The Aphiton Kingdom is a neighbouring kingdom to the east. Like the Wezar Kingdom, it is a minor kingdom and ever since king Wezar has been periodically absent, they’ve been trying to stir a conflict between the two kingdoms and lately, they've been aiming at the mines. The tensions haven't escalated to a full blown war until now. The two kingdoms had skirmishes continually for years with a fortress at the border, keeping the Aphitonians from invading. That changed last month, as the invaders changed tactics and hit the transporting routes the Wezar Kingdom used to export mana stones. The blow to the kingdom’s coffer was a line that tipped the scales from small skirmishes to large-scale battles. The Kingdom's army was sent to the borders and they’ve been at it for the last few months.

The news of the contract posted on the guild’s board under the guise of retrieving stolen goods, quickly spread throughout the city, including the small tavern. Bones was drinking coffee, his usual morning routine, while Solin was awkwardly avoiding his gaze.

“Something on your mind, Solin?” Bones teased, seeing that the young man was clearly holding back on saying something.

“No! I mean, yes. Yesterday, it’s not like me and Morem were dating, you know? We just fool around sometimes and I think she might be done fooling around…”

“Oh?” Bones replied.

“Oh? That’s it? That’s all you have to say? What about sharing some profound wisdom?” Solin snapped back, frustrated.

“Like what? Solin, you’re asking a bunch of old bones for love advice! Well, just don’t complicate things too much and be straight with her, yes?” Bones replied with a chuckle. Solin wasn’t as amused but it got him thinking and also, quiet. Moments later, Tivaara crashed by their table. “Y'all hear news bout the war? Wanna go? It’s a great experience boost!”

The two looked at each other and instead of answering her question, Bones asked her how she and Silva weren't afraid that their location wouldn't be discovered. They are, after all, wanted fugitives. She snorted and said that they would hear them coming. As for the war, Bones had no interest in joining at this moment and Solin even less so. “Anyway Solin, up for a match this afternoon?”

Bones spent his days sparring with Solin, practicing engraving and even having his first fight in the arena. His first arena fight was clunky, to say the least as the fighters were separated in categories according to their level and arena rank. Bones, with no arena rank, fought an inexperienced fighter and secured an easy victory as his opponent wasn't used to fighting other users. The rest of the month was again spent training, practicing, and finally advancing his Meditation skill! Like he wanted, Bones morphed Meditation into a passive ability with a permanently increased mana regeneration, at reduced effectiveness.

Meditation (advanced) - an advanced version of the basic meditation ability. A meditation technique heightens the user’s state of awareness and focuses attention, increasing the mana regeneration by 20% at all times. Passively gathers and absorbs ambient mana into the body, strengthening it and nurturing one's core by filtering impurities.

The effect is slightly increased with each level in a skill.

Status.

Status

Attributes

Name: Bones

Race: Undead Skeleton lvl 22

Class: Bonemancer Adept Lvl 29

Soul Weaver lvl 8

Profession: Mana Engraver lvl 4

Hp - 470 (4.7 hp/s)

Mp - 900 (37 +7.4 mp/s)

Sta - ∞

STR: 26

AGI: 5

END: 5

VIT: 47

INT: 90

WIS: 28

Free points:

Bones progressed a lot in the last few months. Dungeon run with the dwarves netted him a level in a Bonemancer Adept class and up until now, he gained two levels in a Race and one in a new class, Soulweaver. His profession was leveling slowly and unlike other classes, he would gain a free point at every threshold level, which he learned would be at every five levels. He still hasn’t found a suitable skeleton for his golem.

In truth, he didn't have a clue what he was looking for in a golem. He hoped the dwarves would have a better idea and the means to acquire such a skeleton. It was nearing the end of the month and the dungeon should've reset by now. Bones excused himself, explaining to others that he had business requiring his attention, and left the city.

