Age of Adepts

The Golem standing in front of him weighed about 90 kilograms and stood 1.7 meters tall.

The earthy yellow surface of the body was constructed from a loose, damp clay. It had four distinct limbs and a head, but all were very coarse. Also, it didn’t have as many joints as a real human.

Its legs were two thick clay pillars, which seemed to merge with the soil on the ground beneath its feet. Its arms seemed to be able to move in any direction, and on these arms were a pair of gigantic palms, which would likely be able to tightly clench things. It didn’t have a face, but there were some protrusions where a face would normally be.

If looking at it from afar, this Clay Golem would appear to be a bald guy wearing a yellow leather armor. If a robe was put over its body, it could be used to deceive an enemy.

Greem ordered the Clay Golem to walk up and stand in front of him.

This Clay Golem was truly a creature of the Earth, as it could move its heavy body over the soft and damp soil without making a single noise. Its movement was quicker and lighter than a leopard, and no traces of its passage could be found on the ground. However, it did leave strong traces of Earth Elementium in its wake!

When Sinbad’s core was obtained, her soul was captured inside it. As a direct result of being made from a high-quality demon core, this Clay Golem possessed an intermediate intelligence, which was not as rigid as other Titans and Golems. Through the Mind Control runes he had carved on the core, Greem only needed to give it a command and it would do its best to smoothly carry out the order.

Staring at the Clay Golem standing in front of him, Greem stretched his arm out in front of him and touched it. Its skin was rough and solid. Although it was constructed from soft clay, it still had a decent defense. He took out a dagger and stabbed the Clay Golem’s waist a few times. The dagger simply poked through the skin and left behind some marks, which soon disappeared as a faint earthy yellow glow appeared around the mark as the golem regenerated.

Good, it had a basic defense, was mostly immune to piercing damage, and could heal itself. In brief, the basic defense of a Clay Golem was equal to a human fighter who wore a full set of leather armor. Of course, it couldn’t be compared with that of a Stone or Iron Golem, and the only feature worth mentioning was the self-healing ability.

Greem walked in a circle around the Clay Golem. He thought the 1.7 meter height of the golem didn’t make it look powerful enough. Thus he tried to make the Clay Golem bigger.

Following Greem’s command, the quiet Clay Golem started to grow taller and bigger. However, the once solid clay body actually became soft and light. When it finally reached a height of four meters, its entire body looked like a clump of gray mist. The once solid clay body had become a gas-like Earth Elementium body.

What was wrong?

After communicated with the Chip, Greem finally understood. The demon core used to create this Clay Golem only had the ability of an Advanced Apprentice. Hence, it could only control a total of ninety kilograms of Earth Elementium. Once this weight was exceeded, it would lose any substantial form it formerly had.

The height of 1.7 meters was the most optimized height after extensive calculations performed by the Chip. Being at such a size, the density of the Earth Elementium was at an optimum level, giving it its maximum defense ability. If he attempted to make it taller, the total volume of the Earth Elementium remained unchanged, making the defense strength of Clay Golem drop significantly. So, although it looked taller, its density decreased. As a result, it was going to be difficult to protect the core hidden within its body.

Sighing helplessly, Greem had no choice but let the Clay Golem resumed its former form.

Next, he needed to test the few basic skills that came with this Clay Golem.

Although weakened, the Quake skill that came with this golem was still an offensive ability. When it was activated, the surrounding ground would shake as the Clay Golem moved around. Greem had tested it, and the vibrations had a greater impact on smaller creatures, as they could hardly stand still around the Clay Golem, let alone launch attacks against it. It could also be used decently against middle-sized creatures. As for larger creature, this skill was useless.

The second offensive skill to test was Clod of Mud.

In order to test it, Greem had the Clay Golem lure three lurking Ghost Nannies from a nearby pond. As a result, the Clay Golem and the three Ghost Nannies put on a ‘big fight’ for Greem.

Strictly speaking, compared to a Ghost Nanny, who barely had any good offensive or defensive skills, the Clay Golem, who was the equivalent of a pseudo-summon demon, could easily suppress them in all aspects. No matter how these three Ghost Nannies kept scratching or biting on its solid skin, all the scratch marks would disappear in the blink of an eye. But when Clay Golem attacked with its heavy fists, the Ghost Nannies would be knocked away, suffering heavily.

Following Greem’s orders, Clay Golem grabbed a Ghost Nanny with one of its hands and squeezed it until a cracking noise could be heard. Then it threw it off into the distance. While the Ghost Nanny was still flying through the air, the Clay Golem grabbed at the air above its head and, immediately, a meter long spear of hardened mud appeared in its grip.

