Eternal Rest

The neighboring Aphiton Kingdom, situated to the east and likewise categorized as a minor kingdom, has exploited the intermittent absences of King Wezar to sow discord between the two kingdoms, with a keen focus on the coveted mines.

Though tensions have simmered for some time, they reached a boiling point recently. Over the years, sporadic skirmishes have occurred, typically held at bay by a fortress situated along the border, deterring Aphitonian incursions. However, the dynamics shifted last month when invaders altered their strategy, targeting Wezar Kingdom's vital mana stone transportation routes. This crippling blow to the kingdom's economy served as the catalyst, propelling the conflict from minor clashes to full-scale warfare.

Prompted by this aggression, the Wezar Kingdom swiftly mobilized its army to reinforce its borders, initiating a prolonged period of conflict that shows no signs of abating.

The news of the contract, posted on the guild’s board to rally adventurers to join the war effort under the guise of retrieving stolen goods, quickly spread throughout the city, reaching even the small tavern. Bones sat sipping his usual morning coffee, while Solin conspicuously avoided meeting his gaze.

“Something on your mind, Solin?” Bones teased, noticing the young man's obvious reluctance to speak.

“No! I mean, yes. About yesterday... it’s not like Morem and I were dating, you know? We just fool around sometimes, but I think she might be done with that now…”

“Oh?” Bones replied, intrigued.

“Oh? That’s it? That’s all you have to say? What about sharing some profound wisdom?” Solin snapped back, his frustration evident.

“Like what? Solin, you’re asking a bunch of old bones for love advice! Well, just don’t complicate things too much and be straight with her, yes?” Bones replied with a chuckle. Solin wasn’t as amused, but it got him thinking and quiet. Moments later, Tivaara crashed by their table. “Y'all hear news about the war? Wanna go? It’s a great experience boost!”

The two exchanged glances, and instead of answering her question, Bones inquired about how she and Silva weren't afraid of being discovered, considering they were wanted fugitives. She snorted and remarked that they would hear any approach. As for the war, Bones had no interest in joining at the moment, and Solin even less so. “Anyway, Solin, up for a match this afternoon?”

Bones dedicated his days to various pursuits, from sparring sessions with Solin to honing his engraving skills, culminating in his first foray into the arena. His debut fight proved awkward, to say the least, as combatants were segregated into categories based on their level and arena rank. Without an arena rank to his name, Bones found himself pitted against a novice opponent, securing an easy victory against someone unaccustomed to facing another user. The remainder of the month was consumed by rigorous training, relentless practice, and ultimately, a breakthrough in his Meditation skill. True to his aspirations, Bones transformed Meditation into a passive ability, granting him permanently enhanced mana regeneration, albeit at a reduced effectiveness.

Meditation (advanced) - an advanced version of the basic meditation ability. A meditation technique heightens the user’s state of awareness and focuses attention, increasing the mana regeneration by 20% at all times. Passively gathers and absorbs ambient mana into the body, strengthening it and nurturing one's core by filtering impurities.

The effect is slightly increased with each level in a skill.

“Status.”.

Status

Attributes

Name: Bones

Race: Undead Skeleton lvl 22

Class: Bonemancer Adept Lvl 29

Soul Weaver lvl 8

Profession: Mana Engraver lvl 4

Hp - 470 (4.7 hp/s)

Mp - 900 (37 +7.4 mp/s)

Sta - ∞

STR: 26

AGI: 5

END: 5

VIT: 47

INT: 90

WIS: 28

Free points:

Bones made significant progress in recent months. During a dungeon run with the dwarves, he attained a level in the Bonemancer Adept class. Since then, he had further advanced, gaining two levels in his Race and one in a new class, Soulweaver. Although his profession was advancing slowly, unlike other classes, he earned a free point at every threshold level, which he discovered occurred every five levels. However, he still hadn't found a suitable endoskeleton for his golem.

In truth, he was uncertain what criteria to look for in a golem. He hoped the dwarves might have better insights and resources to procure such a skeleton. With the month drawing to a close and the dungeon likely to have reset by now, Bones excused himself from his companions, citing pressing business, and departed the city.

During his brief visit to the smithy in Stonefalls, Bones checked on operations and collected his share of the profits from the shop, along with the earnings from the mana stone deal. He bid the dwarves farewell, promising to return once he completed his dungeon venture. While he was occupied in the capital, the dwarves had been diligent, analyzing data from their previous dungeon run and pushing the limits of exploration.

