BXBX NOVEL Chapter 379 - Hugs
"But there’s some other high-mana spot in town, it might be the King Golem, but it might also be the place where all the Golems are supposed to appear from. It’s pretty deep underneath the town, though, so I doubt we’ll be able to really get there." Eisen pointed out, before he looked at the nearest tunnel in front of them.
"Anyway, we should probably get going pretty soon." The old man told them, before he looked around at the other groups. "There’re apparently a lot of Golems inside the tunnels, so it would be best if we figure out a good tactic to either disrupt them and get through to the other side as quickly as we can, or destroy them one after another."
"Hmm, usually, my Maroon weapons work pretty well against them in that way. I’m mostly using my Monkey-Stick or Batons against them, because blades will just get blunt, and when I do, whenever I hit them they can’t control the place that I hit them at for a few moments, and that spot is pretty easily destroyed." Brody explained to the others, and Eisen slowly nodded his head. "Perfect, we expected something along those lines already. Fluke, I need your help with a small idea for some items for that, it should make the fights easier." Eisen pointed out, and the Warforged raised his brows in response.
"Oh? Sure, what’s the idea?" Fluke asked with a curious smirk, and Eisen nodded his head and then turned to the others before going off with Fluke, "Let’s get closer to town, in case it shows any signs of trying to move. Then we’ll just have to sprint into the tunnel either way and try our best." He told them, before Eisen turned toward Fluke again, quickly speaking with him about his idea.
"So, what we need are small mechanical tools that can move on their own and use transmutation." Eisen explained to him, before Fluke raised his eyebrows and thought about everything for a moment. "Hmm, why exactly? That Demon said something about using a Maroon-Based weapon? Just ignoring about how he got his hands on it, if it gets into contact with a golem, it disrupts their control by nullifying the mana around it. So what you’re trying to do is make something that can automatically dig through that spot using transmutation?" Fluke asked, before Eisen nodded his head with a smirk.
"Exactly, good to see we’re on the same page. Usually, transmuting a Golem isn’t possible because of the mana spread around the body, right? So, my idea is to basically have Brody attack with his monkey-stick, preferably in the center of the chest, and then have that tool jump onto the spot and make a small hole all the way through to the Golem core, so that my Ranger Golem can hit it and shatter it." The old man suggested, and without hesitation, the Warforged nodded his head.
"That certainly sounds like a good idea." Fluke replied, and then quickly called his Carrier-Golem over to him, swiftly climbing up onto its back using one of the bars attached to the back for grip, opening up one of the compartments.
"Let’s see... I do have something in that direction, but it’s not something I’ve used all that often, and its transmutation isn’t all that potent either." Fluke replied before he took out a small drill-like item with three legs attached to its base.
"I have about four of these with me at the moment. As I said, I haven’t used them in a while, and their potency isn’t very high. Shouldn’t be too hard to re-enchant them though. Just give me a few minutes, and I’ll get right to it." The Warforged said with an excited smile and hit the tip of his foot against a spot in the center of the Carrier Golem’s back, causing a small platform to pull out, which Fluke swiftly sat down on while fiddling with the Drills.
"Thank you, that’s a great help. In the meantime..." Eisen muttered to himself, swiftly taking out Ranger out of his box, before taking a look at the arrows he had leftover, making sure they were all in proper condition to be shot like that.
And after explaining the tactics to the Golem with his Giant bow, Eisen moved on and chose to spend the time that everyone would use to take a little bit of a break and prepare for the fights in town for something a little different, and swiftly sat down with his youngest tamed monster, Sal.
"Alright then, let’s try and get you a little bit more experience, shall we?" Eisen asked with a smile on his face, rubbing the head of the small creature, before moving his fingers through his beard. "What do you want to do most? As far as I can see, there are three main areas you can move in, Dancing, Magic, or using String. It would be pretty great if we could combine all of them, but that might need to wait a little bit longer. What of those three things do you want to do most right now?" Eisen asked him, and Sal tilted its head to the side and then began to tap Eisen’s hand, which the young Spider was standing on, with his legs.
"I’m going to guess that means dance, then?" Eisen asked, and Sal immediately started to dance happily, before Eisen moved his fingers through his beard.
