As the three of us run through the forest, I keep my Primordial Perception up, looking for any monsters. Any time I detect one, I indicate it to Becky and Colt. We shift our route and avoid whatever creature it is.

Growing bored, I take out the ferroglove from my hold. It comes with a few small spheres of detachable metal on the knuckles, so I practice with it by controlling those. It takes some concentration, but I start to make them spin.

After toying around with the spheres for a bit, I float one over to Colt and tap him on the shoulder from Becky’s side. He glances over to her, she just gives him a blank stare back, eliciting a laugh from me.

Colt frowns, shakes his head, gives me a disapproving look, and returns to running. We stop eventually, Becky is too tired to run any further for now. Her Endurance must be lower than mine or Colt’s. I’m not sure Colt even has physical stamina anymore with his Magickal Anatomy.

We sit down on some fallen trees as Becky’s chest heaves. Pushing herself stubbornly farther than she should, she’s at a point of physical exhaustion right now. A quick check with my senses tells me that there are no enemies in the immediate vicinity.

Taking the time to focus more on the ferroglove, I use my Mage’s Eyes to watch how the glove guides my mana to control metal. Closing my eyes, I feel how the mana flows as well.

After a few minutes of trying to intricately learn how the mana flows, I take off the ferroglove and try it myself.

It’s a struggle to make the metal work with me, I pump more mana into it, pushing harder. With supreme focus, one of the balls of metal begins to float into the air. In my excitement, my concentration breaks and the sphere drops to the ground once more.

Congratulations Lucas Creo! For manipulating the elemental force of metal and bending it to your will, you have gained the Skill: Metallokinesis!

Congratulations Lucas Creo! Your perk Elemental Dominion has caused a Skill Upgrade to occur. Your Skill: Metallokinesis has become Metallomancy!

Affinity Acquired: Low Metal Affinity 1/100!

Clarity fills my mind, controlling the metal makes more sense to me now. With much less effort, I’m able to levitate the orb of metal once more.

Trying to turn the metal into liquid like I could with the glove proves impossible for me right now. Perhaps my Skill level or Affinity needs to be higher?

Just the small practice with trying seems to increase my Low Metal Affinity by one more level, so that adds credence to it helping.

Curious, I try to create metal. Nothing happens at first. Thinking for a moment, I realize that I’m trying to vaguely create “metal”, but there are vast numbers of different metals.

Hoping it’s an easy one, I attempt to make copper. Visualizing, I bring forth a picture in my head of a small sphere of copper. Focusing on this image while channeling mana, a large drain taxes my mana vessels.

Floating above my palm, the telltale brownish metal appears as a sphere. It’s fairly small for how much mana it costs, but it’s still incredible to me. As it seems to be with any of the -mancy skills, it’s far more efficient to have an existing source of the element, but creating it should still help in a pinch.

Colt is staring at me, jaw agape that I just created metal. “I’m not sure why metal is finally having this effect on me when I can do this with earth, but that’s breaking all sorts of laws of physics.”

Handing off the glove to Colt, he’s able to learn the Skill far faster than I did. Probably because it’s somewhat similar to how mana flows for Geomancy. He immediately makes a sphere of some silvery metal larger than the one I made.

His shit-eating grin of success makes me frown at him, already one-upped by his magical capabilities.

Surprising us both, Becky learns Metallokinesis far faster than either of us did. She grins wickedly as her scissors float around her. Looks like she’ll be reworking her fighting strategies from now on.

She already has the Fledgling Mage Talent from practicing with mana, apparently. She doesn’t have Elemental Dominion yet, however, so she doesn’t gain Metallomancy.

“These are just normal scissors, so most of the cutting power comes from… Trim.” She sends the floating scissors out at high speed towards a tree, cleaving it in half immediately. The scissors drop to the ground afterward.

Becky awkwardly walks over and picks them up. Both Colt and I are staring at her. “I… Ran out of mana.”

“How? You didn’t really do a lot there. You’ve cut more than a tree in half before.” Inspecting the tree stump of the ironwood maple, I can’t find that she did anything special technique-wise.

