The golem looked at all four of them with glowing red eyes, the lenses in front of which were cracked and chipped. Amazing durability given that it just withstood seven rods of dynamite blowing up adjacent to it. However, its rusted body took far more damage in the process. Armour plating all over lay scattered, with its right arm completely non-functional and left to hand from its shoulder. The golem looked at this broken limb for a moment, and instantly detached it, justifying the action as the limb was no more than a deadweight. A hindrance.

Inside, all four saw the endless yet silent turning of gears and pistons, thousands of them varying from the side of a palm all the way to tiny things as large as a seed.

Whilst some of these gears showed prominent rust and decay, the majority were a clean and vibrant golden-brass, same as the outer shell of intact golems.

However, what mattered most was the missing plate in the golem’s head.

From which a soft golden light escaped. One which all four knew to be from the power source which their village wanted the most, but to achieve that, they first had to finish off the thing.

Ashvard, holding the jar of fluid, drew the golem’s attention and allowed it to approach. With the two other elites kiting it at the same time though, its attention was quickly spread to three sources without any clear clues on which of the three presented the largest threat. It noticed that the jar was completely different from the dynamite, in both appearance and constitution as it clearly heard a liquid within it. Given that, it should be obvious that the two spears trying to penetrate its internals and perhaps break a delicate gear were a far greater threat.

Not that it matted as the jar’s hide top was undone and contents chucked onto the golem without a moment’s consideration.

Almost instantly, its entire body was soaked in the dark blue liquid which appeared closer to a black. It easily seeped between armour plates and gears, dripping down the thing’s whole body with a fair bit splashing backwards.

Fortunately, all three maintained a large enough distance that only a bit landed on their spears.

It was a losing battle on the golem’s side now. Every step, whir of its gears, or simple readjusting its body to maintain balance, furthered the thickening of that liquid. In just a few minutes, the golem which swung out with a force great enough to shatter stone, now barely swung its fist at a speed which could be called a punch. Eventually, their attacks cracked one of its internal components, and they quickly saw the golem lose steam.

A complete victory against the damaged golem. Admittedly, the most important factor in all this was its inability to run. They predicted a loss in some functionality after so many years, but for such a critical one to be lost…

Well, perhaps they underestimated just how long these golems existed without maintenance.

The other one simply lying against the mine wall displayed that better than anything.

As the golem’s gears began to shatter, they noticed how some of the smaller ones completely pulverised to dust under the great internal stresses its body was under. That somewhat explained to Joey how they outputted so much power, but surely their power source wasn’t so insane to allow for this? The three warriors quickly dismantled the golem, he was amazed to see that only a handful of non mechanical parts existed in both.

Some sort of transparent crystals behind their eyes, sort of like lenses but reactive to motion somehow. However, unlike the glow of the golems’ eyes, the crystal only seemed to give off a faint white light.

Next was a heart within the golem’s chest. A mechanical heart would not have surprised him, but that’s also exactly what caught him so off-guard. This heard contained no mechanical parts except for its valves at the various entrances to chambers and arteries. He could only consider it a marvel of engineering given its form which seemed to be cast from a single mould.

While he heard of ways to cast such complex designs like this… Normally you’d just create separate pieces and assemble it with various welding techniques.

But then what did this heart do?

And lastly, most importantly… The power source. A topaz coloured gemstone which radiated that golden light, a royal light unlike that of the sun or other similarly sized stars. It was a faceted piece already carved into the shape of a oval, and it remained tightly bound inside a seemingly delicate cage of that same golden brass metal he saw all golems use. This was what made golems run, and he had an idea just seeing all these parts.

“Would you mind if I checked the names of these parts first? I mentioned it in the past, but my artifact already has that information within.” It certainly caught the three off guard, but if it was just checking the names… Honestly, it helped them as well.

If they ever came across the terms in the future, it helped to be capable of identifying them. For example, an ancient book might mention the manufacturing process. He soon found all the armour were simply metal plates, whilst the gears were simply separated by sizes. It did allow him to find out this metal’s name though.

Brossdium, a name which immediately reminded him of ‘brass’ but whether this was a coincidence of actual importance remained a mystery.

Meanwhile, the cube told him nothing besides the heart being a ‘Brossdium core’ whatever that implied. And the crystal which reacted to motion were called ‘Avax crystals’ clearly named after either a place or a person who discovered them a long time ago.

But as he was about to touch the power source to his cube, he held back for a moment in thought. It was really impossible to tell, but what if this item was special enough to change the cube in some way? Sure, it made no sense for a power source to do that with the cube’s natural, near unlimited, power…

“Not risking that. I’ll use the dead golem’s source in case my artifact consumes it for some reason.” The other three only vaguely understood what he meant, in the literal sense that is, although that didn’t stop them asking what he meant by consume. Rather than hide it, Joey simply stated that he happened across a black metal card which the cube consumed, and it improved how much stuff it could hold.

Not that anyone could call him out on that. It worked in convincing the three elites, and that’s all that mattered.

The dead power source soon revealed the objects true name though, and the three stood in shock for a while. Joey only looked at the glowing gemstone with even greater curiosity.

An artificial power stone.

