The walk back was silent and quick. Arthur followed behind the others and made his way to the cellar room when he returned. On the way back he reattached his finger as he walked. The connection to a part of himself outside of his main body dissipated as the runes in his hands adjusted to the new digit.

In the cellar, Zoe sat waiting in her usual spot. She had laid out some diagnostic tools on the table while she waited.

“Welcome back Arthur. I heard that your hunt was successful.”

“Yes, I hunted them all down even if it took a little longer than I expected.”

“That is good because that means you are growing in strength as fast or faster than we have planned. After I’m done here we can go over some new spells if you would like and get you going on your first team mission.”

“Starting to work with the others as a team would be great. I know they have been bored just watching me fight my own battles.”

“They are anxious about getting started with this next step. I’m glad we made it this far with your training. Now, Lucas told me something interesting that happened during your fight. Your healing abilities went far faster than we thought possible, and you went on ‘autopilot’ during your excursion.”

“I was surprised about that as well. I first fought the birds near the river as you probably know by now, and I lost there. I lost a finger to one of the birds and they took it to their nest. Shortly after that, I went unconscious, and my systems focused on repairing the connections so that I could walk. Sometime during this, I think my body noticed its missing piece and searched for it and I sensed its location. Maybe through my mana or one of the runes on the metal sphere, I found where it was and walked to it.”

“What did it feel like when you sensed it. Did it feel like residual mana or something else?”

“I wandered through the forest without knowing exactly what I was doing. I can’t be certain if there was residual mana on it or not, but I felt like I had lost a piece of myself or my soul now that it is bonded to this body, and I needed it back to feel complete. Eventually, I did regain control of myself, and I finished the job and restored myself.”

“Thank you for sharing. Let me just finish up writing up my report and then you can go. For now, tell me about the changes to your runes. How did removing a piece of you affect it?”

“I have almost finished memorizing and categorizing all of the runes on my limbs and some on my chest and back. I have never read the scholarly books you have so my methods will be a bit different than yours. I have optimized most of them as well and done everything I could with them without trying to create brand new runes or destroying some of their functionalities. When my finger was removed I was more focused on repairing myself fully at the time. The main thing that its removal affected was my spell casting. In order to compensate I put more mana into the spell creating the overcharged version. I also let my uninjured hand lead as I fused spells together.”

“I heard a little about that last one from Lucas and Aria as well. Apparently, there was so much fungal spore dust in the air that they had to brush it out of their hair. She was also able to confirm that what you did was a true fusion spell. It was a great choice to use while in the fight and from what the workers inspected from the bodies it was very effective.

“Now that you have started using fusion and overcharged spells I will have them focus training you in honing that skill. You showing that you can create those techniques without being prompted is a great step. After your team missions, I will have Aria and Kendra show you some of their fusion techniques. There are also several spells that they can’t use that they theorize can be fused into powerful spells.”

“I look forward to that.”

“Good. Now there was one other thing I wanted to ask you about before you start your team mission. The new sword is coming in and…”

“The door to the cellar opened up and Kendra popped her head in and shouted at them. “Ethan is here. Come on out here!”

Zoe looked at Kendra and then back at Arthur. “Coming. I guess we will have to continue this another time. Let’s go meet one of your designers.”

Arthur perked up at hearing that and looked to the door. Zoe stood up soon after him and started walking to the stairs.

Ethan was walking around the outpost when Zoe and Arthur approached. His hair had grown out since his time in the mountains, and he spoke briefly to the people who approached him before moving on. When his eyes focused on Arthur his eyes grew wider and he smiled.

“Miss Selah and the Golem.”

“I am named Arthur now.”

“Arthur. Nice name. I am glad to finally meet you and I’m glad the construction of this body went well.” He turned to Zoe. “Sadly, I need you to make modifications. I met with my Elders, and they have these for you. Open up the unsealed ones first. I’m not sure what is in the other ones.”

He opened up his bag and took out the papers within and passed it to Zoe.

“Thank you. Should we find somewhere to sit? I suppose you will want to talk with Arthur. Maybe I could start looking over these while you do so.”

“Yes. That would be great. Let us go to this bunker room that I have heard so much about.”

------

“Tell me what it was like when you woke up for the first time? What did it feel like?”

“Things in my head were jumbled and messy. My old memories were rushing back into my head as I was trying to navigate this new body. Not everything came to me at first, but I am glad I could be a part of this project and help my people after my death.”

“You mentioned that you had to adjust to this body. As one might expect. Did you feel any discomfort initially?”

“I had some movement troubles at first and it has been a constant adjustment for me as I translate the moves of others into my own form for fighting.

“Have you noticed any changes, good or bad, to anything?”

“I have been learning the runes on my metal exterior because of my need to heal myself and have adjusted them as I feel is necessary. Miss Zoe has documented most of them that are on my exterior at least. Though she will have to tell you more about it,” he said turning to Zoe.

“Yes. I have the documents and you can examine the runes in front of you on him as well. I felt that because it was helping him, and he has not touched the interior metal sphere pieces that it would be fine. Though I can see how that might be a problem if we try and implement these changes.”

Ethan looked over the section of Arthur’s chest that had been marked for change. “Yeah. That will be a bit of a problem now. Or it will at least take longer to carve in. Can you bring out your carving tools and Arthur can you adjust your arms? We are going to remove these three runes here. Or at least the ones that originally were there.”

