Chariot: "You should have more of those spare humanoid golems, right? I noticed the ones in the photos have patch marks and haven't been de-rusted yet."
The Tower: "I do, but they're mostly broken parts. I salvaged about a hundred, but I only managed to piece together twenty-one."
Since she was placing an order with him, Lan Qingyou didn't lie about the specific numbers; there was no need for it.
Chariot: "Then I want the parts for five units as payment."
The Tower: "That's too many. Three units at most."
Chariot: "Five units, and I'll do another favor for you for free later."
The Tower: "Fine, since you're so persistent."
Chariot: "Don't worry, I already have a plan in mind. I'll make them look absolutely beautiful for you this time. By the way, is there a specific pattern you like?"
The Tower: "What do you mean?"
Chariot: "Like a logo or an identifier."
The Tower: "I don't have one."
Chariot: "Then you can think of one."
Lan Qingyou frowned slightly, not quite understanding what Chariot was getting at.
But since he had made the request, it probably had something to do with the design.
After all, she had dumped all this tedious work on someone else so she could be lazy and wake up early tomorrow to search for those potential refugees.
After considering it for a moment, she looked at Steel Wool playing with Spoon and had an idea.
The Tower: "An owl then. Just a silhouette of an owl's head or a simple line drawing."
Chariot: "Got it. Just wait for the good news."
With Lan Qingyou's promise secured, Olf happily received the parts for the five units and began burning the midnight oil.
This kind of all-nighter was perfectly normal for him, or for anyone in Tarot Villa for that matter.
Meanwhile, others who saw the trade between Lan Qingyou and Chariot were also starting to get restless.
One by one, they came forward to ask about the humanoid golems.
The Tower: "If you want to study things like magic patterns, circuits, and instructions, you could try buying one or two to take a look. I certainly learned quite a bit from them."
Ultimately, following Lan Qingyou's suggestion, Magician David, High Priestess Vivian, Hierophant Nemo, The Star Ruan Qingyi, and even Empress Jiang Lan, who focused on agriculture, each bought two or three units.
Their only goal was to observe and learn how the magic patterns and other elements of this 'prehistoric civilization' were engraved.
And so, Lan Qingyou made a significant fortune.
Of course, this 'fortune' didn't refer to supplies or the currency the Supreme Council had designed but not yet issued.
Instead, it was their promises—or rather, any of their future new inventions that Lan Qingyou might take an interest in.
One shouldn't underestimate these things. To Lan Qingyou, and even to Supreme Council members like Justice Chu Yuan, these were the most valuable assets.
After settling these matters, Lan Qingyou melted some snow outside her tent to boil water for a bath. She set the golems outside to stand guard and prepared for bed.
However, she had only been lying down for a short while when her eyes suddenly snapped open.
Because just now, as she cleared her mind for sleep, a very interesting topic had occurred to her.
—What would happen if I added a Soul Crystal to a golem?
That was it.
The combination of a Soul Crystal and a golem.
Since golems could already use things like mana crystals, what would it look like if a Soul Crystal was added?
With this fascinating idea, Lan Qingyou gave up on sleeping altogether. She got up and began her experiment using one of the Horned Lions she had crafted herself.
Since it was her own creation, unlike those humanoid golems, she knew exactly how to repair it and how the engravings worked if anything went wrong.
And so, Lan Qingyou spent another two hours or so tinkering before she finally completed the first golem equipped with a Soul Crystal.
She chose the Horned Lion because it most closely resembled a beast, making it the form where the effects would be most visible.
"Phew—"
Lan Qingyou exhaled deeply, wiping the sweat from her forehead, and then injected mana to activate the Horned Lion.
Whir, click— Bang!
After a series of mechanical grinding sounds, Lan Qingyou was left dumbfounded.
She watched as the Horned Lion lay flat on the ground and began to crawl slowly across the tent floor in an unimaginable way.
"This..."
Seeing the Horned Lion's behavior, Lan Qingyou didn't know what to say.
It was supposed to be a beast-shaped golem, and the one that looked most like a beast at that, yet it was wriggling on the ground like a maggot.
Wait...
This way of wriggling...
Why does it feel so much like a sludge monster?
Suddenly, struck by a sense of déjà vu, Lan Qingyou's eyes lit up.
It was a success, but not a complete one.
It was a success because the Soul Crystal was indeed working.
It wasn't a complete success because Lan Qingyou had used a sludge monster's Soul Crystal.
She had no other choice; she hadn't really spent much time hunting monsters.
If it hadn't been for the need for sludge to create the herb fields earlier, she probably wouldn't have lifted a finger against those monsters at all.
And now, she was reaping what she had sowed.
Because she used a sludge monster's Soul Crystal, the Horned Lion's behavioral patterns became those of a sludge monster, and its movements were restricted to wriggling.
Even the magic instructions she had engraved were forced to serve this behavior.
"Well, that's something..."
Thinking of this, Lan Qingyou could only manage a bitter smile.
What else could she do? She couldn't exactly rush out now to find a wolf-type monster to kill; she didn't have the ability to do that in the middle of the night.
However, it wasn't as if she had gained nothing.
At least Lan Qingyou had figured out a prerequisite and the hierarchy of priority.
That was, the soul's behavioral patterns from the Soul Crystal held higher priority than the magic instructions she engraved.
Or rather, the magic instructions would be more inclined to execute the behavior of the soul within the crystal first.
This was excellent news for Lan Qingyou.
After all, if that were the case, it meant she could eventually use fewer magic instructions to achieve the behavioral patterns she wanted.
Of course, this required her to first study the behavioral habits of the monsters whose Soul Crystals she intended to use.
Whatever...
"Since things have come to this, I'll just sleep."
Knowing she had no other substitutes on hand, Lan Qingyou shook her head. She dismantled the wriggling Horned Lion, removed the Soul Crystal, took another bath, and finally closed her eyes to sleep.
While Lan Qingyou was sleeping, in the mass grave within the Abandoned Ruins far down the mountain, a pile of shredded flesh was rapidly congregating.
Finally, the bits of meat gradually converged and combined into a humanoid form.
This person was none other than Sherlock Cloudley, who had previously been blown up by Lan Qingyou, hacked to pieces by the angry crowd, and finally discarded in the mass grave.
"Witch of the Tower, I, Sherlock Cloudley, will remember this debt. One day, I will make you pay an unimaginable price."
Having just recovered and not yet having had time to put on pants, Sherlock Cloudley's first act was to spew a line of trash talk.
Under the bright and clear moonlight, his expression at that moment appeared incredibly distorted.
Rate on N.U.
