บท 64: Senses

Now it was time to fully construct the Automaton. The first thing he would need to do was to prepare the Golem Core. Sure, it was technically ready to be used at this point, but Eisen wanted to take it a step further. He planned this from the moment that Morrom told him that Golem cores don't need to be spherical, but can function just as well in any shape, and may actually get better in more complicated shapes.

So, Eisen created the Crafting space for alchemy and then pushed out his mana to recreate the Wolf's heart that he copied before, placing it over the Golem Core. Eisen activated his transmutation and carefully re-shaped the golem core, making sure not to obstruct or change the runes that he placed into it with the beast crystal.

Hoping that this would further increase the overall strength of the golem automaton, Eisen finally started to continue assembling it. He laid the brass skeleton onto the ground with its underside upward, and placed the container that he designated to hold the Golem-Core-Heart into the center of the chest with the core inside of it, and began to place the first few gears and tubes around it.

The gears would simply be to control the overall movement of the Automaton, and Eisen already had another plan for how he would properly strengthen it and its movement later. The tubes on the other hand were supposed to be used to supply the Automaton's joints with enough lubrication to properly move around. The tubes would later be connected to a tank where the lubricants would be stored, with another tube connected to the mouth so that it can simply be 'swallowed' by the Wolf Automaton, although Eisen would also need to make sure that it could be opened or closed easily, so that really only the lubricans could enter the tank and not any unwanted substance that could clog the system.

Either way, it took Eisen a few hours to connect all the tubes and gears to each other an properly implement the tank in a way that it wouldn't mess up the automaton's balance no matter if it was filled to the brim or nearly empty.

At last, the base was done. Now Eisen only needed to finish the Automaton up. He was already incredibly excited and wanted to see if everything was really working properly by pouring mana into the Golem Core and letting it connect to its body, but he wanted to make sure it properly connected to its whole body, and since it wasn't done yet, he would need to be patient.

The next thing that Eisen decided to do was to create an information storage system for the automaton. Usually, it seemed like Golems only stored information about current commands and their own body's abilities and limitations. But Eisen wanted his Automaton to actually be able to obtain information and store them to use at a later time without having to give it commands all the time. After all, it should act like a proper beast, and not just a statue in the form of a beast that can move around a little bit when told to.

So, Eisen used Mana Copy to form a mana version of the Wolf's brain that he copied before, and searched through his items to look for a mana crystal that came as close to possible to that size. When he finally found one, Eisen transmuted it so that it would be in the exact shape of the wolf's brain before changing his crafting space to the enchanting one.

Eisen grabbed his mythril needle and began to work on the relatively simple enchantment to turn this mana-crystal brain into an actual information storage device. The alchemical symbol that he used was that of 'wisdom', which could also mean something like knowledge or similar. And the image that Eisen imagined while carving the center was that of an enormous library filled with thousands and thousands of books.

Sure, there are a lot of things filled with far more knowledge than you might find in the library. You could probably store every single book in existence on your computer's hard-drive if you wanted to, but it simply didn't give Eisen the feeling that there was just so much knowledge there. After all, what would give you a stronger feeling? Simply looking at the small icon on your computer that stands for your hard-drive, or standing in the middle of a giant library with books over books surrounding you?

At least to Eisen, it was the latter. And when it came to enchanting it wasn't necessarily about what was inside the carved image, but about the feelings and thoughts connected to it.

So, when Eisen finished the Mana Crystal Brain, he moved on to the means of sensory perception. Meaning Eyes, Ears, Nose, and Tongue. Touch was apparently already something that Golem's could experience to an extent, so Eisen didn't need to give it to the Automaton anymore.

Since the eyes were the only part that may require a complicated shape, as despite being only a sphere from the outside, it was much more complicated than you may think. So, Eisen also used mana copy to form an eye of mana and shaped a mana crystal to look like it, with every single part being as closely reproduced as possible.

And now, Eisen would use ability enchanting to give it sight. He grabbed one of the marbles and infused it with what it was like to see all kinds of things. Different colors, people, and views that were beyond beautiful. When he was done, not much changed in what the marble looked like, but Eisen knew that it was successful and he was able to put that physical ability onto it, before quickly transfering it to the mana crystal eye.

The small sphere in Eisen's hand turned completely white, similar to what a real eye was like. After repeating this for the other eye, Eisen moved on to the nose.

