Hugo adjusted his armor. He had been out in the forest for two days now. Even though he had fabricated this armor to perfectly fit his body, it was still a hunk of metal hanging on his body. It got uncomfortable after a while.

At least he had been able to secure the services of Yasmin and her aphids. Without them, this trip would have been a lot longer and much more uncomfortable. Deep in the woods west of Ettel, aphids were a smoother ride than even a mana cart.

They had caught up with the serpent hydra, but they had to run away the first time they saw it. The enormous five headed monster was too strong for them right now. It hadn’t been attacked by a horde of tribbles yet.

Hugo had been sure that he got the date right, but apparently not. The monsters hadn’t even started their days-long fight. He was forced to retreat and circle around. The apex monster seemed to know when he was in the area no matter how many trees and bushes he hid behind. It would always keep at least one head trained on him.

For now, he just had to wait. He briefly considered going out and finding the horde of tribbles and leading them here, but that would be a bad idea. The fluffballs with teeth needed to eat other monsters in the forest so their horde could grow large enough to challenge a monster of the hydra’s caliber.

So he was forced to wait. He set up a base far enough away from the monster that it wouldn't find him, but close enough that he could check in on it every so often. The first few hours he practiced healing Yasmin. After the fifth injury she wouldn’t let him cut her anymore. No amount of money would convince her to go through that much pain.

Now that he didn’t even have the distraction of practicing his new domain, Hugo opened his Acomarian screen. Deciding to finally pick his third element, Hugo scrolled through every choice and eventually picked porcelain. He remembered that Polina had said that ceramics were used in the construction of golems, and porcelain was a type of ceramic, if he remembered right. To test it out, he fabricated a small rabbit. It barely used any mana at all. Apparently it was a cheap element to create. He handed it over to Yasmin and pulled up his Acomarian screen again.

This time he picked a specialization within his life domain. Desmology. That and neurology were needed to create a basic golem, according to Polina. The information that flooded into his brain wasn’t what he was expecting. It was a detailed knowledge of ligaments, tendons, and joints. How was this going to help him create a golem? Maybe he needed to pick the other specialty before it would make sense. That would require a rank up since he had picked his three available specializations now.

Hopefully he would get enough when he killed this hydra. In the meantime, he tried to figure out how to use this new medical knowledge on inanimate objects. Real golems required runes he didn’t know and an unfamiliar design. Still, he hoped he would be able to figure something out. He had seen hundreds of golems throughout his life. How hard could it be?

Turns out, very hard.

He knew that golem construction required a base container and a protective outer wall. He had decided to keep things simple and made a porcelain cylinder with a titanium coating. The second one was identical. He tried to connect the two with a joint created by his desmology specialization. Using hints that Polina gave him about the process, he wove his health points into magical tendons and attached them to the porcelain cylinders. It just wouldn’t work. At times he felt like he almost had it, but then the magic would unravel. He had spent hundreds of health points a this point, and had nothing to show for it.

“What are you trying to do with those metal sausages?” Yasmin said.

Hugo started, he had gotten lost in the process. He tossed the cylinders down and looked up to her to say, “I was trying to figure out how to make golems. I know a lot about the process, but apparently not enough.” He sighed. The runes he didn’t know were probably crucial.

“I thought life mages were the ones that made golems,” Yasmin said.

“Yeah, for the ones that walk around, yes. Formation mages should be able to make the component parts though. I just haven’t figured out the trick yet,” Hugo lay back and closed his eyes.

“That’s why you have to go to school or get an apprenticeship. All those kinds of secrets are locked up with the people in power,” Yasmin said, “It’s one of the ways the powerful stay powerful and the rest of us get the scraps.”

“Yeah,” Hugo said. He realized that was true. Almost everything he had learned over the years was something he had learned at expensive schools or by paying enormous sums for the information.

“Besides, I think golems are supposed to be white,” Yasmin said.

Hugo sat back up and said, “Why white?”

Yasmin shrugged, “All the golems I have seen are white with pretty designs painted on.”

Hugo hadn’t seen a golem in Ettel. He hadn’t spent much time in the actual city. Why were their golems white? All of the golems in Reval were iron gray. Maybe golems had the metal on the inside and the porcelain on the outside? He excitedly fabricated something so he could experiment.

That wasn’t it either.

He had even more problems connecting the magical tendons to his new sausages. That experiment brought his health points down below half, so he stopped trying for now. Another check on the hydra showed that it had moved into the valley nearby, but still hadn’t gotten attacked by tribbles. He left before it decided to chase him again.

The exercise had cleared his mind and gave him time to regenerate points. He decided to be more methodical in his testing. Two rods of porcelain wouldn’t work. Two rods of titanium almost worked. The magic briefly connected the two, but then fizzled. Finally, he tried mithril. It worked too well. The magical tendon smashed the two rods together and wouldn’t let up.

Now he knew he was onto something. An alloy of titanium and mithril worked exactly like he wanted it to. It moved! In rhythmic pulses, the rods opened and closed, over and over again. He danced around in joy. Yasmin laughed at him, but he didn’t care.

Twenty minutes later, it stopped moving. Hugo guessed that the magic and health points he had put into it were used up by then. He would need to learn neurology so that his creations could move only when instructed to do so. Maybe the porcelain was used to help keep the health points in? He did another experiment, this time with a smaller set of rods, and porcelain surrounding everything but the spot where they connected.

