Hello everyone! I only just made the deadline. Whew!

Now that I am finished with the end of the second quarter, I have loans to settle, tax paperwork to fill in, and the inevitable grand load of laundry to muscle through.

But, no worries, because it's only two days left until the weekend~!

The chapter after this will probably be up by Sunday night, or Monday morning.

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“Roger! Leave it to me!” Laura leapt into a somersault, just dodging the Golem’s power beam.

“Yaah~! Come at me, you big hunk of rock! I, your older sister, will now show you what the meaning of frustration is!” She chirped cheekily as she teased the Golem even more.

Master Thales watched from afar, occasionally deflecting stray beams that headed his way, with a mirror-like sword.

Actually, the reason why he had been able to acquire and keep this cultivation treasure was the Golem.

While training in the jungle, he had seen the spectacle of a huge beam striking against a barrier, making the previously-hidden treasure visible.

After entering, he had been attacked by the Golem. Back then, instead of the light grey stone that it was now, it was previously a menacing black color.

After battling for ten days and nights, He had finally managed to drain the Golem’s large mana reserves to the point where it had to rest in suspended animation in order to replenish it.

Defeating it in battle had made it his subordinate, and its color had immediately changed to a light grey. Master Thales figured it probably had to do with the mana expenditure.

If Thera knew about this, she would probably instantly know the real reason. After all, the Magician Hero, who both created and owned the Golem army, was well known as the father of the ancient game of Othello.

But, as things were, she did not know this.

Already an area of about twenty meters around the Golem was cleared of trees and underbrush, with a damage radius of a hundred meters, with his mana beams.

It seemed that the more it fought with them, the faster it was recovering from its mana beams.

Thus, the one minute pause soon whittled down to a mere 30 seconds.

But, due to its exertions, a swirling cloud of dust and debris now limited both the girl’s view of the Golem, as well as the Golem’s visual confirmation of the girls.

It seemed a double-edged sword. As Thera pondered whether to use the cover of the cloud, the Golem released another attack towards the barrier, which rippled, but held.

Thera paused, bothered. That had been a perfect chance for both sides to launch a hidden attack.

But, why? Why wasn’t it attacking them anymore?

Then, an idea came to Thera.

What if…what if it only attacks what it can see? She wondered.

After all, the beams came out of its eyes. Therefore, it couldn’t really attack anything that it couldn’t see.

She decided to test it out.

While Laura was dodging with her acrobatics, Thera silently closed in from behind, checking its back for any hints with her sharp, golden eyes.

But, once she got within five meters of it, the Golem’s head suddenly turned around 180 degrees and launched an attack at Thera.

Abandoning her former path, she dodged the beam.

So, it didn’t just use visual confirmation. How unfortunate.

But, suddenly, Laura yelled out. “I found it!” Distracting the Golem, once more.

Thera and Laura immediately withdrew back into the forest.

“What did you find?” Thera questioned Laura.

“When it turned its head around, suddenly, an opening appeared in the front, at the base of the neck!”

“You mean, just now, when I approached the Golem?” (Thera)

“Yes! Just now, when you approached the Golem!”(Laura)

“…You know what this means, right?”(Thera)

A shadow fell over the two girls from behind.

““It’s time for a change of plan!””

They both leapt out of the way as the Golem’s stone fists smashed into the ground where they had previously knelt, pulverizing vegetation and earth into dust.

Laura now took over the sneak attacks while Thera was the main distractor.

After two or three practice runs, Thera finally had a feel for how long its head would remained turned around. It was only for three seconds.

A three second window, with no magic, and she couldn’t get closer than five meters to deal the finishing blow.

She grabbed a few pebbles off the ground.

If she couldn’t get closer, then she would simply have to deal the finishing blow from a distance!

The next time it turned its head around, Thera shot a pebble at the hole. It sailed straight inside, and the Golem shuddered for a few moments. But then, it went right back to attacking.

She shot another stone.

Again, the Golem shuddered. Both stones had landed in the space, just barely clipping its mana core.

In P*Kemon terms: Thera used Pebble on Golem. Pebble is super effective! Golem’s speed and HP has dropped considerably.

Thera shot one more stone, just to make sure. Once more, the Golem shuddered. Laura began backing off to prepare for the next assault.

The next strike would finish it!

Thera, watching the Golem, suddenly noticed a change in its behavior. The blue hue of mana which encircled it swiftly changed colors to a brilliant red.

“Watch out! It’s going berserk!” Thera yelled, reflexively.

The Golem charged in Laura’s direction, spewing a sweeping blast before it.

Laura dodged with everything she had, using the trees as footholds to increase her speed and dexterity, while retreating quickly.

