Chapter 435: Evolving Rocks! … Maybe a Bit Too Literal This Time? [Release Version] (Patreon)

<[Music Resonation (Major)] [Strength and Wisdom (Wisdom)] inflicted on [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

“As I open my hand, releasing the sound of searing hot metal. ♫

But I tighten my grip, the pain that follows me with every single thought. ♫

Regretting it all would only taint my efforts, or the dream that we hold. ♫

Of course, brush it aside! ♫

These tears will dry, and this rage will cool ♫

As I realized that the world ain’t stopping for me. ♫

A final stroke on this sin-stained page ♫

The blood on my hands will fuel me ♫

All while the sun watches me ♫

I won’t forget about you ♫

I’ll witness everything this path will show me ♫

So I can relay everything to you later ♫

I’ll push forward with this fire burning inside of me ♫

The strength to fight on, or the wisdom to accept life ♫

It doesn’t really matter now ♫

Because this is my choice ♫

I’ll grin through this pain, because this leads me to the truth ♫

So I can soar ever higher! ♫

I weeped for sadness—I cry and cheer ♫

For despair is also fleeting ♫

Rise above it! ♫

This pit won’t hold me ♫

For I will grasp hold of my dreams! ♫”

“Huraaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” Grimnir yelled from the top of his lungs as he swung his hammer at a superhuman rate, letting the sound of metal drown out even the sound of boiling magma in the background. My singing barely registered in his mind. “Lad! How are the ingots? Monster materials?”

Daichi, who was using fire spells to accelerate the melting process of the ore, paused at Grimnir’s call and wiped away the sweat from his soot-covered forehead. Top-less, the fire mage looked slimmer with more defined muscles, but it was still nowhere close to Grimnir’s muscular physique or even Tatsuya, for that matter. Even Ellaine looked stronger, from a pure muscle definition, but I couldn’t help but praise his progress.

Starting to look like a construction worker, there, man. Hehe.

Once he took a swig from his water bottle, he turned away from the still orange-glowing liquid metal covering the ingot casting molds. “Half-way through with today’s ore ratio, Master! Barely got the first batch of claws, fangs, and carapace melted though, so I’ll need time on those ingots later. Too much weight!”

“Got it!” Grimnir responded, before turning his attention to the quiet sizzling to his right. “Ellaine!”

“Armguard nearly rewired. Still need time to open it up fully for you to re-construct,” she replied in a husher voice, far too concentrated with her artificer work.

[“Uuuurgh … why is this my life after I woke up? Can’t we be do something interesting, Ellaine?”] Meanwhile, Klea sounded totally bored from watching all the smithing day in and day out.

Her partner, though, barely gave her a glance. “I am on a time limit, Klea. I need to get this done before I have to join Princess Fargryneill at the summit.”

This was how the three-man crafters from our group worked inside their workshop. Grimnir on the smithing, Daichi on support, while Ellaine worked on the manatech—it was the same well-oiled machine as always with these three, and it felt good to hear how much they were all happily working. Considering the mountain of ore, materials, and equipment pieces we gained from the Event dungeon, they had so much to go through.

The [Heart of a Thunder Lion], [Immature Carapace of an Adamantoise], [Slazzigula Ash Burner], and [Poison-Scarred Manticore Stinger] I got from the Event rewards were all here, including all the other special materials our expedition got. There were too many for me to go through, even if some caught my eye, and as such, I left the crafting to Grimnir and Tasianna. Our resident blacksmith and alchemist would know best what could be used and what should be sold.

Counting everything scattered around the room, I saw eleven large boxes full of various ore, seven barrels of materials divided into their categories, and a few tables full of armor pieces and weapons. Stuff like [Scale Helmet of the Staunch Defender] or the [Dragonkin Bone Dagger] I took from Hayato were all gathered here. As our expedition party for the Event Quest was mostly composed out of our people, it was obvious the table would be full.

And I can’t even use most of them.

Whether it was armor or weapons, I couldn’t utilize any of them, as I required armor made from rhytilic alloy and I was only good with halberds and polearms. Well, regardless if we used or smelt them, it was free money! That was the important part.

“Lass! Music! Not even close to being done!”

“Yeah, sure!”