That version lasted two hours. Hugo smiled as it fell apart. He was getting the hang of this. He went out into the forest and attached several more versions to various bushes. He was looking for the perfect ratio of mithril/titanium/porcelain. He could have done that at his camp, but he thought the shaking bushes were funny. Besides, if monsters attacked, they would hit the bushes first.

The next morning, all of the bushes had stopped shaking. He tried another round of experiments, and went out to check on the hydra while the bushes gently swayed. Yasmin stayed in camp. Their stone house was fairly safe. If any of his wards were tripped, he would know to rush back and save her.

Hugo was almost shocked when he saw the serpent hydra being attacked by tribbles. Today was the day. Hundreds of tribbles were throwing themselves at the five headed monster, and hundreds more were pouring out of the forest. The hydra sprayed down a layer of fire from its central head, killing fifty at a time. The tribbles continued to attack, totally lacking self preservation. Hugo directed his aphid to climb a tree so he could wait and watch for just the right time. He needed to kill just enough tribbles so the hydra didn't die, but not so much that the serpent hydra was healthy enough to kill him.

The right time turned out to be six hours later. Tribbles must have gotten a large meal earlier in the week, there were thousands and thousands of them. Hugo never realized how efficient of a killer the hydra was. It just kept killing the monsters as they came in an almost unending wave. Hugo positioned himself on the same rock he had used last time. He threw out bits of mithril nearby while he waited.

When the perfect moment came, he sent six optimized bolts arcing through the air. They hit the massed tribbles and exploded with brilliant white light. Roughly three hundred tribbles suddenly stopped existing.

The explosions startled the serpent hydra and it reared up. When it saw that Hugo wasn’t attacking it, the monster went back to its tribble slaughter. Hugo quickly reloaded and shot at the few monsters heading his way. Unlike last time, he attracted only a few hundred tribbles to his rock. The simple monsters didn’t see him as much of a meal.

Hugo snapped out a few more exploding bolts and set his crossbow down. He took out his rebounding shield and a greatsword runed with sharpness. A half dozen of the snarling monsters leapt at him, only to be bisected in a single sweep of his greatsword. A dozen tribbles found the bits of mithril he had strewn about, and quickly ate them. A dozen explosions followed, taking out fifty more.

Carefully, Hugo worked on the remaining monsters with his greatsword as they leapt up at him. He was pretty proud of himself and his planning. The gods must have heard him gloating. A tribble attacked him from behind and clamped onto his left leg. The momentum knocked him off the rock and into the seething bodies.

Only his full set of armor saved him from dying right then. The tribbles didn’t hesitate to chomp every limb. Both legs were bound up and yanked back and forth as they tried to chew through his armor. Hugo was sure that they would have gotten through if his armor hadn’t been runed with durablity.

The tribbles attacking his shield arm were all bounced off, but they managed to get his greatsword away from him. Before he could even think, his whole hand was swallowed. His armor kept it from being cut off, but now he was unarmed.

Thankfully, he had backups. He used the bottom edge of his shield to kill two tribble surrounding his left arm, and then reached over with that hand to the knife at his waist. He used that knife to disintegrate the tribble holding his right hand, and dropped the knife into that hand. Next, he stabbed the two monsters gnawing on his legs. Then he jumped up and he was back in the game.

With a combination of his rebounding shield and his knife, he regained his sword and killed the remaining tribbles. He was panting and exhausted by the time there were no more attacking him. He also hurt. In addition to a dozen new bruises, some of the tribbles had found the tiny gaps in his armor. Hugo used forty health points to fully heal himself.

Since that had gone so poorly, Hugo decided not to pull any more tribbles his way. The hydra would just have to fight a little harder.

Another hour passed. The hydra seemed like it was going to die several times, but then pulled out another burst of energy to slither over the tribbles and squash them. Eventually, it slumped to the ground, all of its opponents dead.

All but one.

Hugo loaded a certain set of bolts and walked closer. He probably could have hit the enormous monster from further away, but he didn’t want to give it the chance to react. When he was uncomfortably close, four hundred yards away, he shot. All six bolts were away in three seconds. His nervousness had lent him speed.

The first two bolts were exploding bolts, creating an opening in the monster’s skin. The next four bolts were unruned bolts, pure mithril. They slid deep into its body. The serpent hydra roared in pain and jerked after Hugo’s retreating form.

Hugo reloaded as he ran. He turned to see the next phase in his plan wasn’t needed. The monster hadn’t moved. Three of its heads were still knocked out, and it couldn’t slither towards him without their help.

Moments later the mithril exploded. The explosions were muffled by the monster’s body, but they were large enough to kill it. The remaining two heads fell to the ground. A few moments later, several dings sounded in his head. He pulled up his system to see that he had enough points to rank up to thirty five now. Nice. That would be the highest he had ever been.

For now, he needed to do a little butchery. He used his greatsword to carve out the mana core. He tried to stay clean this time, but still ended up with blood on his hands and feet. It was annoying, but he had what he came for. He slipped the core into the lead lined box in his bag and headed back to where he had tied off his aphid. As he jumped on, he heard a voice behind him.

“What are you doing here, little knight?” a mounted riese said.

Hugo turned to see four riese riding aphids, heading his way. They were wearing uniforms, but not one he recognized. They seemed friendly, but the corpse of the serpent hydra was still visible in the distance. They were after his mana core.