“Stay On Your Feet. It’s a skill from my Fledgling Hair Stylist Talent… We have to stand on our feet all day in the salon, so I guess it translated over. It converts MP into physical stamina, kind of like drinking a PSL, but with magic.”

Her normal icy expression is back, she’s clearly uncomfortable and a bit embarrassed.

“PSL? Wait, so you kept up with us on the run so long by draining your MP? Becky, that’s dangerous! What if we got attacked and you couldn’t defend yourself?” Colt takes a step towards Becky to lay a hand on her shoulder, concern apparent on his face.

She shrugs his hand off. “I’d be fine, I have mana potions after all. And PSL stands for Pumpkin Spice Latte, duh.” She rolls her eyes. Colt lifts a finger to retort, decides against it, and shakes his head.

“Whatever, we’ll rest for a bit so you can restore MP. ...Actually, I have an idea. Lucas, you still have that other golem core you made right? The low quality one?”

“Uh-huh… So what do you-” Colt is already pulling up masses of clay from the earth, laying them out on the ground in the shape of a body, arms, legs, and a head.

“Get enchanting!” He whispers an idea into my ears. My eyes widen for a second, before I smirk and nod to him. Becky looks not at all pleased with the secrecy but deems to stay quiet. She’s gone into some kind of yoga pose, claiming it works like our Meditate Skill, but better.

“Becky, you’ll need to teach me that Skill later. It seems useful.” She huffs and turns the other way. She’s clearly turning embarrassment into misdirected anger.

Turning to the lumps of clay, I lay down runes as mana-efficiently as possible, only laying down what’s needed to keep the golem standing and to perform its functions.

The mana channels are set up to only supply to the needed areas of enchantment, mainly the joints, and the areas of structural reinforcement. My only special focus of complexity goes to the legs.

It takes me about an hour to finish the whole golem despite the simplicity, it’s a much bigger golem than I’ve done before, seeing as Lil P was about 6 inches tall.

Finally, the last inscription is drawn and the golem is complete. As soon as I plug the core into the center of its chest, a pale orange light shines out of its eyes. ‘Inspect.’

Clay Carrier Golem

Traits: Mana efficiency, Swift, Insufficiency

Description: Its basic form and efficiently styled mana channels decrease the mana costs considerably. Specific enchantments have been applied to the lower half of the golem to allow for heightened speeds. This golem’s body is too large for the core allocated to it. As a result, it can only take 2 commands maximum and requires a constant mana supply to function while performing commands or it will only last for a minute or less at full charge.

Level up! For working within limitations to create efficient rune designs, your Talent: Fledgling Enchanter has reached (34/50)!

‘No level for Fledgling Alchemist? I guess the golem isn’t anything special quality-wise…”

Becky has clearly Inspected the golem as well. She glares at both of us. “Oh no, this is not happening. I refuse.”

Shrugging, I walk towards Becky and pick her up. “Dude, put me down! I’ll cut you!” Her scissors float close to my neck.

“I’d like to see you try Becky. Come on, we’ll cover more ground this way!” Putting her in the golem’s arms, I command it to hold her. Its arms wrap around her upper and lower half, holding her like one would hold a baby.

Colt bursts out laughing at the scene, unable to hold it in any longer while Becky kicks and struggles before pouting and settling down when she realizes it won’t let go.

“Fine. Whatever, carry me.” Her face is intensely red as she shifts to get comfortable.

“Colt, can you be the energy supply? Your regen is way higher.” He wipes a tear from his eye and nods, still chuckling to himself.

“Sure thing.” He winks at Becky as he lays a hand on the golem and establishes a connection. One of her scissors plonks lightly against his head as he turns around. He fake-glares at her before commanding the golem to follow.

We’re moving at speed once more with the golem holding Becky. It doesn’t tire as long as it’s supplied with mana and Colt assures me the drain is negligible with his regen.

