“We came to make a deal Mr. Atican.”

  The one that spoke was a well-built man with white hair in a buzz-cut. He was wearing a fur coat and military pants. Behind him were two women, Merida, who was now wearing a blue hoodie and jeans. And another woman with short white hair with an undercut. She was wearing a sleeveless shirt, showing off her toned biceps.

  Merida rubbed her forehead in annoyance as she pulled back the man. “Sorry for barging in, it was getting very hard to get in touch with you,” Merida spoke.

  “And may I ask what this is about?” Lucas asked.

  “First let me introduce Brutus and Macey,” Merida gestured to her companions. “We’re here to make a deal with you,” Merida gestured for her companions to go outside.

  They nodded and left his office, leaving Merida with him. “Is this for a custom golem?” he asked.

  This wasn’t the first time a great household reached out to him to make them a custom golem. And he was hesitant to have any involvement with any great household since that would often mean that he allied with them and would be dragged into any conflict they have.

  Merida nodded. “Yes. We wish for you to craft us a golem that could represent our household.”

  Lucas couldn’t help but scratch his head at the situation. “Why me? There's a lot of better golem crafters out there.”

  “A lot? Definitely. Better? Arguably,” Merida replied. “But what we desire is your unique way to create golems.”

  “You want to use unique materials,” Lucas figured out.

  Modern golem crafting revolved around creating the desired body of the golem, and using golem magic to bring it to life and control it. This method ensured that the golem would not turn out any differently from the desired outcome. It also reduced the mana required to create the golem.

  Lucas’s method was extremely outdated. The only reason he was succeeding and had a consistent product was because he obtained a script containing an already completed body structure of a golem from Percival the monster lord. Additionally, Lucas wasn’t conjuring a magic circle to create a golem, he literally turned the magic circle into a golem, putting a unique twist on things.

  “This is the material we wish for you to use,” Merida pressed something on her watch and it projected a holographic display of a slightly bluish-white iron ingot. It also seemed to be smoking? “This is called Artic steel. A material that freezes anything it comes in contact with.”

  “Quite the complicated material,” Lucas commented.

  If the ingot froze anything it came in contact with, then forging a weapon or armor out of it was nearly impossible. But using his method of crafting, it was possible to use the material to create a golem. It made him wonder how they even managed to process it into ingots.

  “What’s in it for me?” Lucas asked.

  Merida smirked, knowing that she got his interest. “This,” Merida took out a small box from the pocket of her hoodie. “I noticed you wanted one of these during the dimensional rift incident,” Merida said before opening the box.

  Lucas’s eyes widened when he saw the monster core with the emblem of a blue sabretooth tiger.

  “The core of the monster lord, Ragnar.”

  Levatine Slywood, the current head of the great household of Slywood, one of the most influential factions within the south-eastern sector.

  Levatine believes that the greatest trait a household head should have would be the ability to recognize talent. Another would be the ability to establish a deep connection with those talented people. Everything involved getting those with talent to his side.

  One such talent that recently blossomed was the new golem crafter Iris. Someone with the amazing talent to create high quality golems using complicated materials.

  The best example of this was the golem that was shown during the recent dimensional rift incident. A golem that cut down their enemies with the grace of an actual swordsman and even used some sort of skill that enhanced its attacks.

  Levatine hasn’t seen anything like it before.

  A golem that could rival king-ranked mages.

  But unfortunately, the bridge with Iris was already burned before Levatine even discovered the crafter.

  All because of his only daughter.

  Somehow his daughter encountered Iris before the crafter became successful and did something that displeased the crafter. Although it wasn’t severe enough to prevent them from buying the standard golems on the market, it was enough that they were denied a commission that could have greatly elevated the status of their family.

  A golem made from the branches of Yggdrasil.

  They've only been able to craft staffs and wands from the branches, and that already kept their standing as a great household. What more could a machine made out of the branches itself.

  He needed to find out a way to get the crafter’s favor. Attempting to recruit the crafter already failed once. Resorting to force would only make an enemy of the crafter and all the organizations related to him like the military and Waywood.

  “You called for me father?” Alliah entered his office.

  “I have a task for you.”

  “What do you think?” Lucas asked Perci as they were doing some training.

  “What you want to do is up to you,” Perci replied. “Political relationships were never my expertise even when I was alive.”

  Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

  Lucas scratched his head. He was torn between keeping neutrality between great households or obtaining a monster lord’s core. Was potentially making enemies worth a rare material that he couldn’t obtain with money alone?

  “Why are you so conflicted about this? They're nothing more than customers making a deal,” Perci pointed out. “I may not be a human, but I am aware that such transaction does not require such deep meaning to it.”

  “I just don’t want to suddenly make enemies just because they think I’m choosing a side,” Lucas replied as he lifted the weights over his head.

  “What kind of idiot gets angry at a shopkeeper for selling to customers?” Perci replied.

  “Fair point.”

  Lucas finished his strength training in the company gym before heading back to his office. When he entered, he noticed none of his officemates were in. He figured they were all doing their own thing out of the office since it was a Sunday.

  He would have stayed home, but Rose was having friends over and he didn’t want to be a bother.

  “What are you planning to do?” Perci asked he flew around the workshop.

  “Test things out,” Lucas threw out Percival.

  Despite the provided script for the golem’s body, Percival wasn’t an exact copy of the monster lord. The biggest difference was that the golem had an inner frame, while the solidified form of the tar served as the outer frame.

  In terms of texture, the outer frame felt like a smooth cold stone. It looked fragile, but when Lucas tested it, the standard military weapons couldn’t even put a scratch on it. He wasn’t using outdated once either since the military weapons he used were the ones being sent to be repaired for continued use.

