Harlan was working out the kinks in a new fox, the extending parts were removed, they were weak points and he realized that he just couldn’t make something that looked like a real fox anyway. He was reinforcing this model with plates of skysteel.

He learned how to make what he would call an animation core, a single higher strength item that could connect with weaker parts and spread the soul throughout each segment of his creations without issue, allowing them to control each part of their body with greater dexterity.

Though the best benefit was that he could soul enchant them and then just place them in a golem, it was a weak spot but it let him test the new designs by just swapping the core to a different body instead of needing to drag the golem out to the trees to soul enchant it.

Ava loved her new armor letting her nearly fly with air bursts.

Breken was less impressed that she had a hard time learning when the armor was running low on power and he had to stop her from hitting the ground more than once.

Balor was done with the rest of the deal, leaving him time to help with the crafting.

“Why are you bothering to put in eyes?”

“Well they need to see don’t they?”

“Do you want to know how a soul enchanted item sees? I could send over a few memories.”

“Sure.”

Harlan was on the floor trying his best not to throw up, Balor underestimated how overstimulating a 360 sight was.

After 5 minutes Harlan was back on his feet with minimal feelings of intense crippling nausea.

“Point taken, I will paint the eyes on.”

“Apologies, and yes that will save time and leave a stronger head.”

Lugh was sitting off to the side, trying to carve his own parts to help out.

Harlan finally placed the legs on it and was doing movement tests. He would have the guards test its durability tomorrow.

The ominous feeling was gone for Balor.

Dearil was still watching with his birds, but he could tell that his secrets hadn’t been found out after he bought one of Harlan’s toys.

He was just glad to see a kindred soul making interesting little golems.

Since Harlan had made his latest fox but still couldn’t test how strong it was he decided to start working on more toys again, they were selling well in town, it took a few days to convince someone in town that they weren’t secretly some kind of golem meant to kill everyone, they never voiced this opinion but Harlan kinda figured.

To cut down on costs he started heating up Lugh to burn designs into them instead of painting them, he hoped that kid from the facility who had painting magic would find out how to share it with everyone some day.

But… Harlan was getting bored, he knew what he could do, he honestly wanted some real excitement. He wanted to fight seriously, in the morning he would go to town, in his own carriage he had made. And he entered the place no one in their right mind goes to.

The adventurer guild, a place tolerated but rarely respected.

He marched to the front desk

“Hello, I would like to be certified as an adventurer.”

“Fill out this form, depending on who processes your application you will need to spar with them to ascertain your level of combat competence. Do you understand what I just said?”

“Yes.”

And so Harlan filled it out, reading over a series of warnings and rules on the second sheet of paper.

He was somewhat shocked to see that there really wasn’t an age requirement, no wonder orphans so often end up as adventurers. Most of the warnings were just saying in different ways that no we aren’t responsible if you get yourself killed or otherwise cannot work etc.

“Alright, I filled out your paper.”

“Good, we will see who we have for testing today, you may take a seat over there.”

Harlan was the youngest one in the line up. A large man in armor of wood and chainmail that covered his entire body spoke to him.

“What does a pipsqueak like you want from this life?”

“I’m bored, I know I am strong, I want to fight and help people.”

Nearly the entire place erupted in laughter.

“You will accomplish nothing and die in a hole.”

Harlan wanted to try and refute his claims but the man was called back for a rank up test.

A woman he could only call a stereotype of a witch went for the test next. Then it was his turn.

A man in nicer armor that Harlan remembered enchanting for the blacksmith in town spoke to him.

“Stand in the white circle, I will stand in mine. When the bell rings we will spar, as we spar I will start to speed up in my attacks and use more advanced techniques. The match ends when you give up or I say it is over, you will not argue against me if I say it is over. The longer the match goes the more points you get, if I think you are doing nothing but stalling I will dock points. You will not argue against me docking points. If you know magic you may use it, but do try to not cause undue harm to me or the spectators, I can dock you points for that too. Ready up.”

