I felt like a kid again.

Of course, I still was, but approaching the gold-toothed, bleach-white skeleton wrapped in a black and gilded robe made me feel like a kid in Corvus Tower, burning with the eagerness to learn my first potion. Only now, it was a burning desire to learn of golems and summoning. Yet, the Mixer was the same as he was all those years ago; and centuries before.

Following Ed, the artificers crowded around the regal skeleton while he withdrew a mound of materials from the shadows of his robes, leaving the others to scatter to the alchemical seats horseshoed before them. Each of them was like those old school desks, albeit larger and with hot plates, small torches, and the like installed on their surfaces.

"I hear you've achieved your ambition of becoming a Grandmaster Artificer." Grandpa Lich's gravelly voice rolled into my ear. "They call you the ArcaTech in those circles now, among other things." He snickered. "Urda has been dying to hear about it."

"I'm sure he has." I groaned. Procuring some metals and components from my shadow pocket, I tasked a sliver of my mind with sorting through my blueprints in the Eternal Eye while I concentrated a field of the ambient energy around the materials until I felt the engineering aspect of my divine mana flow down the conduits in my arms, bringing Urda's fervent movements to a grinding halt while the components aligned with the blueprints augmented onto reality. A pulse of necrotic energy sent them into motion, weaving themselves into a phantasmal face mask and an obsidian data slate that shone with my arcane radiance. In passing the latter to Grandpa Lich, I eased the mask toward Urda until the resonating energies fully latched onto each other and released, allowing the ethereal plate to slip through Urda's orbits and settle inside his skull.

He perked up at once, yet pointedly kept to his duties, even while the gray wisps plagued his field of view with precise readings of the materials he was withdrawing - knowledge that neither he nor Grandpa Lich was aware I knew; knowledge that was being relayed to the data slate in my forefather's hand. I could hardly pay any attention to their reactions, however, for my eyes were more focused on the items splayed across the table. Gold dust, powdered alchemical silver, and diamond dust. Infused quartz and pulverized dark crystals. Black powder and distilled water. And so on and so forth, just like the materials for the item I aspired so long to create.

It wasn't long after that observation until Urda began his lessons; and not long after that until my hypothesis was verified. The Golem Construction Crystal was made from the same materials as enchantment crystals, and in the same way, albeit with a significant variation to the shape - the Glyph of Courage rendered in 3D, essentially, like a mass of marbles stuck together by glue.

While it didn't make for such a seamless process as normal enchantment stones, it was easy enough to mass produce enough for the entire class on its own. Thus, with my divine mana pulsing every time I did something remotely close to artificing, we had hundreds to spare from me alone.

"Hmm. I planned for the rest of the students to demonstrate arcane summoning while you worked, but no matter. The artificers will go first, starting with arcane summons for those with conjuration magic, then onto golem constructs. However." He turned to me with a grim grin. "Seeing as how they are your subordinates, you will imbue souls into them, and you will use your arcane magic for those left out."

"Very well." I sighed.

"And keep in mind, these arcane summons are not required to have to have a humanoid shape. They can be like beasts or anything else you can imagine. Unless you have anything to tell them, Guild Master?"

"Just think about what you'll use them for, as we can assume they'll become something more than just new spells," I said. "Other than that, I recommend using adamantine, mithral, and your… unique materials for your constructs."

Following their resolute nods, Ed stepped up to the plate first, withdrawing a mass of tungsten arcana from his spirit before casting it at the floor, only for the gray conduits in his arms to reach toward his fingertips and leak their divine contents at the last moment. The gray stream flowed into the metallic boulder without a trace just before it released to quake the ground as if a thumper had just gone off, plaguing the still air with a cloud of rot funk and dust.

When it cleared, we saw that it'd sank halfway into the floor upon landing, only for two glaring eyes of grayed red energy to alight before the cool metal began bulging and bubbling unnaturally. Nubs pushed out the sides as its top popped, growing into a pair of curved horns, much like mine, while the body grew tumor-like growths along its backside, complete with metallic pustules that grew into arms once they wiggled themselves free and pushed against the ground, rising into skeletal goat of pure tungsten, with a mass of augmented flesh within its ribs that glowed like a forge.