  The inner frame was made out of mana steel to enhance the mana conduction flowing through the mana circuits.

  In terms of appearance, the major difference was the obvious gears within the inner frame. It was impossible to hide the robotic appearance of the golem up close, but Lucas was never trying to hide it in the first place. What he wanted to hide was the monster core.

  If people started asking questions, he’ll just say that he wanted to make golems inspired by the appearance of powerful monsters.

  “It is fascinating how you recreated my appearance, yet somehow altered it to suit your preferences,” Perci commented as he floated around the golem.

  “That didn’t sound much of a compliment,” Lucas responded.

  “Take it how you will,” Perci hovered over the golem before suddenly attaching himself to its head like a visor and taking control. “Is it possible to create a body capable of changing shape?” Perci asked as he spun the golem’s lance around.

  “Maybe?” Lucas answered. “I guess with the right materials and magic circle, I could make one.”

  “Perhaps there’s a monster lord out there with such abilities,” Perci stated.

  “It’ll be hard to make another golem like Percival,” Lucas mentioned. “In case you forgot, I was only able to keep Percival’s ability because the monster lord provided me with the script for the magic circle.”

  That was by far the most impressive part of the script. Not only did it allow Percival to move like an actual living being and use its abilities when it was still alive as a monster lord, but it also had the limited ability to use aura.

  “You’ll figure something out,” Perci separated from the golem and floated out the window.

  In hindsight, Lucas should be concerned that Perci was roaming around freely fully knowing that there’s an entire criminal organization after him. But who was he to tell a literal ego of a monster lord what to do.

  “Hello Mr. Atican,” Macey Winterbelle arrived at the meeting place with the crafter to finalize the details of their contract. “I assume the deal is satisfactory for you?”

  Macey was now wearing the Winterbelle family’s military uniform. Which was a long black dress with a dark blue inner fabric. It came with a white belt that was wrapped around her waist tightly, and had a fur collar.

  “Yes, though I have a few concerns.”

  The deal was that the Winterbelle family would provide all the materials needed for the golem, in exchange for his services, Lucas Atican would receive the core from the monster lord, Ragnar and credits.

  As for the details about the golem, it needed to be able to use ice magic and enhance its effects. It also needed a passive freezing ability to support the Winterbelle family’s combat style.

  With the Winterbelle family primarily being mages that fought at a distance, the golem would serve as the frontline. Keeping enemies back and making sure they stayed away from the mages.

  For this, the Winterbelle family would provide magic circle scripts for the ice magic and a combat style that would fit the role of a tank.

  “I’ll need to constantly consult with your family while working on this golem to make sure things are going the way you want it,” Lucas Atican stated. “That’ll be hard if you’re all the way in the north.”

  “I will remain here until the golem is complete,” Macey answered. “You may contact me for any concerns,” Macey handed him her direct line.

  “Alright. I’ll get started immediately,” Lucas Atican signed the contract.

  Macey nodded in satisfaction as she stored the contract in a case. “Shall we enjoy a meal now?”

  For the next few days, Lucas worked on the golem for the Winterbelle family. Since he was working with high-grade materials, he felt a bit overwhelmed.

  Even so, Lucas already had everything mostly planned out. In terms of appearance, he decided to make the golem a bit bulky since it would serve as a tank. But in order to provide it with some mobility, Lucas added some thrusters powered by mana to aid its movements in a frozen terrain. It won’t help in covering distances, but it’ll help with turning and moving during a fight.

  As for combat features and equipment, the golem would have four arms with all of them having the ability to launch the hands and pull them back with a chain. This will act as the method in which it keeps enemies close and away from the mages.

  The Winterbelle family also provided three magic spells for the golem to use. Two of them were attack spells, while the other one was a passive field spell. The first attack spell was “Ice spikes”. It had the ability to conjure ice spikes at the target location. The other attack spell was called “Ice saw”. It fires a literal buzz saw made of ice at the target. The passive spell was a field spell that froze the area around the user called “Ice age”.

  “God damn... this is quite the step up from making foot soldiers,” Lucas muttered as he set up everything for the first test.

  Several of his golems were laying out the Artic steel that was going to be used for the creation of the golem, resulting in five of his Infantry golems getting frozen by simply handling the ingots.

  “Thank god I wasn’t stupid enough to carry them myself,” Lucas muttered as Macey arrived to watch the first test.

  “Is there a reason we’re doing this in the forest?” Macey asked as she was wiping the sweat from her face before using magic to cool herself down.

  “Sorry. It’s not safe to this indoors,” Lucas replied as he placed a bunch of discs connected to each other to form a cube on the ground.

  Macey stared at the cube in confusion, which was a normal reaction since she couldn’t see the complicated mana circuits forming multiple magic circles on it. All she sees was a bunch of discs with runes and monster cores stuck together to form a cube.

  “Time for the first test,” Lucas activated the main disc with the activation rune on the cube, and then quickly ran to a safe distance.

  Both of them watched as the Artic steel ingots begun getting pulled closer to the cube and began to morph in shape to form the golem. The ingots formed thick outer frames with hexagonal patterns, while the inner frame had a dim blue hue leaking from the spaces between the frames.

  It was a behemoth that stood at seventeen feet with each of the golem's arms were bigger than Lucas’s entire body. Each limb had four holes in their plating where the trusters were located, giving them a boost in movement speed multiple directions.

  “Iris: Winterbelle structure test success,” Lucas said to his voice recorder, and then raised his arm towards the golem. His watch transformed into a wrist mounted gun and fired several compressed mana bullets. “Durability test: Military grade.”

  Macey gave him a strange look. “You carry a military grade gun everywhere?”

  “It’s legal?”