For this, he simply split off a small part off of a mana crytal and turned it into a rough crescent shape, which he then enchantent with the ability to smell. But, since a wolf was supposed to be able to smell far better than a person, he needed to do something else as well. Eisen took his smallest needle and carved an additional enchantment onto the small crescent that was supposed to amplify what the mana crystal could do. It wouldn't be able to change much about it's strength, but apparently would still make it possible to enhance it about one and a half times with Eisen's current abilities. It wasn't possible to do this kind of thing with most other enchantments, but luckily, this kind of thing was exactly what it was meant for.

Next, Eisen created two small funnels out of parts of a mana crystal, and enchanted both of them with the ability to hear through ability enchantment, after which he also slightly enhanced them with the same enchantment that he used for the nose-piece.

Now Eisen would make the tongue, meaning that he needed to create the muscles to the Automaton. And he already prepared a tool to make what he needed. He looked into the crate and grabbed the spinning wheel that he bought at Morrom's place that would allow him to create magic strings.

What Eisen would need to do for the tongue was relatively simple. In general, all mana crystals would be turned slightly softer so they could somewhat move, but then would be so tightly packed that they could turn basically completely solid in an instant. The normal mana-crystal muscles would be enchanting in a way that would allow them to stretch and retract a little bit, while the tongue would be enchanted in a way that would allow the Automaton to taste things.

So, Eisen grabbed a mana crystal and simply used softening on it a slight bit and then grabbed an enchanting marble, before enchanting the crystal through it. Once that was done, Eisen infused his mana into the crystal and pushed it into the opening of the spinning wheel, leading to it releasing thin thread that was immediately rolled up.

Eisen grabbed the end of the slightly flexible and stretchable string and began to pack it together as tightly together, cutting the string up and attaching the ends at the tip of the soon-to-be tongue.

It took a while, but soon enough, Eisen held a mana-crystal tongue in his hands. To finish it off, Eisen smoothed the outermost layer off, so that nothing could get stuck in the strings somehow. And now, it was time to give the Automaton these mana crystal body-parts.

First, Eisen opened up a hole big enough to fit the brain through into the skull and placed it inside, following which Eisen poured some water, that he just so slightly thickened up with hardening, into it to fill out leftover spaces and to make sure that it wouldn't be able to just move around in there constantly, somewhat holding it in place.

After that, Eisen closed the hole in the top of the skull up again, and put the eyes into the two eye sockets, the nose-crescent into the nose, and the ear-funnels into the ears, before at last placing the tongue into the lower jaw, connecting each of the mana-crystal sensory organs to the brass by using transmutation.

Eisen smiled to himself thinking about the progress he made so far and grabbed the mountain of Mana Crystals out of the crate.

"I guess this will take a while…" The old man chuckled, and got to work turning the mana crystals into strings, so that he could use them as the Automaton's muscles.

---

It was early afternoon of the next morning, and Eisen managed fully cover the whole automaton's body in muscles made of translucent mana crystal strings, nearly completing the Automaton's construction.

This took Eisen the rest of the last day, and nearly half of the next day, as Eisen had to connect every single strand on its own individually and make sure they were in the right position and composition to each other. Luckily, all that work counted toward Tailoring, which made some sense considering that Eisen was basically sowing the mana crystal thread onto the Automaton's body.

But now, it was time to cover the muscles up and give the wolf some skin! For this, Eisen wouldn't be using the hide he actually got from the wolf, but instead leather coming from a rank 2 beast. The leather he would be using came from an earth-type monster, which would work great in synergy with the Automaton that was completely made up of metal and crystal structures. The leather was thin, durable and flexible, as well as light in color, directly reminding of simple exposed skin, although with differences you could instantly notice. But since this leather wouldn't be seen in the end anyway, that didn't really matter.

Eisen grabbed the sheets of the leather and brought it over to one of the worktables, also bringing the hide of the wolf there as well, since he could use it as a reference for how much leather he would need for each area of the wolf's body.

Eisen grabbed his exacto knife and assembled it, before cutting the leather into the right sizes and shapes. Just by cutting the leather, Eisen knew that this would be a great material to use, since it was quite hard to cut even though it was exactly of the rank that Eisen was supposed to be able to work with, simply showing its natural strength and resilience.

After Eisen finished cutting the leather up, he laid the part meant for the body over the wolf's back. He then took one of his sewing needles and put the waxed thread meant to sew leather together through the hole at its end.

It was now time to give the Automaton skin.