More or less the same happened when he buried his crystal beneath a pile of adamantine and mithral; only, his magic leaked out as well, enveloping it in a smoky domain of torch fire to assist the kinetic mana ripping apart its innards to redeposit its mass onto the exterior before it was smoothed, detailed, and molded to the likeness of his Grim Gear. Only much larger. Dreadnought sized. A new external frame for his augmented body. Or rather, his version of the Abyssal Armor.

Therein marked the start of a long afternoon filled with wondrous sights and multiple data points. As Grandpa Lich instructed, the rest of the artificers went first, discounting me and starting with Matthew Reid, whose coal magic landed and bulged much like Ed's tungsten goat, only making an ant queen instead. However, more of Ed's divine magic leaked from him before it formed, snaking subtly through the air to enter Matt's spirit and pull the blast arcana from within, fusing it with the coal to create a miniature explosive factory for the sapper.

Conversely, his golem construct followed the same process as Ed's almost to the T, instead being filled with excavator arms and a myriad of tools needed for his job, all aided by torch fire and kinetic energy. As was the case for Elsgril, Forgruna, Quinn, Thordrohilda, and Edgar. Their arcane summons used Ed's divine mana to intake their abilities and, it seemed, read their classes to become things like walking forges, armories, warehouses, or, in Thordrohilda case, a small and lithe clone to cover the weakness of her barbaric fighting style. The golem constructs, on the other hand, only used Ed's abilities to create hulking units of war more suited to their occupations, ranging from weapons platforms to straight up behemoths.

Much to my annoyance, Grandpa Lich demanded Toril go next before I had a chance to start. But in hindsight, the silver lining was that it gave my magically incompetent mind the time to conceptualize a spell for myself. At least until I got distracted by Toril, withdrawing gaseous arcana from his core to fuse with his lightning.

His arcane summon materialized as a seed between his hands before it sprouted, forming a phantasmal plant made of ionized gas that he sent slinking across the room, digging its roots from anchor point to anchor point to spread a volatile canopy wherever Toril wanted, and for whatever purpose he imagined. Just as Ed had, Toril then upturned his ruck to deposit a small hill of mithral and adamantine ingots, coupled with some of Ilium's materials like Volterum and the self-reassembling Dimensionite. But whereas Ed's divine mana leaked into his materials, Toril's leaked into the gaseous lightning he used to activate the construct.

Appearing like vibrant, translucent blue clouds, the gaseous lightning sparked to the crystal and latched on, forming a heart or nucleus for the sprawling ion tendrils Toril's knight order used in lieu of wings before the materials sparked with brilliance. Sparks and muffled pops rang from the ingots as they were consumed by those tendrils, flattening and reforming them into pauldrons, vambraces, greaves, and a hulking breastplate for his legion's destroyer.

"The Justiciar of the Undying Tempest." Toril grinned ferally.

Much to our surprise, the Conditor of his legion each got one as well, and while their arcane summons still siphoned off his affinities and divine mana, they couldn't have been more different. They ranged from a rubber monkey, a jade tiger, and a spiked armadillo summoned by the Amazonians to something resembling a proper golem, formed from Samson's aluminum rain. And they were said to be intended for a variety of means, ranging from sparring and scouting to sentinel duties.

"Excellent!" Grandpa Lich grinned, then turned to Jaimess as his arcana poured into his cores.

Like I'd seen many times before, Jaimess' arcana spawned a single sheet that replicated without end, sending countless tan sheets to be folded, pressed, and crimped by the mana while carbon formed into diamond, silicon formed into fine sand and glass, and obsidian was secured on its rough texture, forming the shape of an origami devil - a sentient summon to play devil's advocate for him. Similarly, the product of the construct crystal assimilating with his materials, both natural and divine, created an origami clone of his tengu complete with the wings and stern, long-nosed visage. Only, it was intended to oversee the paper realms on his woven world, unlike his Conditor, who each received a different origami divine creature besides the arcane summons they made for themselves.

For Winston's arcane summon, there was a Scaled Skink for scouting the more obscure places within cities. Rhody made a clay doll, akin to a doppelganger, but with a mutable visage. Like Matthew, Rebecca made a Black Powder wasp queen infused with her plasma magic, while Willard Rowe made a hummingbird of his Brass and String magic.

