The Runic Alchemist

Chapter 782: A Body Like None Other

But right now, Damian wasn’t working on the jet. It was another long-overdue project that had occupied his time. He looked to the side. Jacob was already looking towards him while giving an awkward thumbs-up. Damian nodded at the guy approvingly.

It was the chubby golem who was responsible for heating and shaping the metal as Damian adjusted it slightly in between with his mana hands.

“Just a little longer and you will have the body of your choice,” Damian said. “Then you can do everything on your own.”

He had taught the clever golem all the basics of blacksmithing. He had even made the guy practice controlling the mana flowing through him and using it to create mana threads. Even without an organic body, Jacob’s core, which was only a spherical object outside his body, was actually mimicking the true mana veins’ structure inside his body, suspiciously similar to the anatomy all pathfinders had. This was the thing Damian could not replicate, no matter what he did or how carefully and with focus he created thousands of mana nodes. Artificial veins were nothing compared to the semi-organic ones the core of Jacob had transformed into.

A normal golem was also given such an artificial mana node structure to mimic natural movement, but compared to that, Jacob’s was a hundred times more complex. From what Damian could sense, there was more to it than just mana nodes and hair-thin mana threads connecting to those nodes. A spark, something beyond magic.. Maybe it was the thing that gave all sentient life consciousness?

No matter how advanced and perfect a golem Damian made, none could compare to Jacob. The guy had real, original ideas. Damian was in the middle of teaching him the English alphabet, so he could use the receiver and communicate for real. Jacob had even learned some words and gestures already, though his big, chubby hands made it hard for him to touch the receiver window comfortably.

A new, detailed, desterous but most importantly something Jacob himself imagined himself to be like – that was their goal. Damian showed the big golem all his previous blueprints for the giant steel golem he had made back in the pigmen world. The scale would be ridiculous for Jacob, truth be told, Damian was quite tempted to see how Jacob’s core would transform the enormous giant body. He couldn’t do that, though; Jacob was a living being with his own hobbies and thoughts. Just becoming an enormous weapon was no ideal life at all.

What Damian aimed to copy were the hundreds of moving parts, joined in perfect harmony to create a machine that could move with unbelievable flexibility for a metallic structure. The movements must be smooth and without any struggle, for Jacob to do everyday tasks easily.

Damian had also aimed to put in many of his runic spells, taking full advantage of the full sacrum build. Like multiple supreme grade spatial storages, some basic attack spells, plenty of defence spells like air shield, invisible box trap, in-built receiver, multiple waygates, and even the ultimate dungeon relic spell that was used by Faerunians to trap Land-breaker.

Damian wanted Jacob to protect himself and others if he ever had to participate in the battle. Since Jacob used liquid mana to power and control all his spells, with Damian giving him his own liquid mana, even without Damian’s skills, all the spells used by Jacob were under his perfect control. That was actually one of the reasons that made Jacob an invaluable assistant in the runic lab.

They ignored the super-fast elephant zooming around the lab and, one by one, shaped the sacrium metal into a perfectly proportioned human body with detailed fingers. It wasn’t exactly hard work, but neither was it something just anyone could make. Every single part was made by Jacob and Damian together. He was quite happy with Jacob’s progress.

Along with some movement spells Jacob was already used to in his chubby body, Damian had also added dozens of runic mold spells, so Jacob could create runic tools entirely on his own after learning to control mana threads. But having enough control over mana to create perfectly structured mana nodes was not something one could do without specific runesmith skills.

It wasn’t impossible if a person practiced hard and had mana in their body. But without the specific class and skills, the hard work that barely rewarded fraction of what others could get. Some had experimented in the past in hopes of unlocking new jobs. Runefather himself was a good example of that, but he was a blacksmith first and then a spellsword later. Getting a class job that combined the two.

In half a day, it was ready.

Damian had instructed Agatha to look after Lumi and her family and provide one of the empty houses for them to stay in. He could meet her later.

Jacob finally put down the giant hammer, and Damian connected all the sacrium pieces; for some, he used screws, some light welding, and internal mesh connections. A suit of armor or a metal man, whatever one could call it, was ready.

Damian wasn’t sure if Jacob could change bodies, but Jacob himself had said yes when he asked. From the gestures and simple words written in the receiver, Damian could infer that Jacob wanted him to sever the area around the core after somehow the golem would retract all the veins inside it, and then he just had to simply place it in the new body’s center.

That should do it. Hopefully.

Damian performed the extraction perfectly and placed it in the new body. He could sense the veins slowly extending from the core. Compared to the first time when Damian had done this, this time it was taking much longer. Guess changing bodies was more taxing than taking over one from the beginning.

Damian let him do his thing and exited the runic lab. Then headed towards his office.

They were supposed to release the final candidate list for the seventh head of Sanctuary today. In a week, the voting will take place. Damian had placed many hidden agents to keep an eye on the candidates; he didn’t want anyone doing anything shady to bolster themselves. Speeches, meetings, and stuff were okay. The attempt at foul play hadn’t been as common as Damian expected; it was all new after all. People had no idea what was possible and not. Besides, there were rumours about his weird runic tools.

Some people believed he could detect lies, predict crimes, and do all sorts of unnatural things. How could they say such mean things about him? He was nothing but a delight to be with.

The initial trade period was also over, and Damian had already instructed everyone to let the foreigners coming through the waygate leave the trade towns. Inner Sanctuary waygates can’t be accessed by them, but they could still travel through the sanctuary land and reach the other border or the many cities.

While making designs for a high-speed jet, Damian had also played around with thoughts of connecting the many villages and towns with a speedy transportation system, like trains, but working on mana instead of a steam engine. With waygates in almost all towns, the travelling time had reduced by a lot, and the security and peace of mind people experienced while paying a measly travelling fee was the envy of all foreigners who learned about it.

Still, there was a majority of villages where people had to travel through wagons or on their own two feet. He could start from there. Then he could also connect major cities, so people could travel even after the waygates closed every evening.

Then there were commercial vehicles. Damian smiled in amusement, thinking about knights and merchants of this world travelling in designer cars and trucks. Those were all side projects, though, and he wouldn’t focus too much on them. It was possible if he could gain a whole lot of runesmiths to accept his contracts.

If he ordered different car parts from different runesmiths, they wouldn’t be able to copy his whole design. Not that anyone could hide after doing such a big theft. He could make sanctum-issued unique number plates for more security. It would be a luxury item, though – Damian first wanted to be done with all the basic, life-necessary tools before going that way.

His next focus after the jets was going to be improving the agriculture sector. The crop growing methods Damian didn’t know that much about, this world was already doing the crop rotation and everything he had learned in school. But he could make runic machines that would help in growing the crops. Like tractors, threshers, water distribution system and everything the farmers needed.

The spell of artificially boosting a tree’s growth was also something he could make a runic tool of. Not the whole field but some very weak plants could be strengthened with it, increasing the yield slightly. Farmers wouldn’t be able to afford liquid mana to recharge the runic tool if they used it for the whole field. It was a good thing however, that the spell did not ruin the land for the fast growth – everything it needed was provided by the mana. Which was why it required quite some mana to use this spell even once.

“Lord Keeper, I have the list of the final candidates.” Valen spoke up warmly just as Damian entered his office.