Golden Experience

“Thank you. All right, so I have materials now, but…”

Sitting before Rare was a huge pile of crumbling armaments and bones from dead knights, as well as glittering lumps of metal. At least some of it should turn out to be ingredients she needed.

“If a skill doesn’t require any souls, that means it produces something that doesn’t have a soul, right? I suppose that applies to most game items already…”

However, it was found in the same category as the homunculus recipe. If these skills produced regular items, they would surely be in a different row altogether. In fact, [Magnum Opus] had unlocked a ton of recipes in their own separate grouping. Not that she knew any of the ingredients that they required.

“Well, whatever, let’s just try it out. Okay, I’ll start with [Philosopher’s Egg].”

After saying so, a giant egg-like crystal appeared in front of Rare. Based on the explanation, this was supposed to be some sort of flask, but it was hard to tell at first glance whether it was hollow or not. As instructed in the [Magnum Opus] recipe, she brought a lump of metal close to the egg.

“It would be a waste if this fails, so first, let’s try with about five kilograms.”

As soon as the metal touched the egg, the egg morphed, creating an opening that swallowed the lump of metal.

“I see now; I was wondering how to get it inside, but there was an arbitrary magical method.”

Well, in the first place, the egg was floating in midair, so this indignation came rather late.

“The problem now is the Knight’s Grudge. If it’s taking the place of the [Soul] that a homunculus would need, then maybe it means the soul or spirit of a fallen knight or something? In that case…”

Rare picked up a rusted sword and fed it to the egg. If there were one thing that would be most likely to contain the soul of a knight, then nothing was more fitting than their sword.

“Even if it fails, I have more items to try, so let’s just run with it. Activate [Athanor]!”

Underneath the floating egg, a golden light appeared that began to heat up the egg.

“So an athanor isn’t a furnace. But isn’t this basically just an alcohol burner?”

Despite claiming that, Rare had never seen an actual alcohol burner before. She had used one in VR school before, though. Not that there was much different about her current situation. After some time, the egg’s contents melted into a rainbow of color and began swirling around like a whirlpool.

“So is it ready now? [Magnum Opus]!”

The egg emitted a golden light after it sucked up a significant amount of Rare’s substantial MP.

“I wonder if I could use this for light in the caves, heh.”

The light faded after a few seconds, and finally the only thing left inside the egg was a single sword.

“Huh? All that metal just disappeared? Did it fail?”

<Boss, please look more closely. That is not the knight sword you put in earlier.>

“Ah, you’re right. The design didn’t change that much, but it got a lot cleaner. It’s also floating inside the egg…”

Before long, the egg broke open, and the sword inside gently floated down right in front of Rare.

“Is the Philosopher’s Egg a consumable item…? That thing eats up a decent amount of MP.”

The sword hung suspended in the air in front of Rare, completely unmoving.

“This… looks just like a regular weapon, doesn’t it… Is it maybe a monster? Hmm… It doesn’t seem to be Subordinated.”

However, Rare could somehow very faintly feel a master-servant connection with the sword.

“Well, it’s fine. If it’s a monster, then I should be able to Subordinate it. [Subordinate]!”

The sword didn’t move, but she could feel it become her follower without any resistance. Peeking at its status, its race seemed to be [Living Sword].

“So that’s it! It’s a living weapon! It certainly does seem like one. But, how do I put this, I barely sense anything resembling a consciousness… Well, anyway…”

Rare reached into her inventory and pulled out a piece of meat that she didn’t remember hunting.

“Can you try cutting this apart?”

As soon as the last syllable left her mouth, the sword swung so fast that her eyes could barely tell it moved; it left a half-moon afterimage in the air, and the meat was cleanly cut into pieces.

“Wow, that was amazing! If I make a bunch of these, then I could reenact tons of cool action scenes! Plus they’re quite deadly, aren’t they.”

Since she had only wanted to experiment this time, she only had one sword brought along.

“Sugaru.”

<I have already made arrangements. Considering the MP expenditure, continuous production may be impossible, so I have sent for the transporter ants. Whatever you do not use, leave with the transporters to store in this room.>

“Excellent work, Sugaru.”

Most of the infantry and engineer ants work on rotation. Ants don’t sleep, but they still need many hours of intermittent rest throughout a day, which was what the rotation was for. There weren’t many transporter ants, and they were not assigned to squads. They also were not given any specific assignments, so they usually took care of menial tasks and personal care.

“I think I can make one more, so this time I’ll try it with armor. That would most certainly require more metal… I’ll go with fifty kilos this time.”

Rare activated [Philosopher’s Egg] one more time, tossed in the materials, then heated it up with [Athanor]. Just like last time, it marbled into rainbow colors.

“[Magnum Opus].”

After the golden light faded, a full set of armor appeared within. This time, it stood on its own feet at the bottom of the egg instead of floating.

“It’s independent, isn’t it?”

And unlike with the sword, the armor had changed quite drastically. Perhaps because it was created by Rare, it looked to be just the right size to fit her perfectly. The pot helm look was gone, replaced with a sharp with a pointed visor. The chestpiece, epaulets, gauntlets, and greaves in particular changed a lot; they weren’t exactly decorative, but definitely artistic to the point of appearing sculpted, and everything was even thicker than before. Chainmail covered the joints and openings, preventing the armor’s weak points from exposure. And last was the color. It was all black. Most likely due to the Knight’s Grudge.

The egg cracked open and the armor immediately alighted, kneeling in front of Rare.

“If it’s about my size, then… If it were made out of iron, then it’d be around thirty to forty kilos? Since I put in fifty kilos of metal, is that why the armor got thicker…?”

When she had fed the metal to the egg, she was pretty sure it had weighed around 50 kilos. Normally she might think that would be too heavy to float, but with her current stats, Rare could lift that much with one hand.

“Stand up.”

The armor clattered to its feet.

“Try to lift up that block of metal there.”

The armor casually lifted the indicated mass up into the air.

“It behaves pretty much like a normal human. Ah, right, [Subordinate].”

Rare checked the armor’s status.

“Its stats are… mainly in STR and VIT. Its DEX and AGI are human-level, oh, but its INT and MND are really low! Doesn’t seem like it’d be able to resist [Mental Magic], but… Does [Mental Magic] even work on it?”

Normally, [Mental Magic] didn’t work on homunculi or undead. According to the description of [Bind Soul], as long as she had a stock of [Souls], she could make it effective, but that did basically imply that if the target didn’t have a [Soul], then [Mental Magic] would have no effect. However, despite the use of a [Soul] being necessary to create a homunculus, the resulting being still had no soul.

One that requires a soul, a homunculus, and one that doesn’t, this… what is this exactly?

“I forgot to check its details. Well, it’s about what I imagined. The race name is…”

She wondered what the difference from this [Living Mail] was.

“Assertiveness, maybe…? Ego?”

Both the living mail and living weapon seemed to have very faint egos. It seemed they would faithfully follow orders, though.

“I see, I see… I can try a homunculus once I get the materials, but living mail and living weapon are both usable.”

The other day, she learned a new [Summon] skill. She had requested the cooperation of her followers and conducted some tests, but it hadn’t seemed all that useful. However, that might be different with this living mail.

“The battle royale event is coming up soon… I can’t wait now.”

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