One week had passed, and luckily, they hadn’t been found by any search parties as they worked on making their mechanized servant. Morgan and Ford finished assembling the main four legs of the servant and the spine, connecting it to the legs. At this point of the construction, the mech looked like a four-hundred seventy-centimeter-long spine with legs bringing it to a height of three-hundred sixty centimeters. It looked intimidating for hunks of steel put together.

Now that they had finished putting the frame of the body, Ford and Morgan began work on the accessories of the servant. They started with a makeshift ribcage made of steel and attached metal spikes along its spine, creating a spikey tail. While Morgan worked on the body, Ford worked on the heart of the mechanized servant, or rather the three hearts. Due to the mech’s size, it needed two cores, but the third was a backup if one of the other two got destroyed to the point that the skill ‘self-repair’ couldn’t fix the damage.

Once she finished making the hearts, she began making the head of the mech, where the crystal hearts were to be stored. This process took three days to complete, and the head wasn’t perfect, but it was good enough for functionality. Then under Morgan’s constant pestering, Ford used the silicon Max had been making and melted it into glass for the eyes. The glass had been blackened and looked more like obsidian, but it didn’t matter as much to Ford as it did for Morgan, even though the mechanized servant was her idea and project from the beginning.

Now that she had finished making the head of the mech, she had to use her blood possession on it to complete the mechanized servant spell. After covering the head in her blood, she began enchanting it and hoped it would work, especially since the originally mechanized servant called for crystal cores and weapon possession, not crystal hearts and blood possession. Once she finished, she attached the head to the body of the mechanized servant finishing the hollow mech.

Ford and Morgan took a few steps back to admire the work that lay on the ground before them, “Well, look at that, we finally finished,” Ford said.

“It’s beautiful,” Morgan said, a tear in the corner of his eye.

“And about three-hundred thirty kilograms overweight.”

“Bahhh. It’s fine. We’ll be more than capable of summoning it whenever. Now get on with it and cast the spell.”

Ford couldn’t help but smile and said, “Alright, here goes…probably about two weeks of work,” then she put Lilly’s mana storage bracelet, which had nearly one million mana in it, and cast the spell mechanized servant. The mech that had been lying on the ground a moment before shimmered as the body dissolved into blue light and then reformed.

The ruff and makeshift parts smoothed out, such as the spiked tail, spiked spine, and the patched-up-looking head. The spikes began to resemble metallic fur and a bushy tail. The hollowed interior of the mech lit up with an ethereal blue and violet flames that came out of the shoulders of the mech and along its spine. The steel of the legs became more liquid and uniform ending in massive clawed paws half the size of Morgan and tipped with the ethereal flames. The head of the mech elongated and smoothed out into a snout, the metal looked as though it was liquid with the consistency of skin, and its jaw filled with steel fangs and a barbed tongue. The eyes, which had been black from the obsidian glass, had been filled with two small dots of blue and purple flames.

When the transformation finished, it rose to its full three-and-a-half-meter height, the mechanized hellhound. Ford approached the mech, “It worked. IT WORKED!! AHAHAHAAA!!” she laughed.

Morgan walked up behind her and asked, “What are you going to name it?”

Ford caught her breath quickly and said, “Well, it’s a mechanized hellhound built to kill things. Its model number will be HK-9, and we will call him Ace.”

At that moment, a voice spoke in Ford’s head and only said one word, “Ball.”

Ford didn’t know who said it, so she asked Morgan, “Did you say something?”

Morgan cocked his head up at her, “I didn’t say anything.”

“Huh, I could have sworn I heard someone say-”

“Ball,” Ace barked when the voice repeated ball.

Ford slowly turned back to Ace, “Was that you, Ace?”

Ace wagged his tail and barked again, “Ball!”

A smile spread across Ford’s lips as she realized, ‘We have a dog!!’ she thought, then said, “Hey, Ace, do you want to be my bonded companion?”

Ace knelt with his tail up in the air, wagging furiously, “You have a ball?!”

“Who are you talking to?” Morgan asked.

Ford ignored him and said, “I can get you a ball.”

“Yes! Want ball! Want ball!” Ace said, slamming his clawed paws on the ground. Once he said this, Ford received a notification, and she opened it.

A bond contract has been made; do you accept the cost of the bond? Yes, or no? Yes. The mechanized servant has been removed from your control, and you no longer provide it with energy. ‘What?!’ Mechanized servant is now companion HK-9 ‘Ace’ and is now considered a living being.

Ford closed the window and looked at Ace, concerned. The giant hellhound simply wagged his tail and cocked his head, “Ball?”

Ford smiled and said, “Alright, alright. We’ll make you a ball.”

“Ball!!” Ace stood and jumped up and down, his mass shaking the ground below Ford.

She smiled, stuck her head out the portal, and said, “Hey, Max!”

Max looked up from the food she had been cooking and said, “Huh, yeah. What’s up?”

“I need you to make Borax and glue, then combine them.”

Max stared at Ford for a long minute, then asked, “What? What? And What?”

“Na two, Be four, Oh five, OH four, eight H two O (Na2[B4O5(OH)4]8H2O). That’s Borax. C four, H six, O two (C4H6O2). That’s glue. You need sodium, Boron, oxygen, hydrogen, water, and carbon.”

“Umm. I’m not sure where I can find most of that.”

“You can- AHH,” Ford screamed in shock as Ace pulled on her pant leg.

“Play with me!” he said as he continued pulling.

Ford struggled to keep her head through the portal and spoke hastily, “You can get most of that stuff from trees and leafy green vegetables like spinach! Make it into a big ball!”

Then she disappeared back through the portal as Ace pulled her back through the portal as he yelled, “BALL!!”

“Is she okay?” Max asked no one in particular.

“She’ll be fine,” Farah answered.

Then Ford came through the portal again and yelled, “Hurry!!” then was pulled back through the portal again.

Farah took a sip of some tea Max and Benet had made, “Yeah, she’s fine.”

***