Arnold opened the door and Nina spoke up, "Hey are you free tomor- You sure, you're not into cosplay and stuff? Because everytime I meet you, you're wearing a different costume." She glanced at the welding helmet and an apron, "What are you cosplaying as now? A mechanic? If you are then, you're doing a great job."

"It's better than wearing the same sports bra and yoga pants everyday." Arnold smirked.

"I didn't knew you were so interested in my outfits or I'd have organised a fashion show for you." She replied sarcastically.

"Sure sure, why don't you come inside?" He waved his hand and invited her in.

"Your room is always this messy or today is some special occasion?" Nina carefully stepped around the room filled with useless scrap. "What's that?"

Nina pointed at the incomplete automaton.

"That is... my new creation. An automaton, it's still incomplete." He replied.

"So you're building a robot in your bedroom. I'm not judging, but I think I know the type of functions this robot would have..."

Arnold thought about it for a while, before he figured out what Nina was trying to say. "Oh God NO! It's nothing like that!"

"Surrrreeeee..." Nina wasn't convinced at all, "Now that we are inside, are you free-"

"Wait a bit and check this out." Arnold showed her the [Blood rune] he had just made.

"Where did you get a rune stone from, those are quite uncommon aren't they?"

"Yeah, but it's nothing special, just an ordinary rune stone which I made from scratch."

"You just MADE a rune stone?" Nina was surprised, "You can make thousands just by selling rune stones you know that right?"

"Yeah I made it using my creationist abilities, but you see I can't sell them before studying their effects." He lied he'd never sell something like this, "But you see, the rune has some issues with it."

"What type of issues?"

"I designed it in a way that It would activate only when it comes into contact with someone's blood, but when I tried to activate it using my blood, the stone disintegrated into dust," He lied once again but this time he had a 'proof'. He pointed at the small pile of dust that was generated by the [Blood rune] he had used on Cerberus. " I wanted to use my blood once again but this is the last rune I was able to make successfully and so I don't want it to reduce into dust as well."

He lied yet again but Nina didn't had to know about it.

"So..." Nina mumbled.

"So I was thinking if you could help me out with the experiment?... "

"Are... you... MAD!" She shouted at the top of her lungs, "I won't allow you to use me as a pool of blood!"

"Pool of blood? The heck are you taking about? I just need 2-3 drops to activate and study the rune."

"I WON'T- wait... just a couple of drops?" She calmed down a bit.

"Just a couple of drops..." Arnold nodded.

"It's still weird and uncomfortable, but I guess I should help you out, but only as a favour." She mumbled, "Just tell me what I need to do."

I can't show her the knife, she's already so freaked out, who knows when she'll do when she sees a knife, Arnold thought. I wonder how someone like her was a good warrior.

"What are you waiting for?" She complained, "I don't have all day."

"Yeah, here take this," Arnold handed her an ice pin which he made on the spot using his ice affinity, "Poke your finger or whatever you like and then make sure that your blood drops on the rune's surface."

Nina did what he told and poked her left arm's little finger using the pin Arnold gave her. She then made sure to drop two drops of blood on the rune before putting her finger inside her mouth to suck out the excess blood.

The moment Nina's blood touched the surface of the rune, it started glowing and finally, the red engravings turned into blue.

"Would you look at that, it's a suck-cess!" Arnold sniggered. Nina immediately took the finger out of her mouth and gave Arnold an annoyed look.

"So what does it do?" She pointed at the rune.

"I'll have to study it for a while first. Now tell me, what you wanted to talk about?"

"I was saying that if you were free tomorrow, would you like to join us for a dungeon trip?"

"Sure! But you know that I have a phone right?"

"I did, but I didn't have your number so... you can have mine." She took a piece was paper from Arnold's study table and wrote her number on it.

"Thanks!" Arnold said, as Nina handed him the piece of paper and left soon, thinking that he'd make some another weird request if she stayed there.

Arnold closed the door after she left and looked at the activated [Blood rune]. "Change of plans, I'm finishing the automaton tonight."