He made a short visit to the smithy, checking how things were going and taking his share of the profits from the shop, along with the money from the mana stone deal. He left the smithy, saying he would stop by once he was done with the dungeon. In the time he was in the capital, the dwarves did their homework, analyzing some of the data they gathered from their dungeon run and already tested some of the dungeon’s limits.

Each stage was limited to a maximum of five people in a party. The farming team had two parties with five dwarves per party set up to farm the first stage and one party with four dwarves to tackle the second stage. The first stage was already fully occupied by two teams when Bones arrived and the other team already entered the second stage. Not wanting to lag behind the others, Bones rushed to the entrance to the second stage and entered.

Bones was familiar with the dungeon’s layout by now. Well, the second stage didn’t really have one, but the monsters were always in the same general area so he had no difficulty finding the minibosses. Apart from gaining combat experience, Bones really wanted to level his Golem Mastery after seeing what difference it made with each threshold level. His golem was proving himself more combat capable, but still fell short. Or maybe it’s better at fighting because I’m constantly fucking with the monsters using soul link?”

Bones was sure the engraving done on golem bones helped too. It was a shame the dwarves didn’t have a potential skeleton sitting somewhere in the corner of a workshop. Darsumi promised he would try and see if he could acquire one of a silver rank by next month. Silver rank monsters, while uncommon in Wezar Kingdom, weren't hard to find. The problem was that no adventurer party would bother hauling the monster's whole body and be mindful not to damage its skeleton.

Bones was clearing the stage at a steady pace and by the fourth day, he had cleared all the monsters on his way to the temple. Standing once more in front of the ruins of the temple, he contemplated whether to enter or not. With resignation, he decided not to. He couldn’t see himself winning the fight. Once he has his golem infused with the mana core, he’ll think about tackling the Widow. He turned and rushed toward the entrance, or the exit in this case, and left the dungeon. Back at the smithy, he greeted the dwarves and asked if they wanted to come help him kill the boss but learned that the dungeon entrance was blocked the second he left the dungeon and was now on cooldown.

“The problem isn’t entering the dungeon while someone is already inside. The dungeon enters a cooldown period the moment all participants leave the dungeon. In this case, you, as the last participant.” Darsumi explained. Bones nodded and apologised for wasting the opportunity to kill the boss of the second stage. Hemdus waved him off explaining they didn’t have a second team to take on the boss anyway and he and Darsumi couldn’t be bothered killing a small fry.

The shop was doing business successfully, garnering attention the day it opened up. The dwarves weren’t surprised as the gear they sold was quality made even though it was made for the lower levels and bronze rankers. Their heavy armor set was a smash hit among defenders as chitin provided a good amount of defence.

Bones still hasn’t made up his mind about his gear. As he stated before, he considered fighting without armor. Luckily, he didn’t have to ponder too much about it, as Belmus the Tailorsmith already made him a set of durable robes. They were of quality made with the medium self-repair enchantment. Bones adorned the new clothes and found himself looking very mage-like.

A black hood covered his head and a long black robe, reaching below knees with a split in the middle, covered most of his body. The baggy pants made of light material hung loose and he wore new leather boots, replacing his old reinforced ones. His old gloves were still mostly undamaged and he saw no reason to replace them. The parts visible were covered by a layer of Bone Armor, so no one should notice he was in fact a skeleton underneath, unless they look at him really up close. Bones was looking at himself in the mirror and he really liked the clothes the dwarf made for him but…Crap, I look like I am up to no good. I couldn’t look more shady if I tried!

Bones didn’t stay as long as he did the month before. He spent the rest of the day watching an enchanter do his work before leaving for the capital. If he hadn’t befriended the old man during the celebration before, he doubted he would let him intrude as he did. Engraving runes required patience and as usual, lots of practice. Bones thought about what to do next but found himself free and without anything to do until the next dungeon reset and his scheduled Hagos dungeon run in two months.