"Do you remember back when you used magic in your eyes like I did? How about you try something like that, but do it for your legs. And then while you’re moving your leg, concentrate to properly move your mana into that direction as well. If you do that, and in that way level up your Mana-Manipulation, then you might be able to get a ’Dance’ element or something like that." Eisen said with a smile on his face, and as if he was more excited about this than anything that happened in his life so far, Sal immediately began to dance, and Eisen used his Mana-Sight to take a look at what he was doing exactly.
Slowly, all of his legs were gaining some more concentrated mana in them and Sal’s legs were moving a lot quicker while he was dancing. It wasn’t necessarily an amazing or complicated dance, but it still moved Eisen’s heart to see Sal try so hard.
"Good Job, buddy!" Eisen exclaimed immediately and checked Sal’s level, noticing that it had already increased to 99. If he fulfilled all the requirements to Evolve, then he would probably get there very soon. Although Eisen didn’t expect it to come this soon.
Slowly, while he was dancing, Sal’s body was enveloped in a slight glow and he grew in size still dancing while he was at it, but not only did his body grow a little in general, but his head in the front of his body was replaced by a humanoid upper body.
And when the glow disappeared and Sal evolved, Eisen managed to see that it seemed like Sal was only one evolution away from becoming properly human-like, just like Caria and Melissa.
For now, even the small, young child-like upper body was covered in a white carapace, and he still had two fangs in front of his mouth and eight spider-like eyes, but he now also had two extra limbs, two arms, at the side of that torso.
And looking down at his new body and twisting around to look behind himself, Sal started to wiggle around for a moment and then started to dance again, although in a more organized and rhythmical fashion.
"Well, that was a lot faster than I expected. Godo job, Sal." Eisen said with a smile on his face, rubbing the top of Sal’s head, before he heard a slight screech coming from the side.
"Xenia, it’s fine, one more evolution and he’ll probably look even more like a cute little boy than he already does." The old man reassured the High-Elf currently hiding behind her boyfriend, "Wh-What..? I’m not scared, what are you even talking about... Sal looks fine just like he is... Although, I of course won’t have anything against it when he evolves to become more humanoid..." She replied, and hearing her speak, Sal turned toward them with a bright smile, at least that’s what it looked like he was doing. Eisen wasn’t entirely sure.
But soon enough, Eisen began to chuckle, "Xenia, I love how you’re trying to be supportive to not hurt his feelings, but you realize he comes after his older sisters, right?" Eisen asked her, before Xenia looked in his direction from behind Jyuuk, "What do you mean..?" She asked, and Eisen just laughed.
"They all love to hug people that are nice to them." He explained, and just when he was doing so, Sal began to walk into Xenia’s direction with his arms spread out wide, and Xenia immediately began to panic, unsure what she should be doing.
So, to help her out a little, Eisen instead called over to Sal, "What are you doing, buddy? I’m kind of hurt that I’m not the first person you want to hug with your new arms..." He said with a slight smirk as he looked away, trying to hide exactly that, and now Sal was panicked in turn.
Immediately, Sal sprinted back over toward the old man and climbed onto his leg and up to his torso to hug him as tightly as he could, and while he was doing so, Eisen already called Caria and Melissa over, who were just as excited about the young spider’s new ability.
And when the two of them approached and Sal saw them, he quickly climbed back off of the old man and hurried over toward them, and the three young monsters immediately started playing around a little bit with each other.
In the meantime, while Eisen was watching his cute little children play, Jyuuk was taking care of his own main-monsters, including but not limited to a Large Flaming Bird, a Bear literally currently made of shadows, a Buck large enough for Eisen with his fully increased size to ride on and still think that he was too small.
"This is so... Weird." Sky muttered to himself with a wry smile as he looked at this scene, seemingly saying what everyone was at least subconsciously thinking, and before long, Fluke climbed off the back of his Carrier Golem with all of the self-moving drills finished up, before he walked up to Eisen.
"I’m done, it can open up a wide hole using transmutation, and if it’s lucky enough, it might even be able to destroy the Golem Core itself with its drill. Who knows how deep the effect penetrates." The Warforged pointed out, swiftly handing them to the old man, who more than just happily took them and then stood up, before making his way over toward Brody, swiftly explaining the plan that Eisen came up with.
"And then, after you hit their chest, just try and somehow get these drills onto that spot in their chest and we’ll take care of the rest. All you need to do is make sure that the mana in that area is disrupted as much as possible."