<Strength and Wisdom: A song created by the Idol [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]. Through the images of accepting the loss of one’s loved ones, using it to fuel one’s ambition and will, breaking through the trials and tribulations of despair, this song will become the rallying cry for those who climbed out the pit of despair. Those affected by [Music Resonation] may choose the effect that will apply on them—Strength or Wisdom.

Strength: Increase Strength, Vitality, and Stamina regeneration by 25%. Increase effectiveness of martial Abilities, Stamina-related craftsmanship, and proficiency gain by 10%. Decrease Intelligence, Wisdom, and Mana by 30%.

Wisdom: Increase Intelligence, Wisdom, and Mana regeneration by 25%. Increase effectiveness of magical spells, Mana-related craftsmanship, and proficiency gain by 10%. Decrease Strength, Vitality, and Stamina by 30%>

Yuuuup.

People I considered “ally” or “enemy”—those were the only conditions my custom spells have been using up until now. Well, technically, I also had “all enemies affected by demonic powers” on [My Darkest Thought], but I considered it an addition to the overall condition. I still only had three song effects—damage, buffing, and debuff—available to use after so many [Idol] levels.

As Grimnir requested, I wanted a song that could aid him in his primary job, which made me remember how there were buffs that affected smithing, alchemy, and other craftsmanship skills in RPGs. When I finally settled on “Strength and Wisdom” as my song, I also figured it would be a waste to make another song for our alchemist and artificer, which made me try this type of song.

Duality of choices, songs can be interpreted however the listener wishes, was what I thought during the spell song creation. The song just came to me back during the Maagneil attack. It just felt right for “Strength and Wisdom” to become [Strength and Wisdom], while going all-out on the duality part and have people choose what effects they wanted.

The song was focused on crafting and skill training, instead of pure combat, as a 30% decrease in strength, vitality, stamina or intelligence, wisdom, and mana was pretty severe. I couldn’t use this song in combat; I was a hybrid fighter, I needed every stat.

But it was good for the people here.

“I need to go!” Ellaine shouted before handing Grimnir the armguard she was working on, before rushing out of the workshop.

I continued singing, until Grimnir was done.

***

With a loud chortle, he put his hammer on his hips before holding up the armguard he just reconstructed, inspecting and activating it. Once the blue seams on the gear lit up, he smiled.

I didn’t know how long it took for him to finish everything, seeing as he also had to add a rune on it. Regardless, my throat ached and I bet this was too, considering how loud he had to sing to finish everything as soon as possible. Daichi, on the other hand, looked exhausted as he slumped on the ground like a broken marionette. Switching from casting ingots to helping his master must’ve been rough.

Once everybody got something to drink, we went out of the workshop and into a new room I had just constructed, which was connected to Mom’s nest and my Obsidian Orchestra. Technically, it was actually a part of the training field, but I enlarged and separated it with a wall. All for one specific reason.

“Yo!” Tatsuya and Kyouya greeted us.

“Lady Hestia, welcome,” Tasianna bowed, followed by Cernust who was standing next to her.

Rita, our resident dryad, though, rushed over to us, showing a wide grin as she stared at the now reforged armguard. “It’s done? Finally! Now, now, come come! We got the divine soil to work! Come, come!”

“Divine soil” might sound a bit edgy, but it wasn’t wrong to call it as such as the one who gave it to me was Bleidla himself. It was the reward I was given instead of making Grimnir one of Bleidla’s blessed, and that smithing god really knew what we needed right about now.

<Fossil-ash Soil: Healthy soil made from the ashes of ancient monsters and tempered by the searing hammer of the God of Blacksmiths. The microorganism within this soil can survive purely from mana alone, creating an environment suitable for any type of plants to grow and survive, disregarding temperature, light, and nutrient needs for a healthy growth. Can store solar energy efficiently, reducing the need for all plants planted on this soil. The microorganism cannot survive outside of this soil, but can be mixed with normal soil as long as original [Fossil-ash Soil] remains close>

I stared around the room, giggling a bit as I couldn’t believe the entire room was filled with tilted soil. No greens were in sight, but I could see the equipment Tasianna was carrying, while Cernust’s hands and tail were smeared with dirt. As a forest drake, his [Floral Magic] allowed him to aid the growth of plants, which helped him literally regrow an entire forest for Cedaraille after that giant lava spider burned everything down.