When he returned to the capital, he was surprised to see Silva as he spent more time doing his business in the Underground, then here in a tavern. Bones was even more surprised when Silva presented him with a newly acquired skeleton of a peak bronze rank lizardman. A bipedal, 1,7m tall humanoid lizard. Bones may have previously mentioned needing a skeleton of a monster to construct his golem but didn’t think much of it when he said it.

Needless to say, he was elated and gladly took the skeleton off Silva's hands. He now had everything he needed to create a proper golem! Well, almost everything. There was a small matter regarding his low level golem mastery. It wasn't a requirement to fuse the golem with the mana core, but at the advice of Hemdus, who did have experience with earth golems, Bones decided to wait until he leveled Golem Mastery to level 10.

Bones spent his days in a daily routine of sparring matches with Solin and practicing engraving, but mostly focusing on his golem. Everyday he would create a new golem and have him do different chores, while working on engraving the lizardman skeleton. It was a tedious and slow process, and a month flew by just like that.

The dwarves were busy with their work and the shop was still doing great! Even his bone decoration was sold, kind of. A small kid found the bone kitten Bones put up for sale cute and took it off the shelf, leaving without paying. No one bothered to stop the kid and ask for the money because the kid was just adorable and the bone kitten wasn't. The opening of a new shop in Westbrook was delayed until next month due to an unforeseen devastation caused by the fight between two gold rankers. The farming teams completed the dungeon runs as scheduled. And Bones…?

Bones found himself - once again - in front of the ruined temple, hesitating to go in. His golem mastery reached level 10 while in the dungeon but he didn't have an opportunity to create the new golem. He found the dungeon to be an inadequate location for such a complex and delicate endeavour, so he once again turned around and unwillingly left the dungeon without killing the boss.

On his way back, he spent the night at the smithy discussing further plans for the heist and going over the newly acquired floor plans of the houses they planned to rob. Their plans were slightly adjusted, expanded, knowing that the chaos would ensue at the festival. With delight, Bones showed them the lizardman's skeleton he would use to construct the golem. The others didn't express the same enthusiasm to see a bunch of bones like he did.

It was two weeks before the appointed time for the Hagos dungeon, when Bones finished engraving the whole lizardman's skeleton. He had to say, he was proud of his work as it was a delicate and slow process requiring patience, precision and had no room for mistakes. Unlike previous bones he engraved and used as a material to construct the golem, these bones were much harder to engrave because of their level. It was a blessing that the skeleton wasn't of silver rank monster, otherwise, Bones wouldn't be able to engrave them as delicately. The next step was to create the nucleus and infuse it into the mana core. Another delicate process and more complicated one.

Over the course of a month, while preparing for the big moment when he would finish creating the golem, Bones read about the lizardman folk; their traits, behaviour and combat capabilities. He wasn't sure if the knowledge he gained would have an impact on the creation of the golem, but he thought it wouldn't hurt to try and adapt the core to be as close to the original owner of the endoskeleton. The lizardmen were known to wield spears as weapons and Bones made an effort to buy an adequate spear for his golem. As tested prior, his summoned Bone Lance couldn't be used as a melee weapon by others.

Bones used the knowledge gained and created the nucleus more complex than any he made so far. The process of infusing the nucleus truly tested his patience. He would fail again and again, wasting a small portion of mana from within the core, including his own mana with each failure. It didn't have a damaging effect as the core would recharge over time, but it did a mental blow to his state of mind. Luckily, he now had a permanently active Meditation skill helping him keep level headed. After numerous failures, he succeeded and was awarded with the following notification.

Congratulation, you have successfully created a Golem Core

A week before the dungeon run, in the courtyard behind the tavern, Bones was having a sparring match against his new bone golem. The more they fought, the more smoothly his golem adapted to fighting with the spear. Bones now understood why the golem mastery was so important. It raised the golem's cognition. Its ability to acquire factual information, such as perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning to a certain extent. The golem quickly learned to adapt Bones' movements with the spear. There was heaviness to the golem's existence Bones haven't felt before. It felt alive. I don’t know where my path would lead me, but I’ll have you accompany me until the end!