Harlan spoke with Balor and Lugh.

“Alright, Balor work on deflections that get passed me and Lugh. we aren’t trying to win, just last as long as we can.”

“Right.” they both answered.

The bell rang and the man stepped towards them, he started with a series of attacks Harlan recognized as a basic horizontal slash, vertical slash, stab, exercise Breken taught him at the start of his training.

30 seconds passed and the man started getting faster, mixing up his slashes as well.

30 more seconds and he stopped the basic pattern entirely, fighting closer to Breken, feigning attacks, mixing in punches and shoves.

1 more minute passed and the man started kicking dirt into Harlan’s eyes and moved fast enough and with so many faints that Harlan could only barely keep up.

20 more seconds passed and the match was called with the adventurers sword in Harlan’s face.

“Bronze rank, you might be able to face a single orc, but I wouldn’t count on it. You have clearly been taught but you lack experience, start with small stuff.”

“How high is bronze rank?”

“You skipped past glass rank and iron rank, above you is silver, gold, blackstone. Most people reach bronze in about a year, blackstone in 20.”

“Oh, thank you then.”

“Don’t thank me, don’t expect to retire if you do this work for long.”

Harlan nodded at the man and went to get his badge. It was already done by the time he got to the front desk.

From there it was right to the questboard.

He realized that there was hardly anything, mostly goblin groups spotted near farms, a few warg quests.

There was a quest to clear a goblin lair but that required a team of at least 4 bronze ranks or a single silver rank. And Harlan heard enough to not want to trust other adventurers. Another thing was a bandit quest, but Harlan didn’t want to kill a person, he knew it was hypocritical since surely what he gave the crown was going to kill people, and he had killed people before, but only in self defense.

He decided to take a quest for the farm nearest his parents, reward was 2 silver per goblin, heads required.

No one bothered him on the way out, there was no bar fight this time. Just stink eye and grumblings about another kid walking to his death, leaving them to clean up the mess when they fail.

It wasn’t terribly long before he arrived at the farm, a man was in the field speaking with a younger child. He rushed over to see what a noble was doing there. He didn’t recognize Harlan when he stepped out.

“Hello Sir, what can I help you with today?”

“I heard there were goblins here, so I took a quest to kill them.”

“Oh? Why would a noble be adventuring? I mean not to pry, um, Sir.”

“I just wanted too, building and sparring can be boring, do you not recognize me?”

The man stood and stared for longer than Harlan was comfortable with.

“Oh, you are Harlow’s boy. I heard that you got a title, thought you would be off in the frontier setting up a village or some such things.”

“Not for me, I don’t want to do that. But back to my question, where did you see them?”

“Oh no, I didn’t see them. My oldest girl did, I’ll fetch her.”

After a minute Harlan was speaking with a girl about Ava’s age who explained she had seen them near a stream not far from the house. Harlan thanked her and set off to deal with them.

He found muddy footprints on the creek bed. Leading to a small cave that didn’t lead very far down. He figured it was probably fine to go in.

The ceiling was low, probably why the goblins were camping out in it.

After a few minutes it exited into a larger cave room, 15 goblins sleeping during the day, not even a watch posted.

Harlan decided there was no reason to start a fight with all of them. He tiptoed around the room thinking about how he should handle it, thinking of everything he knew about goblins and how best to kill 15 silently when Lugh chimed in.

“Why don’t we just decapitate them all one after the other? They can’t really scream without a head.”

“Oh… right, I could just do that.”

And so Harlan did, he didn’t gain any real experience with combat but he thought about how pointlessly he wasted time thinking of a plan when the simplest solution was best.

He really wished he had remembered to buy a bag to carry the heads in.

But he just weaved their hair together and made a line of them he could drag along the ground, making his way back to the farm he waved down the man and showed the heads.

Harlan made a few boxes of stone to hold the heads and was told the payment would be handled by the guild.

He was going to just go to his parents, but he decided that he should take the heads in first.