Since I knew he was the best botanist we could hire for money, and we had a nature faefolk in Rita, it was just obvious I would get their help in using this new soil. The plan was clear—create a farm inside the subspace for Tasianna to grow our plants and her alchemical ingredients, so we didn’t have to rely on the one in our RV. It was larger and safer inside, and everybody could visit it to help Tasianna during the harvest.

We’ve always wanted to establish one ever since I created the subspace, but we never could, as maintaining healthy soil and the lack of sunlight were major issues we needed to overcome first. The former was solved with Bleidla’s help and the latter just became available after Tasianna created her newest catalyst—my [Core of the Sun].

<Core of the Sun: A simple catalyst made from the solar core of a [Sunfang Dragon], allowing the owner to store a massive amount of mana and some solar energy for later usage

Owner: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Skill: [Inferno Amp] [Sacred Amp] [Solar Energy Absorption: 100%]>

We now had everything we needed for the farm, but there was also something else we could now add in. This farm wouldn’t just be an ingredient farm, it would also turn into an exp farm if we could make this work. I pulled out the [Mimic Golem’s Mana Core] I got from the monster room inside [Menagerie of Golems].

“I mixed the divine soil with some natural dirt Rita created after two weeks of cultivation,” Cernust explained. “It’ll create a good starter until Tasianna can get accustomed to the new soil. As long as the divine soil does what it’s advertised for, you shouldn’t have any issues once the normal soil drops in quality from all the farming.”

“Did you test if it can actually grow everything?” I asked.

Sadly, Tasianna shook her head. “It might be theoretically possible, but some plants are very sensitive to wind and temperature. Taking them out and putting them into our garden isn’t possible, even if you feed the soil your mana, Lady Hestia. We just don’t have to worry about what is inside the soil. However, everything we’ve grown before can be used here.”

This was experimental, so it made sense.

“Good, good, so everything clear? Time to test this place out now, right?” Rita urged me, looking like she had just drank three cups of coffee … in fact, maybe she did as I noticed a cup of fulinoe tea to the side.

Seeing this, I turned to the two sipping guys waiting for us. Tatsuya let out a refreshing moan, smiling widely after drinking some of his iced fulinoe tea. He handed the bottle to Kyouya before he began stretching his shoulder to warm up. He walked over to us and thanked Grimnir, causing the latter to bellow out another laugh.

“That’s my job, lad, and I needed to continue leveling my unique skill, up, yeah? Manatech wiring, added a rune, and reforged it; fulfills all the requirements for my title to increase its stats, in addition to the lass’s new song. Better be grateful, hahaha!”

Mana Eyes.

<Adamantoise Elemental Armguard: A full-arm guard made from andurenium, euorinium, and materials from a rank A [Magic Swallowing Slime], making it light-weight and easy to use with mana. A catalyst is stored on the gauntlet, allowing a user to be designated, allowing them to control this piece with only mana. Allows users to invoke elemental weapons using their mana or enchant existing weapons. Through a reforging session, the shell of a rank C adamantoise was used to fortify the metal, solidifying it to make it whole.

Vitality Power: 621

Wisdom Power: 820

Owner: [Tatsuya Nagata]

Skill: [All-Damage Reduction Lv. 5] [Elemental-Damage Increase Lv. 7] [Arcane Corruption Resistance Lv. 6] [Mana Conductor Lv. 10] [Mana Efficiency Lv. 10] [Arcane Conduit Lv. 4] [Torrent Resistance Lv. 2]

Enchantments: [Elemental Weapons Invoke] [Elemental Magic Absorption] [Elemental Blessing]

Rune: [Defensive Rune: Auracoil]>

The same armguard Tatsuya got from the dungeon was now fully reforged, receiving better skills, more stats, and also a rune. Grimnir mentioned there were still ways to upgrade it, as he wanted to add two more runes at minimum to it later on, plus include a new catalyst using his unique skill. For now, though, it would suffice for Tatsuya to test.

Putting it on, he complimented how it fitted his arm perfectly now, before he activated it, creating a flame shield for himself. He then dispelled it, before covering his entire arm on fire to coat his spear’s blade with it. Twirling it around, his polearm was creating a swirl of flames similar to a fire dancer.