*****

COUPLE OF HOURS LATER...

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Connect the right locomotive gear to the left side of the power source.

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"English please!"

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Connect the red wire to the black one.

_________________

"THANK YOU!"

_________________

Now you need to connect the voice module to the neural network. Your voice is already registered in the module so you don't need to redo it.

_________________

"Alright. What else?"

_________________

If you want, you can connect the [Blood rune] to the provided socket. This is not a necessary step and can be done later.

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"Oh yeah, I totally forgot about it!" Arnold said and pulled out the [Blood rune] from his inventory, "I haven't checked what ability it has yet."

Arnold and used his [PROBE] skill on the stone.

_________________

OBJECT : [Blood rune] (Activated)

TYPE : Blood crystal

GRADE : A

REMARK : An extremely rare crystal which can be used to generate an ability from blood monsters, humans and any other sentient beings. The rune contains [SWORD SLASH] ability.

_________________

"It just had to be a sword skill, I'll have to get a sword for the automaton first. Marshal already has one but I don't think the automaton would be able to handle a sword that big." Arnold was lost in his thoughts once again, "I think I should give it to Marshall. Either way I have a dungeon trip tomorrow so it'd be better if I make another [blood rune] and use it to get some abilities which would be more suitable for the automaton.

"If I can get one ability from 2-3 drops, who knows how many abilities would I be able to get from a whole monster! That settles it then. I'll give the sword skill to Marshal and I'll worry about the abilities tomorrow. For now let's just activate the automaton and get it over with."

_________________

Use the voice command module to activate the automaton.

_________________

"Voice command? What should I say? Wake up? System-sama please enlighten my knowled-"

Before Arnold could complete what he was saying, he heard a load humming noise and turned towards the black armoured automaton, white light coming through its empty eye sockets. It had shiny metal alloy plates on the outside the armour which covered the automatons chest and the back and a little below the back of the neck was the power source which was emitting a faint white light. The locomotive gears kicked into action as it slowly walked up to Arnold and kneeled down in front of him.

"Your command, master?" An electronic voice came out of the mouth-less robot.

Saying that Arnold was surprised would be the understatement of the decade. He happily looked at the automaton. It took Arnold around 12 hours to make this wonder, and now finally his hard work was paying off.

He was still admiring the automaton when a notification popped up.

_________________

Assembly of [LIGHT ARMOURED AUTOMATON] completed!

[Expand to see the stats]

FIRST TIME ASSEMBLY REWARDS :

EXP +2500

GRADE REWARDS :

EXP + 1000

SUCCESSFUL CONSTRUCTION REWARD :

EXP + 1500

[You can not level up.]

[Use the excess EXP to level up your subclass first]

Would you like to rename your creation?

•Yes or •No

_________________

"5000 exp! That's way too much!" He jumped with excitement and renamed the automaton as - [TALOS¹] before expanding the menu to see Talos' stats.

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[TALOS]

TYPE: Combat Automaton

GRADE: B

BASIC STATS:

DURABILITY² (DUR) : 4800/4800

ENERGY² (ENR) : 2500/2500

STRENGTH (STR) : 90

DEFENSE(DEF) : 137

INTELLIGENCE (INT) : 50

AGILITY (AGI) : 70

ACCURACY (ACC) : 55

EVADE (EVD) : 50

HEIGHT: 1.72 meter

WEIGHT: 50 KG

CONTROL : [Basic artificial intelligence] chip

POWER SOURCE: [Star Shard] – Solar/Thermal charging

ENERGY CONSUMPTION (Idle mode): 4 Energy/min

ENERGY CONSUMPTION (Combat mode): 16 Energy/min

RECOVERY RATE : 10 Energy /min

WEAPON MODULE : [none]

ABILITIES : [none]

_________________

************

1. Talos : It's not a Thanos reference by any means (lol). According to Greek mythology, Talos (also pronounced as Talus) was a giant automaton made of bronze to protect Europa in Crete from pirates and invaders.

2. Durability and Energy of an automaton acts as the HP and Mana for it.