Grandpa Lich's young doppelganger grew all the more interested once Roheisa started withdrawing arcana. Conversely, I grew all the more disinterested once I realized her spell was a mimicry of her power armor. A salamander's serpentine lower body with a Vulcanox, minotaur-like upper body, covered in metal. Only smaller. Tiny. Snake sized.

The way she smiled as it snaked up and her arm made me believe she intended to use it as her familiar, but it was hard to tell. Above all others, I 'looked' into Roheisa's mind the least. More out of respect than anything else, for she was carrying a burden heavier than even mine. That fact seemed to manifest in her golem construct, given the quantity of steel, magnetic, lava, and crystal mana it took from her spirit. It appeared like a miniature red dwarf, given the way it roiled around her. But only when the construct crystal was placed within the roiling mass did its surface congeal, hardening into a recognizable shape before it was concealed in a steely prism of cylindrical shapes and curved grooves that beat rhythmically like its namesake.

"Steel Heart." Roheisa smiled in satisfaction, prompting an explanation for my great-grandfather while her subordinates' constructs morphed into clones of the beating organ.

For the most part, her subordinates followed the tune of other legionaries. Elurial copied Toril and Rebecca by making acorns that could grow into Wood Golem clones and repeat the process ad infinitum, creating self-replicating clones of herself while Darekhil created something similar to Roheisa, albeit as a universal engine for his war machines rather than a steel volcano generator. Only the goliaths made something unique, though they all made the same thing; beasts of Roheisa's magics, made to create something like a mobile spell cannon.

This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon.

With as much interest as Roheisa, Grandpa Lich watched Lucia withdraw her magic and form its many blade-wings into the shape of a swan before it took off at once, flapping down the hall while her construct came into creation. Other than having a crystalline heart instead of a worthy soul, her construct appeared like her Noctis Sage, Siegfried. Juggernaut in stature, with a winged body of bronze, mithral, and adamantine plates impossibly smoothed into a humanoid shape. A sentinel for her; and seekers for her Conditor.

The first of them took an unusual approach for his arcane summon by first withdrawing some Volterum from his ruck, then charge mana from his well before he began meditating - and praying, it seemed, as a soul peeled itself from my cursed well and floated before Rua without my input. The result was remarkable, if anticlimactic, for we only saw the gold-hued plate lazily orbiting him akin to a mobile shield. But me, Grandpa Lich, and the Deliverers could see the soul within, zealously guarding the calm monk. Phelia, on the other hand, spawned only mithral and adamantine to be merged with her hellfire, creating a winged beast of infernal energy that looked all the part of a protector for her healing operations.

Peter followed a similar route as Rua, meditating to spawn his array of elemental totems to merge his ki and magic into the closest thing I'd seen to my eldritch emergence, with it being capable of shifting between the many beasts represented by his elemental forms. His construct couldn't have been closer to a true golem, however. Perhaps even better, given how its omni-elemental energy gave it the means to become like every golem. Though, unlike how golems were normally used, Peter intended to use it for terraformation.

As expected, Scarlett, Mary, Zeke, Toni, and Rommy received similar constructs, albeit augmented with their abilities and tuned for certain elements above others for the sake of their occupations. Scarlett used the same spell I'd seen long ago, creating a giant silkworm filled with poison, while Mary's cotton ram dripped acid from its horns; yet both were to protect the groves built by their constructs. Zeke's cement elephant was made for laying the foundations for the lands he'd settle and to spread concrete jungles across the unruly forces who opposed them. Rommy and Toni were the exceptions. The former did as many others and used his arcane golem as a familiar, creating a snow bunny he'd use as a scout while dungeon crawling while his construct was to prepare lands to host dungeons or monster lairs. The latter used her construct for her warden duties, using it as a non-threatening entity that could keep records of animal populations and alter topography to suit them while her mud monkey was made to mark the beasts and people who threatened them.

With the 6th legion done, it was time for the holiest and unholiest legions, and Grandpa Lich's eyes widened as expected once Zakira and Opal began praying. Their words drew mana and blood from their cores to weave blood strings into scales and blood blades into feathers, forming a Bloodmoon Moth and a Blood Bladed Owl that perched atop their armored shoulders like familiars. Their constructs, on the other hand, siphoned my and their divine mana to gift them what they and Elijah had never received: doppelgangers; albeit ones made from their original armor, blood magic, strings, and divine light as opposed to pure darkness.

