MARVEL: GAMER PATH - CHAPTER 112 (Patreon)

It had taken me over two months since the Loki incident, but I had finally reached the crafting level necessary to start manufacturing Clay Golems with a magical building within my territory.

This meant, soon I would start leveling considerably faster, it also meant, the more Loki took to attack once again, the more dead he would be, after all, an army of disposable soldiers solves many things.

Anywho.

The Clay Golem Factory was the first building on the list I now had the ability to craft, this little factory could create one golem every three hours, making a total of eight golems a day.

With one golem operating the factory, I would produce clay golems 24/7.

And if everything went right, I would have over 50 golems by the end of the week.

Cool right?

At first, the process would be slow, I knew that because for the golems to be useful they had to reach a certain level, but in a matter of months, I would have an army of them above level 100.

So, for now, I would let things cook at their own given time.

I already had a golem operating the factory, whose sole purpose was keeping the production going, and I also already had the higher level golems ready to pick the new ones up for leveling, all while I continued to improve my crafting skills.

“This creature is remarkable,” Eitri said, snapping me out of my train of thought, he was looking at my hand-crafted clay golem, who had within this two months reached level 135.

“Thanks,” I replied with a smile, to be honest, the difference in strength between this hand-crafted golem, and the ones using my power was massive, it was shocking really.

“I told you, putting your heart in your creations, brings the best out of them,” Eitri nodded.

In a way, he was right, though his preferred method took time, a ton of time, crafting a single clay golem by hand had taken me way too long, and this type of golem was the easiest to craft, a rock golem, the new one on the list could take up to a month to craft my hand, I don’t even wanna check how long would it take to craft a metal golem or something beyond that.

“He even seems responsive,” Eitri complimented, handing my golem some clay, who in turn looked at the clay with mild curiosity before looking at Eitri. “Way too responsi… for Bor’s sake, he’s not a simple golem… how could I not notice this before!” 

He was right, because two weeks after Clay’s birth, I had discovered the difference between golems, and that hand-crafted golems were… more alive, so to speak, they were still loyal servants but had a level of awareness vastly superior to the gamer-produced ones.

It was a weird feeling, I mean, when I decided to create an army of them, I expected mindless beasts, not… that, I guess for the most part I was right, after all, only the special ones have a mind of their own to a limited extent that is.

“That caught me by surprise, not gonna lie,” I sighed, looking at Clay, who simply tilted his head meeting gaze.

“You are truly a gifted individual, do you have any idea how hard is to create a sentient magical construct of this level?” Eitri looked at me with a shocked look, “And to think you did this without even knowing… living constructs are better, for their potential is technically limitless.”

“Limitless?” I asked.

“Yes!” Eitri grinned, “Unlike a sword, or a soulless golem, these types of constructs evolve, they learn, they adapt and they overcome because they are like us, always learning with each passing second, For Odin’s beard, Clay here is stronger and better than he was a few seconds ago, do you have any idea what marvelous thing you have created? Have you truly not noticed the changes since its creation?”

Soulless, hold on a minute, Clay was truly alive?! But how?! my powers said nothing of the sort…

“Rewind a bit… he’s alive, as in… he has a soul?” I asked, looking at Clay who waved at me with a smile.

“Yes, but not like you and I, well… he is, but not entirely, you see when one creates a golem, there is a magical toll to pay for its creation, the question is… what are you paying?” Eitri replied with an excited grin, “Well you are paying for the creation of life, quite literally, because when you poured your mana into the clay, you created a spirit a brand new spirit, an elemental, a soul to inhabit the golem and be one with it.”

Where was that disclosed to me?! Did I forget to read a book or something?

“So Clay here has a soul…” I sighed, looking at Clay who once again waved at me.

“A newborn elemental spirit,” Eitri corrected, “Which is kinda like a soul, but is not,”

“Any concerns about a possible rebellion?” I asked and before I could dwell on that thought, Eitri started to laugh.

“Oh dear, no, elementals are stubbornly loyal and very territorial, they live to protect the source of their life, like many natural elementals do, for Clay you are in a way mother nature, and you need to be protected at all costs,” Eitri chuckled, patting Clay on the back.

“Well… I guess I learned something new today,” I sighed, I was not expecting this to get so out of hand.

“Clay will continue to evolve, and serve you for as long as you live,” Eitri added, “Use it well,”

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Elemental Golems, also known as Living Constructs are creatures capable of intelligent thought, and critical thinking, while vastly different than other life forms, they share a lot of things with humans.

Elemental Golems have no gender meaning they can’t reproduce, so they have to be created, so far only two ways have been recorded detailing their creation.

One, created by the hand of a powerful mage. These golems are born to serve and protect their creators, after all, they love their makers beyond human comprehension, in a way the best way to describe their love or attachment to their creator is how humans love God, on another note, these golems like all elemental golems, are extremely territorial and if threatened would not hesitate to kill anyone.

Two, natural-born golems, these are created by an overload of natural untapped mana in a random location, once born, they will guard the area they have been spawned until the end of time never leaving the place, killing anything that threatens their territory.

There have been rumors of other ways to create them, but so far only these two methods have been confirmed.