I snapped my fingers and created a ball of fire, before throwing it at Tatsuya. He held his arm guard up, using it to absorb the flame and regenerating his used mana.

“Yikes!” While it did work, Tatsuya still grimaced and shook his hand, still feeling the heat. “That was a small flame, right? Sheesh, I can’t take anything at your level at all.”

“You think you can just absorb the flames of a fire dragon of my level?” I was a bit astonished.

“Nah, of course not, but I thought it would at least lower the heat of a fireball!” he exclaimed. “Man, I hope it’ll do its job when I fight against a normal fire mage.”

“The higher your Wisdom, the better you’ll deal with it,” Grimnir stated. “You’re almost at rank A, level-wise, but your skills and stats are still at the lower rank B. You’re the opposite of Tasianna, lad, you need to step up your normal training.”

“I know, I know. You don’t have to remind me.” Tatsuya scratched his neck. “We got some more rounds with Yorshka later on, so don’t worry about us. I’m not letting up until I can get us to Dai—Franz and kick his ass for getting himself into trouble.”

I sighed internally. I understood Tatsuya had a strong grudge against my cousin, but it still irritated me a bit to hear him nearly calling him “Daisy” again. It wasn’t worth mentioning or reacting to, as Tatsuya was trying to correct himself for my sake.

With me staying quiet, the discussion between Grimnir and Tatsuya continued as the latter gave his feedback on how it felt around his arm. I left them there, leaving with Kyouya and Rita, as the latter was pushing me to an empty spot within the room, where the former was pulling out a boulder the size of his chest out of his storage.

After he put it down, I saw a carved area which would fit the mana core in my hand perfectly. Once I put it in, I poured my mana into core, causing it to shine brightly before a blue screen appeared in front of us.

____________________________________________________________

Mimic Golem Type: Monster Room

Status: Inactive

Total Mana: 1000

Dungeon Master: [Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]

Function: [Room Creation], [Monster Control], [Schedule]

____________________________________________________________

What a surprise. It’s a blue screen like everything else, huh? I clapped, before pressing the [Room Creation] button to make my own monster room!

____________________________________________________________

Scanning room … Scanning finished. Room detected … Room confirmed to be adequate. Monster room will now be established, turning everything within it into the core’s area of activity. Will you confirm?

____________________________________________________________

Sure.

Once I gave my confirmation, the boulder suddenly shook as the core lit up even further. Rita was ecstatic, writing everything down in her notes, but quickly stopped when this new golem stopped moving all together. The core looked like it was moving, but nothing else was happening. I guess this was what happened when we forgot to add hands and legs on the thing.

I created two obsidian legs, adding them onto the golem only to notice it was using mana to keep them together, acting exactly like the mimic golem our party killed to get this thing in the first place. It could telepathically control its limbs and regrow them through mana alone, and this mini one was doing it without any instruction. It was just instinct, I see.

Manatech-based, spell-created, and naturally-formed-monster golems were the three types of golems that existed in this world. The former were the giant “robots” the dwarves created which acted similarly to the spell variant, as in they acted only on their master’s command. Tasianna’s [Winter’s Golem] and [Slithering Frost Serpent], or my [Hydra], were good examples for the second type.

Meanwhile, natural monster golems were like any other monster that had grown a consciousness. They could think, fight, and level up all by their lonesome. I wasn’t so sure which to call this mimic golem, but the System did consider it a monster, as I could see it was a rank F through its Profile. Like any other manatech and monster golem, its core was its heart and if it were to break, the golem would stop working all together.

Its current body was just a test, as I was a bit worried this thing would attack us the moment it awoke. If this worked, I could deem it worthy to join my cohort of obsidian creations. [Hydra] might not have a brain, but I bet it would enjoy the camaraderie.

“Can you hear me?” I asked.

It shuffled around, grinding its feet on the ground. It was turning its body, investigating something before it settled on my face and stopped moving completely.

“Oh, maybe we can consider it something like an A.I.?” Kyouya commented, causing me to nod in agreement. “We actually got a chance to speak with one in a school presentation once. Our school hosts businesses to advertise themselves there, acting like a meeting place for our parents and any potential business partners. Daichi probably knows best. Yo! Daichi-kun!”

The still exhausted looking PC nerd snapped his head up, waved at us, before coming over. After Kyouya gave him a quick summary, he gave me a thumbs up.

