The Crafter's Dungeon: A Dungeon Core Novel (Dungeon Crafting Book 1) by Jonathan Brooks (literature books to read TXT) 📕

on with the excavation and development of the other room.  Her partitioned mind seemed to be functioning how it was supposed to, but she put an extra task for it to complete – create more Monster Seeds when her resources started to reach maximum capacities.  Her Mana was actually increasing fast enough that it would hit her limit of 320 within an hour if she left it alone, so she also wanted to start creating more constructs for the new room from her existing seeds.

Now that she didn’t have anything else to take care of, the Dungeon Core-turned-crafter could concentrate on the task at hand.  Sandra took direct control of her Articulated Clockwork Golem for the first time – and promptly toppled over on her construct’s face when she tried to take a step.  This thing seems top-heavier than I was expecting.  Fortunately, the basic shape of the of the Golem was familiar to her with two legs and two arms; it just took her a few minutes to get used to the wide stance and skinny legs of her construct.

When she practiced moving around a little, Sandra quickly gained enough confidence that she didn’t think she’d faceplant again if she took her time.  What she was most glad of, though, was the freer range of movement of its arms in comparison to her Tiny Automaton; she could move each arm in multiple directions, bend two different joints to angle them in different ways, and even cross her arms if she wanted to.  The main limitation was her clamp-hands, which could only do one real thing – clamp down tightly on something.  Fortunately, that was all she really needed it to do right now.

She was glad to see that the damage that had been done to her Golem while it was trying to dig through the wall a few days ago had been repaired.  I wonder how and when that happened?  Sandra didn’t think about it long, because she thought the answer was obvious: it was a Mana-formed Monster and used nearby ambient Mana to repair itself.  She wasn’t sure how fast those repairs were, but when she looked around at the other constructs in her Home, they had all been fully repaired since the battle as well.

Without wasting any more time, Sandra picked up the two strong-but-thin stone rods with her clamp-hands and inserted them into the side rings of the crucible.  It was far more difficult than she expected, because despite the many improvements over her previous Golem, it still didn’t have any wrists.  She thought it was interesting that a single joint in the body could make such a difference in completing tasks – especially when she was only trying to place a long pole in a tiny hole.  After much patience and not a little frustration, she was finally able to push the two rods through.

Now more confident that her plan was going to work, she picked up the crucible using the stone rods and brought it to her new trap-fueled forge.  She didn’t have exact knowledge of how hot the flames were going to be or how much she was going to need to activate at the same time to melt the contents of the crucible, so she started by placing the crucible in the spot where three of the flame jets were supposed to trigger.

Despite not having the ability to test her design before, it worked just as she had imagined it.  Two flaming jets emerged from the bottom of the forge and shot upwards, the flames licking underneath the stone grate.  A similar flame jet shot down near the crucible from the inside roof, adding another layer of heat to the stone oven.  After only about 15 seconds, she could see the Copper block inside her container start to glow with the added heat, but the Tin was already starting to melt.

When Sandra moved it two spaces over so that there were now 5 flame jets heating up both the crucible and the Tin and Copper metals inside.  Because observing things in her Area of Influence didn’t transfer physical sensations like heat, she was able to move her viewpoint to right above the crucible; as a result, she could see that the Tin was completely melted and was hiding underneath the other metal block.  Meanwhile the Copper was starting to get soft like putty and was fully covering the Tin after a few moments.  If she remembered correctly, the two metals had wildly different melting points, which meant that another flame should probably do the trick.

Unfortunately, there was a side-effect to her efficient heating system.  In addition to the material she placed inside, her flame jets began to heat up the surrounding stone to dangerous levels.  A loud *crack* resounded through the small forge, which was quickly followed up a large visible crack in the stone grating next to her crucible.  Thinking fast, and desperate to save her forge from the heat that it wasn’t designed to withstand, Sandra poured all her available Mana and Raw Materials – which were nearly at maximum capacity by that point – into all of the stone inside the forge and within a few inches of it of it.  She envisioned giving it a major boost to its heat resistance and changing it enough that it could withstand even the full brunt of the flames and heat that the forge could put out.

All the stone she had been targeting started to glow brightly to her senses, as the Mana she infused in it did…something.  She wasn’t sure if it was working the way she wanted, but she also didn’t hear any more cracking from inside the forge.  After only a couple of seconds, the glow surrounding the stone faded, leaving behind a drastically changed forge.

The previously dull-grey stone of the forge and the surrounding flooring and walls were now a shiny black color, almost like dark glass.