After what seemed like ages, but really only took one minute, the golem halted to regain its lost mana.

This time, the Golem took up to three minutes to recover.

In that time, Thera readied her secret weapon: the white stone.

Her previous shots had already predetermined that shooting a rock into the hole in the front would come into direct contact with the mana core.

Since it needed mana for its attacks, if she managed to get this white mana-absorbing stone in there, it would effectively cut off the mana beams, and most likely slow the golem down tremendously.

Of course, to Master Thales, it only looked like a rather ordinary stone. One wouldn’t be able to tell that it was a treasure unless they were in contact with it, or extremely sensitive to mana.

But, after those three minutes, the Golem was careful to guard the hole by never turning its head completely around.

It would twist around on one foot, or its torso would suddenly twist around, keeping the hole completely guarded.

Laura finally got upset at it, and threw one of her beast repellant bombs at it. It may not have had the full blasting power of a regular bomb, but it still applied enough force to spin the Golem’s head around.

Thera took advantage of this moment, and sent the white stone whizzing into the hole which appeared for only a few moments.

The Golem’s shuddering seemed about to tear it to pieces, but it stubbornly held on, physically attacking the two girls, even while it looked like it was on its last legs.

Thera stood still, watching as it rushed up to her, and was about to smack her half-way back to Dulce. But, all of a sudden, right before it was about to make contact, the glow of mana disappeared, and the Golem fell backwards, defeated.

It had taken them an hour to down this great opponent.

Laura, panting from the exertion, stared at the great pile of stone in front of her, dazed for a bit.

“We…did it? It’s defeated?” She asked.

“Well!” Master Thales appeared next to the downed Golem. “It seemed you two handled this one so well that you even broke my previous record! Of course, my record was gained without the cooperation of another person.”

He put a hand on the stone Golem to examine it, and whistled. “Yep that’s impressive, all right. All right, you’ve both passed the test. Congratulations. You are now officially my two first-and only-students.”

“We did it! YAY~!” Laura cheered.

Thera just grinned.

“Impressive solution, Thera. When I went solo against this small mountain a while back, it took me ten hours, and cost me fifty of my best mirror blades to bring it down.”

Master Thales looked nostalgic for a moment, before looking at his students pointedly.

“However, do not get over-confident. Although this Golem is considered a Brown-class monster, if you were face to face with a Brown class Martial Practitioner, with a brain instead of a [Program], you would both have been dead after the first ten seconds.”

Thera sighed. She knew only too well that the reason why they had won was because the opponent specialized one-sidedly in brawns rather than brains.

Having only done self-study for five years, even though her strength far surpassed those of her own generation, her martial techniques were too few.

She had grown too fast in the past five years. For the sake of her future, she needed to stabilize her cultivation level by understanding the physical truths of the world.

Furthermore, being Master Thales’ student had its own benefits, such as having a plausible source for her otherworldly techniques.

Master Thales continued to examine the Golem. But, then his expression became clouded.

“Thera, what did you throw into this Golem? It would have taken at least twenty stones to down this one, and it still would have been able to move, although slowly. But now it seems like it doesn’t even have a single drop of energy left!”

“Ah, hold on a bit!” Thera said, turning the Golem’s head around, and grabbing the white stone out of the hole. “It’s just a stone, see?” She pocketed the stone, but not before noticing it had gained a slightly pinkish tinge to it.

“There we go! Good as new.” She said, patting the stone Golem. Suddenly, darkness swirled upon the light grey stone as the Golem turned Black.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Thera asked.

“Well, when I defeated it, it was originally black, and turned to light grey afterwards.” Master Thales said. “But I wouldn’t mind it. It seems as though switching colors is a thing natural to the Golem itself. Now, is anyone up for breakfast?”

Thera and Laura’s stomach conveniently growled at that moment. Laura blushed while Thera grinned. “I don’t know, do we have to fight an army of Golems, this time?”

They all laughed.

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The sun was peeking over the horizon while they ate.

“Ah, that reminds me! Here you go, Thera.” Laura said, handing Thera’s magic bag back to her. “You forgot to take this back yesterday.”

“Oh, thanks! To think that I actually forgot all about this!” Thera once more wore her magic bag on her belt. “If I had returned only to tell Margie that I misplaced this, she’d never forgive me!”

“I think you’ve forgotten something.” Laura said, a mischievous grin on her face.

“Really? I’ve got my completely mind-blowingly ordinary stone, my bag, and Master Thales is finally going to give us some worthwhile lessons…Nope! I think I’ve remembered everything.” Thera said, with an air of confidence.

Laura’s eyes twinkled as she said, “Call me Older Sister.”