“I hate you both you know, this is like, kidnapping or something.” Becky indicates to the golem carrying her. It’s doing surprisingly well at handling the variations of the forest floor.

Turning to her mid-run, I keep my Primordial Perception on to navigate. “Relax, this is just a faster way to travel, get comfortable and enjoy it.” Turning forward, I keep up my pace.

When it’s clear she thinks I’m not looking, I catch her smile slightly out of the corner of my eye. I guess she does appreciate it under the icy exterior.

We make good time with our system-enhanced bodies. It only takes us about an hour longer of running to reach the first signs of populated civilization. Checking houses on our way only proved to be depressing or fruitless.

Stopping for a second, we see a crashed plane that landed in the forest. After checking for any survivors, which is unlikely after how long The Construct has been around for, we move on. Becky does make Colt snag some of the pre-packaged cookies, however.

I’m left to be the cookie-mule, of course, storing them away in my hold. She takes one package for the trip though.

“Becky, it’s a bit morbid to take cookies from a crashed plane.” Looking at her, I gesture to the plane as she crawls back into the golem’s arms.

“They’re not using them.” She shrugs, face placid.

Sighing, I move back into a running pace and the golem follows us.

“Oooh bitch, Colt should make us some cookies, I bet they’d be fucking fire.” Becky is already tearing open the package and scarfing down the contents.

Tuning her out, I just focus on my breathing as I run. As I breathe in and out, I notice that I can pull slightly more of the energy that permeates the air. Practicing this for a few minutes, a notification surprises me.

Through the prolonged practice of focused breathing, you have acquired the Perk: Pranic Breathing!

‘Huh. Perks.’

Perks:

Pranic Breathing

Description: Breath in the forces of life and mana and cycle them through your body. As long as you maintain this state of focused breathing, your resource regenerations will be given a flat 1% total per minute bonus. HP and MP Regen increased by 0.1. +0.1 HP and MP Regen per level up.

Colt notices the shocked expression on my face and questions it. After explaining how I acquired the perk to both of them, Colt practices the breathing technique as well. Becky apparently already has an advanced version of this perk through her Fledgling Yogi Talent.

For the sake of our mental health, we decide to stop checking every house we see unless there are obvious signs of life. Some of the scenes in or around those houses are far too depressing.

Even Becky sometimes frowns at the sights, even though it’s clear she’s trying to keep up her blank, uncaring expression. Not everyone is as lucky as we are for surviving.

We pick up our pace and keep to the forest as much as possible, the roads are far too open. We manage to outrun a pack of two feet tall squirrels that look molten.

Eventually, we see signs indicating we’re in Yarmouth. Anticipation fills me. “We’re only like, a 15-minute drive from Portland!”

Strangely, we don’t see anyone in the entire town as we run through it. It’s completely deserted aside from some random enemies like volley stags, slimes, and others I don’t recognize immediately such as a hawk that’s shimmering with multicolored lights.

Setting the issue aside from now, priority number one is reaching Portland. The rest of our trip is tougher, the population of monsters seems to be increasing as we go deeper into densely populated areas.

Suddenly, the sun goes dark. We look up to see a mass of small, watery birds flying towards us.

“Oh god, not more water birds!” Colt starts sprinting faster, but the birds are coming at us fast, and they look pissed.

These ones look different from the one we encountered what feels like forever ago. ‘Inspect.’

Hydrodee

Traits: Aquatic Body, Hydrokinesis, Spear Form

Description: This chickadee gathers water to shield its body as well as use it to attack. It can condense the water into a sharp point, resembling a spear. These birds flock together to take down stronger foes with sheer numbers. These avians are highly territorial.

It’s clear there’s no chance we’ll outrun these birds now that they’ve spotted us, so we turn to fight. With a command, the golem drops Becky to the ground and the light disappears from its eyes, Colt having broken the connection.

Both Colt and I fire Pebble Shots into the crowd, each shot takes out a few of the birds, but there are hundreds coming for us.

Firing out some Aquatic Scythes proves useless, the watery coating around the hydrodees blocks the entire impact.