“Ah, okay, machine learning? I’m not an expert on A.I., just saying; my parents weren’t in that industry. Fortunately, it’s a bit easier to do than normal, since you don’t need to program the algorithm for the machine to create its own. Treat it like a pet,” he stated. “A.I. learning is all about results and repetition, where the A.I. uses millions upon millions of tries to produce the correct answer or create an algorithm to use to find the answer. It’s deep learning, you know?”

“Uuuh, okay?” I tilted my head, similarly, Rita and Kyouya were baffled as well.

Daichi shrugged, acting a bit condescending. “Whatever. You don’t need to know the details. Just do what I said: treat it like a pet or kid. Have it do something you want and praise or admonish it, yeah? If this thing has any intelligence, it will understand what you want eventually and that is what we call deep learning. Creating lots of layers of information to use, so it can think by itself. Think like a human. Easy?”

I grimaced, but nodded still to his delight. I barely managed to understand that I had to treat the golem like Rajah back when I first adopted him. I knelt down, causing the golem to angle its body down, once again “looking” at my face. I didn’t know how this golem was sensing me, whether through mana or if this core had a sight function, but I understood it could recognize my face.

I pointed at myself, speaking softly, “Hestia. Hestia. I am your dungeon master. If you understand me, nod. Like this.”

It nodded.

“Good. This is a shake. I am shaking my head. If I do this, I disagree with what you are doing. Do you understand?”

It nodded its head. It can understand me!

I then pointed at Kyouya. “Is this Hestia? Is he your dungeon master?”

It shook its head.

“Is this your dungeon master?” I pointed at Rita, causing it to shake its head, before turning to Daichi, where it did it again! Finally, I pointed at myself. “Am I your dungeon master?”

It nodded.

Ahahah! With a wide grin, I clapped my hands, even pumping my fist.

“The golem really must be equipped with a basic set of understanding,” Rita exclaimed. “Tamers aren’t able to tame golems, you know? Supposedly because its intelligence is too simple or there isn’t one and it follows the Divine System’s directives alone. Ah, Master Grimnir, do you know anything about manatech golems?”

“The profession isn’t that advanced, nor is something like a monster room core a common drop! I don’t think anybody has one, aside from you, lass! No documented ones, at least,” he shouted from a distance. He must have overheard us. “It’s even younger than the train station tech, so you can’t expect me to know much. All I know is that they use runes with manatech to create them. That’s why they act like spell golems.”

Take inspiration from nature, or whatever. Same thing.

In any case, I was now happy with this little golem and decided to name it “Gravy,” as it was part of the team right now. It probably would be appropriate to build a new body for it, but as it was a monster, couldn’t it evolve? Well, I should give it arms, at least.

<[Miniature Mimic Golem *] was given the name [Miniature Mimic Golem, Gravy] by [Young Sunfang Dragon, Hestia Atsuko Kargryxmor]>

____________________________________________________________

Name: Gravy    Level: 0    Race: Miniature Mimic Golem

Age: 0 Month

____________________________________________________________

Giving it one thumbs up, I then asked it to open the [Monster Control] function. A blue screen appeared from its core.

____________________________________________________________

Monsters created from this monster room cannot obtain a consciousness, remaining feral as long as its connection to its core remains intact. This cannot be overridden by the dungeon master, unless the core is destroyed.

Monsters can be spawned from a list of choices depending on the mana stored inside the core. Mana can only be absorbed naturally from the surrounding, it cannot be fed directly by anybody. The higher the mana concentration in the area, the more will be absorbed over time.

Monster List:

Rank G [Slime] 5000 Mana

Rank G [Loopabit] 10000 Mana

Rank G [Raccoon] 11000 Mana

…

____________________________________________________________

“… WHY IS IT SO EXPENSIVE!” I cried before looking at Gravy’s mana.

<Total Mana: 1001>

I stared at the screen with an open mouth, feeling as if I was looking at a recipe. I patted Gravy, before standing up. I looked at Rita, Kyouya, and Daichi, who seemed to share my grievance.

“… I’ll evolve my unique Job first.”

___________________________________________

Just a reminder that one of the first few chapters was named "Evolving Rocks" and people thought Hestia would evolve a rock! Decided it was the best title for this chapter, xD