Chapter 24: Chapter 24: Potential For Death Golems

“Fascinating, just absolutely fascinating,” Emil said, his eyes burning with curiosity. Before him were the two new golems, fully unburied and standing on their own. However, they were both already unique and different from Alfonse. To start, the pair were notably more… animated. Though they stood in place, one’s arms were twitching, while the other one’s head vibrated. He had already checked them both externally and internally for any issues, but found nothing visible.

Emil ordered Alf to reactivate itself, and had it stand next to the new pair. So now all three were positioned in a row in front of him. To see how different they were, he had a few ideas for tests in mind. First, he commanded all three to do a series of basic movements. Emil had them spin around in place, move forwards and backwards, and such. They all followed his instructions without any problems.

“Alright, so far so good. Let’s try this then,” Emil began, as he had his undead roach land on his fingertips. “Alf, and two experimental golems, meet Theo. Theo, meet Alf and the two experiments. Now Theo, I want you to fly around, at a height of about one foot above the ground. If anything tries to catch you, avoid it to the best of your ability.” He watched as it flew off, and did as he commanded.

“Good, good. Let’s see…” He turned back to the golems. “As for the three of you, try to catch Theo and bring it back to me, unharmed. You can run, jump, anything goes. Just get this done within… let’s say ten minutes. We’ll start with Alf first, while the two of you wait on standby. Ok Alf, your time begins now.”

This is where the difference in each golem’s capabilities would show. He had purposefully kept the means of achieving this command vague for them. Now it would be a test of both their physical and mental attributes. Emil wasn’t quite sure what to expect, but hoped for extraordinary results.

The standard golem, Alf, acted as expected. It tried its best to chase after Theo, but its movements were slow and awkward. Anytime the roach changed direction, Alf had to pause for a moment to turn around before beginning to run again. No matter how much it tried, it wouldn’t be able to catch the roach for a hundred years.

The basic golem’s ten minutes quickly passed by, with nothing to show in the end for its efforts. Emil had it stop and return to its place. Next, was the golem with only an added memory orb as its adjustment. Once this one was done, the golem with both a memory orb and fake heart charged with negative energy would go last. Now that the standard had been set by Alf, he hoped they would beat it.

As soon as he started its time, the experimental golem quickly met and then beat his expectations. Rather than attempt to run like a human, it went down to all four legs. It bounded forward, moving like an animal. And rather than just try to chase Theo directly, it used the terrain to its advantage.

Wherever there was a large enough rock, or the base of a tree, it jumped onto them. And from that, leaped into the air and tried to catch the roach. And it came close multiple times. But in each attempt, Theo proved to be just a bit too quick, able to adjust its flight pattern on a dime. When the second golem’s time finished, it returned to standing on two legs. Emil rubbed his chin as he had it go back to its spot.

He would never have guessed that it would have that kind of behavior. But not knowing what to expect was its own form of excitement. He wouldn’t want it any other way. However, before he could begin to theorize why it acted that way, there was still one golem left. Would it act the same as the last experiment, or be completely different in its own way? It was time for him to find out. Watching it intently, Emil began its time.

And its immediate action was arguably even more intriguing than the last one’s. For instead of immediately chasing Theo, it stayed in place. The golem only continuously adjusted its position, keeping the front of its body pointed at the undead roach. But otherwise, it didn’t really do anything else for the first few minutes. It only continued to watch and observe. This behavior went on for just over five minutes.

However, it was at that point that Theo passed near the golem. It still remained several feet away, but that was the closest the roach had gotten during that time. Within that second, the golem bent its legs into a squat. As it did so, Emil felt a prickle inside his mind. The experiment’s clay body seemed to darken for a moment. But then, with a burst of power, it jumped into the air.

Theo attempted to evade and maneuver out of the way. However, the golem was simply moving too fast through the air. The roach needed a split second to adjust its flight path, but it didn’t even have that much time. When the golem landed, it turned back around. Now held in its clay hands, was its target.