Zoe nodded and brought over her tools while Arthur adjusted himself to prepare for the procedure.

“Now Arthur,” said Ethan looking up at him. “I need you to help us with this by shutting down the area around the runes set for removal. I would normally suggest having your body temporarily shut down, but because the runes have changed we will need to insert them while you are in control, and then immediately after I need you to connect them to yourself and allow them to integrate without breaking. Do you think you can do that?”

“That is something I can do. Give me a moment to power off the area.”

“Then let us begin. Zoe whenever you are ready. I will be here to assist.”

Arthur focused on the three runes and those around it and forced the mana within him to avoid them. Soon the blue hue of the rune carvings dimmed. Zoe took out her first set of tools. She started tracing the runes with her first tool. It acted as a magnet and attracted the previously blue filling and separated it from the rest of the chest pieces. She went over it slowly., careful not to remove parts from the other runes.

Once she had removed enough at a time she deactivated the magnetic properties of the tool and dropped the excess rune filling into a bucket. This first step went by quickly and soon the only thing left of the old runes were the deeply carved impressions in the metal. Next, she took out a beaker and metal shavings.

“It’s a good thing that you kept the old pieces from when you first carved the golem,” said Ethan.

“It is just standard procedure really. If the client doesn’t like something about the finished product or prototype we have the excess lying around though most of the time I just restart from scratch if it is made from a normal metal.”

Zoe returned to the beaker and started heating it up for a minute before throwing in the necessary metal. She stirred it around for another minute before it started melting. The pieces started to bend and eventually fuse and melt together. After the metal successfully melted she began spreading the liquid into the empty spaces with a special spatula. Zoe also had Arthur lay down and adjust his position over time to make it easier for her to fill in all of the gaps. She did overfill in some areas, but she wasn’t too worried about it.

“Now for the hardest part. Arthur can you try and rest your back on the table while keeping your feet on the ground?” asked Zoe.

Arthur complied and when he put his weight on the table it creaked a bit as he did so. They waited for a second to make sure that the table wouldn’t break. Arthur waited patiently for them to check over the stability of the table. Once Zoe was satisfied she started her carving.

Ethan had placed the reference papers to her side, and she checked back on them as she worked. Using the same tools, she always had she carved the runes. New flakes and pieces of the metal fell off as she worked. She stopped every few steps to make sure she hadn’t made a mistake and to give her fingers and wrists a break.

Finally, after some time waiting she was finished. During this time Arthur waited patiently and watched over what was happening with his senses.

‘I’m so glad that they didn’t power me off. I can still feel my soul connection to the unfinished runes despite no mana flowing through them. Ethan and Zoe don’t seem to have noticed my connection to it. Maybe they are just too focused on their work or maybe only I can feel the connection to stuff my soul and soul energy has touched. Either way, this is a great boon for me. Not only am I getting the new runes, but my mind still remembers the old runes so I might be able to do something with them later though that is unlikely. The important thing is I am understanding more about my golem body. I didn’t even realize that I could shut off mana to some of my runes. I’m sure doing it to some of them is irresponsible and dangerous, but it could be useful in the future.’

Now that the runes engraving was done Zoe brought back out the blue shavings. In a new beaker, she began mixing the blue stuff with other chemicals she had brought with her. With the addition of the new chemicals the blue shavings changed back into their colorless form and with a puff of smoke leaving the beaker it returned to its liquid form.

“Now Arthur. I am going to need to pour this over the runes. I need you to reactivate the power to them soon after. I don’t want any to drip off.”

“I’ll lay on the floor to make it easier for you.”

“Thanks for doing that. You have been very patient. We will be over soon. Don’t forget to adjust to the runes after. I don’t want the chest pieces melting and falling apart after all of this work.”

Arthur sat on the floor and laid himself down. Zoe brought over the mixture and poured it. It latched onto the metal and filled it in. Zoe switched over to two tools and used them to block the liquid from going elsewhere after it overflowed. At the same time, Arthur opened the half-finished runes to his mana.

Arthur felt like his side was on fire. His internal alarm bells were telling him to shut off the power again or force out the new changes. It was akin to drinking a small amount of poison to become immune to it. Arthur shut off the connection to his senses and only focused on his burning side.

He started walking through his process of learning the runes just as he had for all the others. First, he put mana into it which he already was doing, and then started poking at its pieces and parts. This was a bit different than his previous attempts. These runes were broken somehow and he had to fix it in the next few seconds or problems would come up.

He noticed right away that the connections that the new runes had to each other were perfect and it was only a problem with the others. After narrowing the problem down, he moved on to the others. His mind was moving thousands of times than Zoe or Ethan’s.

Arthur began systematically breaking the connections to the adjoining runes and rebuilding them back up while keeping their functions intact. Surrounding the three runes was fourteen others he had to work through. Once he hit the eleventh rune the problems seemed to subside. Just to be sure he also rebuilt the other three, but this time with his senses back on. He also took some time to adjust to the new runes, but he knew that they were some of the more complex ones and very different from the others within him.

“You did it Arthur you did it,” said Ethan watching from behind.

“Yeah. It sucked. I don’t usually feel much pain, but that hurt. It also took a lot out of me. I’m going to rest now.”

“Then we will leave you be until tomorrow. We can go over stuff with the new runes and the team mission tomorrow,” said Zoe.

“See you later.”