran told me about."
Gesturing to Bran and the golem, Caleb continued, "He doesn't know much about the way runes work, and it seems like you don't know much about how the golem works, but I've got a good idea about how they both work now, and I thought this might help with making the controls more efficient."
Rubbing his chin, Jacob nodded to his brother's explanation while thinking to himself that the B-rank assassin was right. Caleb would become a golemancer for sure, and Bran right behind him if the tinkerer could learn a thing or two about enchanting.
"I think your misunderstanding might just lead to a better combat potential in the gate, and I also think Bran was talking about something like this when he mentioned our problem with controlling the golem," Jacob said as he reached into his pouch and pulled out the cracked earth core that was quite a bit bigger than a normal monster core.
Both Bran and Caleb looked at the core like it was a valuable piece of jewelry instead of a nearly worthless trinket; at least in most hands it would seem that way.
Bran shuffled over to the workbench where he had left what looked like a scepter made of steel and wrapped with some of the beast leather that dropped in the dungeon.
"I made this," Bran said as he brought it over to Jacob, "when y'all were messing around with the nobles. I remembered the shape and rough size of the cracked core and had the same idea as you."
He handed the scepter to Jacob, who set the cracked core into the socket Bran had created, and it fit nearly perfectly. Bran just had to pull out a pair of heavy-looking pliers and adjust the setting until the cracked core was secure.
"Now it's up to you," Bran said as he took a step back and looked at Jacob expectantly.
Jacob took a deep breath, letting his eyes trace the sturdy steel and the meticulously wrapped beast leather.
Bran has outdone himself. Jacob thought as he looked down at the scepter in his hands.
The scepter felt well balanced, but the real challenge lay ahead.
Enchanting a tool of this density required precision, especially given Jacob's recent struggles with his overabundant magic.
If he pushed too much mana into the steel, the entire structure could still shatter.
Focusing his mind, Jacob reached for his internal well of magic.
As the familiar surge of power rushed forward, he immediately guided the excess directly into the cracked earth core resting at the apex of the scepter.
The core pulsed with a dull, earthy light, greedily soaking up the overflow. Relief washed over Jacob as the pressure stabilized once it reached an equilibrium.
The core was offloading the dangerous surplus enough to preserve the steel material, even though it wasn't an advanced material.
With the raw mana controlled, he began layering his regular base runes into the steel shaft.
First came the Strengthening runes. He visualized the glowing sigils weaving into the structure of the metal, reinforcing its durability so it could withstand the rigors of combat.
Next, he layered Lightness runes along the leather grip. As the magic took hold, the heavy steel suddenly felt as nimble as a wooden training sword in his hand, making it easy for any wielder to hold onto and maneuver during a fight.
"So far, so good," Jacob muttered under his breath.
Now came the complex part.
He needed a bridge between the scepter and the runic clusters he created, which Caleb and Bran were integrating further into the golem.
Visualizing the spatial relationship between the two, Jacob carefully carved a 3D Linkage rune into the magic matrix resting just beneath the cracked core.
This specific rune was designed to actively seek out and pair with its twin, which he would soon place on the golem itself, establishing a secure remote connection, as he had done with some of the armor and weapons he had enchanted previously.
He hoped that type of linkage would work well for this purpose.
However, a simple remote control was not enough for him. To make the golem truly effective in a dungeon gate, the reaction time had to be instantaneous.
The user needed a mental connection.
Drawing upon his previous experiments, Jacob manipulated the linkage rune. He applied the inversion technique he had discovered earlier, twisting the runic logic so the flow of magic and information worked both ways.
Instead of just sending commands out into the ether, the scepter would receive feedback, completing a loop that tied the user's mind to the construct.
Finally, it was time to lock in the enchantments and smooth out any flaws with his intent.
Jacob poured his sheer willpower into the newly formed runic matrix.
He pictured the mental connection holding strong through chaos and combat.
Recognizing that relying purely on thought could be difficult in a high-stress battle, he wove in several optional movement commands alongside the core intent.
He mentally encoded basic physical triggers into the control mechanism, giving the user more options for control.
A sharp thrust of the scepter, a sweeping block, a targeted point, and other intuitive physical movements could act as emphatic overrides if the user's mental focus slipped.
Sweat beaded on his forehead as he tied off the final runic cluster through his intent shaping.
He slowly withdrew his mana, carefully sealing the enchantment so the volatile energies would not violently rebound and crack the metal or the gemstone.
The dull light in the monster core stabilized into a steady, pulsing glow.
Jacob let out a long exhale and wiped his brow.
The metal remained pristine, completely free of fractures.
The refined steel had managed to withstand the pressure of the enchantments and his own raw power thanks to the monster core.
Although he had enchanted the weapons and armor, which were largely not advanced materials either, he hadn't made their enchantments particularly powerful, as the nature of damage reduction and strength boosting just wasn't on the same level as controlling a fairly complex golem, as Jacob was finding out.
Even though he had mostly free-handed his intent, he still had utilized the system skill at a couple of critical junctures that required more robotic precision rather than an artist's touch. Thus, he wasn't too surprised to hear the chime of the system.
System Notice: Intent Shaping 7 --> 8
After dismissing the blue system screen, he gave the scepter an experimental twirl, marveling at how perfectly the magic thrummed within it, before holding it out toward Bran and his brother.
"It's done," Jacob said with a tired but victorious grin. "We have a fully viable controller. Now I just need to add the linkage rune to the golem, and we can give it a test run finally. Perhaps we can even include it in the frontline tomorrow."