Curious Twig and Veil of Shadows both made constructs of twilight, using the darkness within to form amorphous blobs akin to a slime to augment their power in the field, for their armored constructs were to guard their conclaves and temples. Similarly, my first warlock spawned some water to fuse with his lunacy to create a glimmering amorphous blob with many squid-like arms. Only, the nucleus latched onto his armor like an exoskeleton before its arms began waving, lifting the half-orc to drift lazily above us. But where Hogaz used his construct for locomotion, Duke, Elijah, and Urshure used them as echoes; much like the Abyssal Armor echoing my soul in the Shadow Realm.

Duke used his newly acquired abilities to spawn a clone of an arcane summon to act as his ground operative; just as Elijah made a clone to switch between his office duties above and his lairs below, and Urshure did for his duties the Mortal Plane, leaving his constructs of scales, feathers, and various energies to guard their sky islands, offices, and lairs, just as Hogaz's behemoths were to guard his ships by clinging to them like barnacles or remora.

While the many displays made my mind race with the possibilities, I felt the radiant pang of annoyance coupled with the rising tide of anticipation once Urshure's red-scaled clone stood in place beside him and Grandpa Lich turned his demanding eyes to me.

Ignoring his gaze, I looked back on what I'd just seen as well as my theories for inspiration on my arcane summon; which didn't take long. This was only the start of this grand journey, after all. And so it was easy to think back on the spell I'd cast and subsequently forgotten once I sent the product back home. A spell born of void, centered on the fact or idea that my sorcery allowed me to create false life - used to create something innocuous, small, and seemingly harmless. Like all things remade at a point of greater virtuosity, I intended to improve on that spell. Part of that revolved around changing its purpose - for it to be devastating to any lands it turned its sights on, rather than people, utilizing those most eldritch things I'd recalled from fact and fiction; my experiences and my so limited imagination, coupled with my broad intellect.

With a dimensionless body of void, it had an infinite volume within a finite point, as well as the power to fully convert matter to energy. With its heart of nuclear arcana, imprisoned within the void, it had the power to fuse energy into virtually any type of matter. And so, hands made of divine materials, blessed by the ArcaTech, were woven with the first elements it fused, guided down from Eotrom and merged with the most industrious soul summoned from my Under as I commanded: "Eldritch Emergence."

Akin to I'd seen what felt like so long ago, arcana detached from my well at a rapid pace, subliming into vibrant streams that fell through my sorcerous core and churned out the side as darkness, but only a little; a veil of skin to hold back the void pouring from my core to mix with the nuclear river before it ebbed from my body. It manifested as an amorphous eye of nothingness, identified only by a pupil of a fusion reactor that gazed out at the realm from a lazy eyelid of darkness, mostly concealed by loose plates of chitin-like metal stacked haphazardly around it. At least, in the first instance of its existence.

The sea green of my mana domain, the shaded gleam of twilight, and my pale light all leaked from my fingertips once that eye lazily blinked. Like streaming particles, they flowed into the eldritch alloy covering its shell to fuse its plates into a vibrant shell, coat it beneath a phantasmal shroud, and form concentric rings of halo-like shards of multicolored metals that made the summon appear more alien than eldritch. Or… like a weird pocket monster.

A creator, restorer, uplifter, and destroyer of nations. The VoidTech fabricator.

"I shall call you Victor," I said, holding out my hand.

"Charming." Grandpa Lich huffed, yet quickly recanted once the shield-sized summon drifted toward my hand. The concentric rings contra-rotated around its core as it drew closer, shrinking its size to fit nicely in my palm. Yet, its nuclear pupil brimmed with radiance, pulsing before it died down and a rattling chain sprawled from its dark veil to secure itself around my neck, leaving the pendant resting atop my sternum, its eye closed until it could follow its purpose.

"I await my first project, my Liege." Victor's eldritch and yet mechanical voice echoed in my head. Conversely, I sent a summary of his design and purpose across the net to all those present before opening my shadow.

From my shadow pocket came ten hulking cans of a thousand-count 11mm adamantine ball bearings, lids opened so they could be tossed overhead like confetti.

Upon crossing the dark purple domain that persisted around me, the balls lurched, halted, and began falling toward me on their many trajectories to slam against each other on their way around me, eventually forming an accretion disk of green-hued black metal around my waist.