A supposedly rare gemstone which acted as a constant source of power…

And the Forger could create artificial variants of them. Almost instantly, it connected in how a single human and his golem’s managed to dominate so much land with such speed. However, given the low number of golems it made sense that the domination was not universal. Such a feat could not be underestimated though, and if they ever recreated this technology it would mean a massive upstart in technology for the villages.

In the end, a lack of space to build large prototypes, and a way to power such a things with ease, had held them back more than anything!

“Thinking about it, I’m surprised none of the villages have killed golems in the past.”

“We can surround and bombard them all we like. But in all my years all these machines run immediately after taking damage. They prioritise survival, far more than any human or beast.” Ashvard shook his head, clearly in his life there’d never been a killed golem, but perhaps in the far past it happened every now and then.

Although, the Forger only appeared quite recently in this world’s history, from what he’d heard, so maybe no one bothered hunting the golems simple due to it being a waste of time?

He imagined that technological prowess wasn’t exactly sought after compared to better smithing techniques or more alchemical recipes which improved the villagers’ bodies.

With all of that confirmed, he handed the three warriors the last of the golem parts and helped them gently pack everything into a pair of woven bags they brought with them. It was an easy carry for such people, and he decided to see them off for a while, only diverging when at the boundary for the gravel tree forest. At this point, he had his own business to deal with. Namely, quite a few tools to try and create with the iron ingots he received.

But first and foremost, he took a quick look into the iron mine to see the state of its minerals. The rain that his necklace warned him of was due extremely soon, and he wanted to rush back home to complete the owl ritual before it left in just an hour.

Just a few minutes of pacing rewarded him with a sight he truly couldn’t have imagined, as what the tunnel opened up to was no cave with walls covered in minerals…

“They actually completely opened it up… HELLO!” He shouted into the endless void in front of him, hearing the smooth voice echo right back in a matter of seconds and continue on for at least half a minute. This was a giant area they’d completely mined out, and from what his tiny charm showed off, it not only continued far, but held a reasonably great height.

He didn’t wander too far into the vast mine, but just a short walk into it revealed that a shiny mineral coated parts of the wall, likely pieces of iron which hadn’t been mined out. This mineral was mostly dark grey, although some were a far lighter shade and even shined like silver.

He wasn’t even that far underground, in retrospect, and he wondered how they supported this giant cave. Perhaps it was somewhat natural, and they simply expanded it wilfully? That guess made the most sense in his head.

Regardless, he carefully mined out a large chunk of the dark grey shiny mineral from the wall, and confirmed it as a chunk of iron ore. While its purity was unknown to him, this at least meant a source of iron would always be available…

Unless the cube expected him to set up large factories one day.

Not even the most ridiculous idea given how easy it was to build large structures here. So maybe one day he’d have automation lines more complex than anything on Earth? As for what would be produced? He had to wait and find out, but his mind already imagined things like mass producing those artificial power stones.

He left the mine, and took the single chunk of iron ore to test his oven in the future. Or perhaps he’d have to upgrade it into a real furnace to actually smelt iron.

Not to mention, he’d want one to begin glass processing. It was a massive pain not having access to glass himself.

For now, his immediate goal was to craft that totem carver’s chisel in hopes that it greatly improved the quality of his totems. It would help in the long run if he could either craft poor quality ones directly, or create shoddy ones far faster at the least. As it turned out, good wood carving, especially freehand, takes years of proper training and experience to make anything of significance. He had all but one of the runes, a single rod, and one iron ingot.

It'd be a pain making these himself in the near future, but at the same time he needed a way to get items of true significance a bit faster, by his own hands…

That line felt a lot worse since obtaining ingots directly from somewhere else. It wasn’t even that he found them in the workshop by scrounging about. But it was just 6 ingots, which at most meant 6 recipes to complete. And he very much expected that recipes asking for multiple would appear very soon. For now though, he changed into the leaf skirt and moved a distance from the oak tree with the windchimes to prepare for the ritual.

It barely took five minutes in the end. Once the ran began to splatter down, it wasn’t a ridiculously heavy downpour but at least a fair coating which allowed the ritual to activate and grant him a rune of the owl. Which meant he now had every required material for the chisel, and headed back to the tree to craft it!

Ingot in the centre, rod in the top right. Owl rune in the top, boar to the right, and serpent in the bottom left. And with a tap, it was done!

On first sight he could tell the difference between the relatively sharp stone chisel, and this proper, metal one. First, its sleek edge actually looked sharp, with a shine which told him that it would slice through skin with utter ease. Furthermore, the metal tang was simply encased in a wooden handle which was slightly styled for better holding with a slightly necked region near the joining point of metal and wood.

But even more than that, it was the runes engraved within the two parts which he noticed first. The rune of the owl took place in the handle, whilst the boar remained on the top of the metal nearer to the handle.

As for the serpent rune, he didn’t see it at first, but this was because it was practically impossible to notice. The rune was somehow precisely engraved all along the very blade of the chisel!

He had no clue what this granted in terms of effects, but he knew it couldn’t have been minor.

It had been quite a while since he unlocked anything from this tree as well, and he looked forward to seeing the new recipes. After all, the cube did not teach how to obtain runes, but rather items which made use of them. Things he appreciated far more as they held a very clear and obvious use.

“Fuck… I need that.” He’d only just checked the recipe tree and came to a conclusion.