Dutifully, it brought it back to Emil, and placed Theo down on the ground. Emil whistled, more than impressed by its performance. He had it return to the line, and commanded all three of them to remain on standby. In just the last half hour of testing, he had already learned a lot.

To help himself differentiate the two, he decided that the two experimental golems needed temporary names. Not human-like ones, since in his mind, these were just tests. Theo was his first undead, and Alf was his first golem, so he felt just a bit more attached to them. For the sake of simplicity, Emil would stick to more basic terms to refer to them as.

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The golem with one adjustment would be A-1, and the other with two would be A-2. The letter was the batch they came from, and the number represented the amount of adjustments. It was a simple system, one that would probably be remade after he had more experiments. But for right now, it would do.

Between A-1 and A-2, there were some notable differences. The former had a lot of energy, far more than a normal golem. If Alf had been continuously running at that speed, it would have quickly burnt through the fuel in its mana crystal. That was how wide the gap was in their output.

It also seemed animalistic in its mindset, that was the best way he could describe it. It was relentless in its chase, and yet showed some intuition in using its environment. So to at least some degree, it was seemingly smarter than Alf as well. However, even after ten minutes of failing to catch Theo, it never tried anything different. So rather than actually thinking, its form of intelligence seemed more akin to instincts, in a way.

A-2, on the hand, seemed like it truly knew how to actively make a plan. It actually displayed patience and the ability to calculate the right time to act from its observation. This was a trait that no basic golem had the right to have. Then there was the burst of power it displayed. From Emil’s perspective, it seemed like it actively used the death energy inside it to enhance itself.

To put it another way, one could say A-2 had utilized a crude form of magic. After all, spells were simply the manifestation of the Mana, with its properties transformed to the user’s will. The difference in quality was like night and day, compared to an actual Mage. But the fact that comparison could even be made at all remained amazing.

“This is just with the supplies and instructions for the most basic level of golems. If I applied memory orbs and death energy to the more advanced kinds, what would happen then?” Emil asked himself. He wanted to know, to find out just how far this can go. It wasn’t often that a person was able to discover a new field of study, and be the one to explore the depths of that untapped frontier. And yet for him, that unique opportunity was his alone for the taking.

“I do wonder though,” he said, picking Theo up. “You only have a few points of Mana, and just have the body of an insect. Yet you’re able to follow complex instructions. If only you had more to work with… like a bigger body that can hold more power. Or heck, even a larger brain, to see if that would increase your intelligence.” As the words left his lips, he began to think. Was there any reason why he couldn’t give these improvements to Theo?

He was still outside the town, effectively in the woods. There were likely plenty of insects in the area, if he simply took the time to look around. Now that he taught himself the basics of golemancy, could he apply that knowledge to Undead Creation as a skill? Instead of a golem made from clay and enchanted components, he created one out of biological matter. Emil had a new idea.

He would make three more golems, which he would refer to as the B group. They would act as part two of his experiments. All of them would have the same steps and process, just like before. However, only one would have a normal fake heart included in its body. The second would not have a fake heart. While the third would have an “undead” fake heart.

In truth, he would actually need to create four golems. Because the last one, which he effectively dubbed as A-3, would be made in the same way as A-2. However, it would act as a sacrificial piece. As soon as it was done, Emil intended to destroy the golem and intentionally damage its fake heart. Since the heart would already be charged with negative energy, he hoped that by “killing” it, he could then resurrect it as an undead.

Out of all his tests, this would be the most uncertain in its chance of success. It hinged on whether or not an artificial being counted as a life to begin with. If it didn’t count, then it would not come back as an undead golem. And instead, the result would likely just be a faulty failure.

However, if it did prove to be a success, then it would establish a basis that might allow him to improve Theo. But first, he would need to create A-3 and bury it. Then while waiting for it to unbury itself, collect as much dead insect matter as he physically could. The more material he had to work with, the better. And he would collect their deaths into memory orbs, of course. Since these experiments would quickly run through his current supply of the smaller ones.

He grabbed the needed supplies and went to work. If the time for A-1 and A-2 was the same for A-3, then it would be ready in just over twenty minutes from being buried. There was no time to waste on just waiting around.

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