Rather casually, and with no real intention, I tossed the construct crystal into orbit and intently watched the royal blue stream of the ArcaTech's essence shoot down the conduits in my arms to eject from my fingers. Interestingly or not, it attacked the crystal more than the bearings, yet pulled more of my gravitational arcana from my spirit along with a healthy dose of electromagnetic and spatial arcana, drawing the former into the crystal itself while the latter two seeped into each bearing in equal measures. Then, chaos.

A frozen state of chaos enveloped the area as the cascading coil ceased its motion with a snap of the wind. No two bearings touched either, neither when they stopped nor when they zipped around me to redistribute themselves into a diamond lattice around the crystal. Much less when they shifted, creeping closer to the crystal to form a tight beach ball-sized sphere until the bearings finally touched; then came order.

The bearings, once hued black and green while glowing a gray-purple, seemed to oxidize into a polished steel gray once the crystal at its heart pulsed and the mass snapped a final time, spurred forth by the points of the sphere bulging out and reaching down, out, and up to create degenerate pillars for legs, latticed arms, and a head whose many marbled face glowed with the likeness of a scowling beast.

While I was quite satisfied with the bearing golem, Grandpa Lich returned his demanding gaze to me after Zohnos and his sister made their constructs and summons, even going as far as releasing a pulse of his necrotic energy to pull against my spirit - more like a yearning from the many souls within. A taunt from him.

Ignoring him, I brought my arms together before my chest and focused on the veritable star that was my cursed well. Or rather, the chandelier of souls poised above my throne. Carefully curating each one, I released them from their pits of punishment and melded them with my will before I cast them out into the Mortal Plane, reeling them toward these new vessels.

But of course, things weren't that simple.

The many souls leaving my spirit pulled my divine mana from me, which pulled divine mana from the Troupe; but mostly Iris and Reina. Into both their constructs and their arcane summons, it flowed, creating flesh where there was none, enhancing their capabilities, and imbuing their eyes with the gleam of sentience before each of them pulsed in my eyes alone, growing shimmering auras that acted as beacons to the worlds woven above, given the appeased faces the Conditor showed their new familiars, companions, and sentient tools.

While only I could see it, they could feel the result pouring in from above after a few moments. Though, it would be some time before those they killed would be reborn as those arcane summons, less time was needed for their worlds to give the genesis spark for their golem constructs, which were now more like automatons than anything else, although not quite, for the most part.

"Ah! So you have no control over the change your divine mana makes on the realms after all! I can see why that would annoy you! Wahahahaha!" Grandpa Lich roiled. "I wouldn't be surprised if you become a Magus before you return home, considering what you've already done!"

"Yeah. To be honest, it's beyond annoying." I groaned, triggering another rolling rumble of thunder from far above. "Like that." I rolled my eyes, and the sky responded once more. "Can't even be annoyed anymore."

Grandpa Lich, however, found it hilarious. "Wahahahaha! You truly are strange! Most would burn the realms for a glimpse of godhood. Yet here you are, disgruntled about eternal divinity."

"Well, it makes it hard to explore the realms as they are if they change the moment I step foot in them." I sighed. Coincidentally, it was one of many things that made quantum mechanics so counterintuitive and complex. Looking at electrons or other subatomic particles in their natural state was difficult when you had to shoot electrons at them to see them. Luckily, my next step on the Eternal Path would give me the means to mitigate that. Regardless, I now had to figure out what I wanted to do with my bearing golem, which only took a few moments. Yet, it was enough for Grandpa Lich to notice.

"Ah!" He rocked on his heels, smug understanding written across his face. "Such a thing must have happened with Cain's pet."

My head canted toward him at once. "Who?"

"Kaia's son. Cain Cole."

"Ah!" I nodded, then shook my head. "Not quite. While I was experimenting with a new spell at the time - Eldritch Emergence - it didn't take long to decide what to do with it, much like Victor. As for this one." I sighed, looking at the degenerate mass of pachinko balls staring at me with anticipation. "Any treasure I'd need to guard is in my shadow pocket or my divine realm above, and my throne room is in the Underworld, so." I shrugged. "Maybe I'll start a collection or something and have it guard that."

"That is wise." Grandpa nodded. "You'll need hobbies to pass the centuries by. But I digress." He sighed hard enough to rock back on his heels and turned to the onlookers. "That's a wrap!"

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