Each stage of the dungeon permitted a maximum of five party members. The farming team organized two parties, each comprising five dwarves, for the first stage, and one party with four dwarves for the second stage. Upon Bones' arrival, the first stage was already occupied by two teams, while the third team had advanced to the second stage. Eager not to fall behind, Bones hastened to the entrance of the second stage and entered without delay.

The second stage lacked a structured dungeon layout similar to the first stage, but the monsters can be consistently found inhabiting specific areas, making it easy for Bones to locate the minibosses. Alongside gaining combat experience, Bones focused on leveling up his Golem Mastery skill, recognizing significant improvements at each threshold level. Despite his golem's improved combat prowess, it still trailed behind adventurers of comparable level. "Or perhaps my golem's enhanced fighting abilities result from my continual intervention with the monsters through soul link?" Bones speculated.

Bones was confident that the engravings on the golems contributed to their effectiveness as well. He couldn't help but feel disappointed that the dwarves didn't have a potential skeleton tucked away somewhere in a workshop corner, he mused. Darsumi had pledged to make an effort to acquire a silver-rank skeleton by the following month. Although silver-rank monsters were uncommon in the Wezar Kingdom, they weren't particularly difficult to locate. The challenge lay in persuading an adventurer party to transport the entire monster carcass without damaging its skeleton.

Bones progressed steadily through the stage, and by the fourth day, he had cleared all the monsters on his path to the temple. Standing once more before the temple ruins, he pondered whether to enter. With a sense of resignation, he opted against it; he didn't believe he could emerge victorious from the impending battle. He resolved to confront the challenge only after infusing his golem with the mana core. With that decision made, he turned and hastened toward the exit, leaving the dungeon behind.

Upon his return to the smithy, he greeted the dwarves and inquired if they wished to join him in facing the boss. However, he discovered that the dungeon entrance had been sealed the moment he exited, now under cooldown.

"The issue isn't entering the dungeon while someone is already inside," Darsumi clarified. "The dungeon initiates a cooldown period the moment all participants exit, which in this case, is you as the last participant." Bones nodded, expressing regret for missing the chance to defeat the boss of the second stage. Hemdus waved off his apology, explaining that they didn't have a second team available to tackle the boss anyway, and he and Darsumi couldn't be bothered to deal with a minor threat.

The shop enjoyed immediate success, attracting attention from the day it opened its doors. The dwarves were not surprised, as the gear they offered was of high quality, tailored for lower levels and bronze rankers. Their heavy armor set, crafted from chitin, proved especially popular among defenders due to its robust defense.

Meanwhile, Bones remained undecided about his gear. Despite considering fighting without armor, he found himself relieved when Belmus the Tailorsmith presented him with a set of durable robes. Crafted with care and enchanted for medium self-repair, the robes suited him well, transforming his appearance into that of a classic mage.

Clad in a black hood that concealed his head and a long, flowing robe that reached below his knees with a split down the middle, Bones found most of his body enveloped. Loose, baggy pants made from lightweight material hung comfortably, paired with new leather boots that replaced his old reinforced ones. Though his old gloves remained mostly undamaged, he saw no reason to replace them. With a layer of Bone Armor covering the visible parts, he appeared entirely human—unless someone inspected him closely.

Studying his reflection in the mirror, Bones couldn't help but appreciate the craftsmanship of the dwarf-made attire. However, a pang of realization struck him. "I look like I'm up to no good. I couldn't appear shadier if I tried!"

Bones didn't linger as long as he had the month before. After observing an enchanter at work for the remainder of the day, he departed for the capital. Had he not befriended the old man during the earlier celebration, he doubted the enchanter would have allowed him to intrude as freely. Engraving runes demanded patience and, as always, extensive practice. With his thoughts drifting to his next move, Bones found himself with an unexpected surplus of free time until the next dungeon reset and his scheduled Hagos dungeon run in two months.

Upon his return to the capital, Bones was taken aback to find Silva there, as he typically spent more time conducting business in the Underground than in taverns. His surprise deepened when Silva presented him with a newly acquired skeleton of a peak bronze-rank lizardman—a bipedal, 1.7-meter-tall humanoid lizard. Though Bones had mentioned the need for a monster skeleton to construct his golem before, he hadn't given it much thought at the time.