It threw the spear through the air, penetrating the Ghost Nanny’s weak body and nailing it to a Killer Tree growing at the edge of the pond. As a demon itself, the Ghost Nanny had a strong vitality. Although its body had been punctured by the spear, it still restlessly struggled and tried to free itself.

A second spear was released, slamming straight through the Ghost Nanny’s head. It was left hanging motionlessly from the Killer Tree.

At this moment, the two remaining Ghost Nannies hung themselves on Clay Golem’s body like two mad dogs clamping onto a meaty bone. With both arms, Clay Golem forcefully pulled them away from its body and threw them onto the ground. While they were struggling to get up, the Clay Golem raised both of its arms high up into the air. In the next second, countless dirt spikes poked up through the ground and turned them into two shish kabobs.

In a brief moment, all three Ghost Nannies had been annihilated, and the Clay Golem remained undamaged.

Throughout the entire process, Greem had remained an indifferent spectator, letting the Chip collect real-time data from the battle so that it could work out a better-optimized strategy for using the Clay Golem in combat.

Soon, detailed battle data of the Clay Golem was projected into Greem’s mind.

Through this detailed data, Greem was able to have a better understanding of this Clay Golem he had created.

Judging from this data, the Clay Golem was merely comparable to an Intermediate Apprentice. But, upon considering its self-healing and lack of fear towards death, it could unleash a basic combat strength that was similar to that of an Advanced Apprentice.

According to Greem’s understanding, the damage that could be inflicted by a spell cast by an Advanced Apprentice Adept was around 20-30 points, varying based on the caster’s Spirit. As for the defensive spells of an Advanced Apprentice, they had a defensive value of around 30-40 points, so two attacks from a similar level opponent would be enough to rip a defensive spell apart.

In this aspect, a Clay Golem’s offensive strength was rather weak. If faced with an Advanced Apprentice, the Clay Golem would need offensive support from Greem. Only then would it have a possibility of defeating the enemy. After all, Greem’s Fire Arrow spell could inflict 13-18 points of Fire damage and 6-7 points of Physical damage. If he and Clay Golem worked in tandem, they might be able to break the defenses of an Advanced Apprentice in a single round of attacks.

And once the enemy lost his magical defenses, unless he was a Body Refining Adept, he would just be like a tame sheep that Greem could kill easily, not even worth mentioning. So, as long as he didn’t have to face someone like Evil Bugs or that frightening little Loli, the combination of Greem and the Clay Golem was enough to threaten even an Advanced Apprentice.

But, too bad, the Underground Cave Investigation mission exceeded the abilities of an Advanced Apprentice. Most likely, he would be working with a group of Pseudo-Adepts, thus, although he had a Clay Golem now, Greem was still too weak.

According to the requirements of the mission, they had to set off in half a month in order to arrive at the mission location. So, Greem was left with fifteen days to prepare. Such a short amount of time was, clearly, not enough for Greem to improve his magical abilities. Therefore, he had to keep digging into the potential provided by Golems, so he could increase his strength while he still had the chance.

Greem remained where he was, pondering upon what this meant for him. Finally, he looked off into the distance, to another area of the swamp, which was obscured by thick fog.

He was looking toward the habitat of the Giant Alligators, which he reckoned were also Earth demons.

If he could kill the Giant Alligator King in there, he would likely acquire another handy Earth Elementium core. As for the Water Elementium core, Greem just couldn’t think of a demon in this swampy land which fit the requirements.

“Fine, I’ll spend the next few days fighting those Giant Alligators!”

With a ferocious look shining in his eyes, he viciously spoke that while facing in the direction where those Giant Alligators lived.

After that, he motioned at the Clay Golem, making the human-sized Golem collapse. Freed from the bounds of the Earth Elementium, a large amount of clay had formed a pile where the golem used to be standing.

Greem grabbed the summoning core, rolled it around in his palms, and examined it closely. Initially, there were two illuminated energy nodes, but now, one of them had slightly dimmed. According to this consumption rate, with all four energy nodes illuminated, perhaps this Clay Golem could only fight in an intense battle for fifteen minutes. If it was not a fierce fight, perhaps it could last longer.

As the energy stored in Clay Golem was not suitable to hunt that Giant Alligator King today, Greem put away the summoning core. Then, using the Burning Hand, he ignited all three broken bodies of the Ghost Nannies. He pulled up his hood and disappeared into the misty fog.

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