Activating Storm’s Rage, the small birds seem to have more trouble flying in the raging winds. It doesn’t stop them, however.

Becky’s scissors are dancing between the birds, slicing through some of them as she levitates the blades with her Metallokinesis.

By the time they reach us, we’ve barely made a dent in the numbers. An assault of water spears stab toward us, each point sharp and deadly.

Activating Batten Down, I make it surround Becky and Colt as well. Colt erects a stone and vine wall to block some of the hits. The hydrodees break through the wall after only a few impacts.

Several pointed water spears stab into the ship’s visage of my shield before the image shatters, unable to take the strain while protecting three people with its enlarged size.

Each of us takes several hits from the birds before they swarm back up into the sky to stab down again. Becky looks the worst for wear with her lower stats.

She quickly chugs a healing potion and some of the wounds close. Promethean is working at full capacity to seal my wounds. Converting MP into HP, I keep my health high for the next assault while firing off more skills into the swarm.

None of my Pyromancy skills work very well, the water disperses the heat too well. Just as the swarm is coming back down for us, a feminine voice calls out.

“Paywall!” Just before impact, a wall of… coins? springs up in front of us. The shift of the metal seems to reduce the impact overall, taking the blow.

Turning to look, a figure leaps down from a house next to us and holds up her hand, the wall of coins shifts to face the birds.

“Jackpot!” The coins fire out in a shotgun burst, taking out large masses of the birds easily as the thin projectiles cut through the water.

The coins all stop in midair inside the flock of hydrodees. “Circulation!” The spread of currency spins violently in a whirlpool fashion, cutting up the last of the crowd easily.

All of the coins fly back towards the girl, disappearing as they touch her body. She takes a bow.

“Hey there! You looked like you could use a hand.” She smiles, her voice cheery.

Becky, Colt, and I are staring at her, jaws to the floor at the display. Taking my first good look at the girl, she has thick, curly, dark brown hair that her head gets lost in and metallic gold eyes. She’s a bit on the shorter side with a curvaceous figure.

She holds a hand out to me, seeming to determine me as the leader of our group. “The name’s Adreanell, nice to meet you!”

Taking her hand, I struggle out my name.

“Uh, hi, I’m Lucas. This is Colt, and this is Becky.” Indicating to each of them, Colt awkward smiles and waves, Becky just crosses her arms.

“That was… Quite the display… Ad-rea…” Colt can’t seem to perfectly remember her name.

“Sorry, The Construct lets you change your name to whatever you want, so I went with something fantasy-like! Ad-rea-neel, Adreanell! You guys looked like you were about to be horribly impaled, so I thought I’d help out!” She gives us a big, toothy smile.

“So, what, coin powers?” Becky quirks an eyebrow.

Adreanell puffs her chest out, laying a hand over it. “I’m a Fledgling Numismatist! At your service!” She dramatically bows once more.

“Numismawha?” The word is unfamiliar to me.

“Numismatist! A coin collector! I collected coins before The Construct came, so it ended up being my first Talent!” She poses, letting coins float around her.

“You see…” She starts to go into a long explanation about the history of coins before I shake my head and explain our situation to her.

For once, her overly excitable personality seems to drop a bit. “Oh goodness, The Restruct? Are you sure? That seems weird. Makes sense though, I guess. After everything that happened.” Her eyes meet the ground.

“What happened?” Colt’s voice is concerned.

“Well some guy, who actually fits your description really well, came and started gathering people up, forcing them to come with him. I managed to hide long enough and he didn’t find me, so here I am! ” Her eyes fill with tears as she seems to be brought somewhere else mentally.

“Why was he gathering people?” Glancing around the streets, I notice more signs of struggle. Yards are torn up, windows are shattered, and doors are broken in.

“I don’t know… He…He took my best friend. She sacrificed herself, for me.” Her eyes well up and her voice catches in her throat.

Colt pulls Adreanell into a hug and lets her cry into his chest, hushing her softly. His eyes burn. “We’ll get her back. I promise.”