Needless to say, Bones was elated and eagerly accepted the skeleton from Silva. With it in hand, he now possessed everything necessary to craft a proper golem—almost everything, that is. There remained the matter of his low-level golem mastery. While it wasn't strictly required to fuse the golem with the mana core, Bones heeded the advice of Hemdus, who possessed experience with earth golems, and opted to wait until he reached level ten in Golem Mastery.

Bones settled into a daily routine, engaging in sparring matches with Solin and dedicating himself to engraving, but his primary focus remained on his golem. Each day, he crafted a new golem, assigning it various tasks, all the while painstakingly engraving the lizardman skeleton. It proved to be a slow and tedious process, and before he knew it, a month had passed in the blink of an eye.

Despite the dwarves' busy schedules, the shop continued to thrive, with even Bones' bone decorations selling—albeit in an unexpected manner. A young child found the bone kitten Bones had displayed adorable and promptly took it without paying. However, no one intervened, charmed by the child's innocence and the negligible value of the item.

Meanwhile, the opening of a new shop in Westbrook was postponed until the following month due to unforeseen damage resulting from a clash between two gold-rankers. Despite these developments, the farming teams successfully completed their scheduled dungeon runs.

As for Bones, he once again found himself standing before the ruined temple, grappling with indecision. Despite reaching level ten in golem mastery during his time in the dungeon, he hadn't had the opportunity to construct the new golem. Recognizing the dungeon's unsuitability for such a complex task, he reluctantly turned away, leaving the dungeon without confronting the boss yet again.

On his way back, Bones spent the night at the smithy, engaging in discussions about their heist plans and reviewing the newly acquired floor plans of the houses they intended to rob. With the upcoming festival expected to bring chaos, they made slight adjustments and expanded their strategies accordingly.

With excitement, Bones unveiled the lizardman's endoskeleton he planned to use in crafting the golem. However, to his disappointment, the others didn't share his enthusiasm for the bunch of bones as he did.

Two weeks before the scheduled Hagos dungeon run, Bones completed the engraving of the entire lizardman's endoskeleton. Reflecting on his accomplishment, he couldn't help but feel proud of his work. Engraving the skeleton was a delicate and slow process, demanding patience, precision, and leaving no room for errors. Unlike previous bones he had engraved and used in constructing his golem, these bones proved much harder to work with due to their higher level. Bones considered it fortunate that the skeleton wasn't from a silver-rank monster, as he would have struggled to engrave it delicately.

The next step in the process was to create the nucleus and infuse it into the mana core—an even more intricate and complex task.

During the month of preparation leading up to the pivotal moment of completing the golem's construction, Bones delved into research about lizardman folk. He studied their traits, behaviors, and combat capabilities, unsure if this knowledge would directly impact the creation of the golem. Nonetheless, he believed it couldn't hurt to attempt to adapt the golem's core to mimic the traits of its original lizardman owner as closely as possible.

Considering that lizardmen were known to wield spears as their primary weapons, Bones made a concerted effort to procure an adequate spear for his golem. He had previously discovered that his summoned Bone Lance couldn't be utilized as a melee weapon by others, prompting him to seek an alternative.

As Bones applied the knowledge he had acquired, he meticulously crafted a nucleus more complex than any he had made before. The process of infusing the nucleus into the mana core proved to be a true test of his patience. Failure plagued him repeatedly, with each unsuccessful attempt resulting in the wastage of a small portion of mana from within the core, including his own mana. While it didn't have a detrimental effect, as the core would recharge over time, it took a toll on his mental fortitude. Fortunately, his permanently active Meditation skill helped him maintain a level-headed demeanor throughout the ordeal.

After enduring numerous setbacks, Bones finally achieved success and was rewarded with the following notification.

Congratulation, you have successfully created a Golem Core

A week before the dungeon run, in the courtyard behind the tavern, Bones engaged in a sparring match against his new bone golem. With each exchange, he noticed the golem's increasing proficiency in wielding the spear. It dawned on Bones why golem mastery was crucial—it elevated the golem's cognition. Not only did it enhance the golem's ability to acquire factual information, such as perceiving, recognizing, conceiving, and reasoning to a certain extent, but it also facilitated the golem's quick adaptation to Bones' movements with the spear.

As the sparring session progressed, Bones sensed a newfound weightiness to the golem's existence, a sense of vitality he hadn't experienced before. It almost felt as if the golem were alive. "I don’t know where my path would lead me, but I’ll have you accompany me until the end!" Bones declared to his faithful companion.