The Golem Mage

In one of the largest lands of the Wilderness, the people were all looking toward the town hall building at the heart of the small city.

They looked haggard, their clothes old, worn out, and in some cases torn. But that was not all.

They all looked like people who had suffered for a long time. The lands around them were dry, and it seemed as if they had not seen rain in ages.

As if that were not bad enough, there was also the issue of the Red Orcs who had taken control of a land not too far from them.

That alone left them deeply worried, because if their city ever fell under the rule of the abyssal lords, their fate might become even worse than death or starvation.

“Mommy, do you think we would get a city lord this time?” a little girl asked as she turned to look at her mother, her innocent face showing a rare trace of concern.

“Don’t worry, my dear. I believe this time we will get a kind and honest city lord, someone who will fight for our interests and help make our city great,” the woman said to her daughter as she used her hand to brush the little girl’s hair aside.

Though even the woman herself did not truly believe what she had said, However; she simply could not bring herself to crush the hope in her daughter’s eyes.

It was common knowledge that the mages sent over never wanted to come to the Wilderness Region to govern cities in this area.

There was another reason it was called the Wilderness, the resources around the region were almost nonexistent.

In fact, many lords had another name for it—the Barren Lands.

And not only that, but the humans living in these regions had been cut off from the mainland for so long that it was rare to find anyone above the Tier 3 realm living around these areas.

With such weak strength, they could hardly offer any real support to whatever lord was assigned to their city. Even so, every month they still held on to hope, praying that by some luck they would receive a new city lord willing to lead them.

Because for every city, the existence of a city lord was essential to its longevity and prosperity.

The sun overhead had already become unbearable, and around that time, those who had been waiting and watching began to lose hope. A few had even started walking away, looking dejected.

Some, already feeling that they might soon lose their lives if nothing was done about their situation, collapsed to the ground.

But then, a space door appeared in midair.

Immediately, all of them looked up at the sky with renewed hope as eight golden lights emerged from the space door.

The moment they saw them, they all gasped, it was the first time they had ever seen eight lord symbols appear together.

But then, seven of those lights turned into blurs and shot off through the air in different directions, while the last one slowly began descending toward the city hall.

“We finally have a city lord! Yaaaaaa!!!” some of them shouted, and the next moment, the crowd erupted into wild jubilation.

Then an old man in the Tier 2 realm stepped forward, raised his hands toward the sky, and addressed them.

“Alright now, settle down, settle down. I’m sure we all want this lord who has come to stay, so please let’s all be on our best behavior. “

“And if there are no objections, I would like to go with a few members of the elder coalition to welcome our new lord,” the old man said, and the people gathered around all nodded in agreement.

Though they now knew the lord had arrived and were technically supposed to return home, rest, or go back to whatever work they were doing before, yet they were all willing to wait for the elders to welcome the new lord and come back to relay what their new lord had to say.

Even those who had left earlier came rushing back when they heard the commotion and saw the golden light shining in the distance over the town hall, which stood at the highest point of the city. They all returned and waited, filled with optimism and curiosity.

_ _

The last golden light to descend was Alec Gordons’. After he and his group passed through the space door and entered this entirely unfamiliar place, he noticed a golden hue covering his body.

The energy was coming from the lord token the old man had given him, and just like that, he watched the members of his inner circle being drawn toward different locations.

Yet, by some strange magic, he could still feel that they were not too far from him.

Then, once they had all reached what seemed to be their respective cities, he felt his own lord token begin pulling him downward.

Though he had the sense that he could resist the pull if he wanted to, he chose not to and simply allowed the energy of his new token to draw him further down.

A few seconds later, the golden energy covering him converged into a single point again and took the shape of the lord token.

It floated before him while Alec took his time to observe his new surroundings, that was when he realized he was standing inside some kind of throne room, and before him was a massive cube with one pointed edge facing downward, slowly rotating.

With faint blue light pulsed through different sides of the cube.

Above it, he saw a message that read:

[Attach your lord token to bind yourself to the present city.]

This came as a shock to Alec, because while he had already seen a few signs suggesting that the technology of this new realm was far more advanced than that of the Five Kingdom Continents, he had never expected they would be capable of creating something with features that resembled a system.

Even so, he did not believe that whatever this was could be on the same level as his own golden-finger system.

Because if it truly were, then the lords before him should not have been dying so easily, and there should not have been so many people trying to avoid ruling these lands.

All Alec felt was that it had clearly been created to help a lord handle certain functions more easily.

“Well, let’s see what you do,” Alec said as he gripped the lord token that had been levitating and followed him around, then pushed it toward the cube.

Like a magnet, the moment his hand got close enough, it was pulled forward with far greater speed.

[Ding! Found an insignificant system feature. Absorb and gain full control mechanism of the system? (Y/N)]

The moment his hand sank into the cube along with his lord token as if solid matter meant nothing, his own system displayed a message before him.

That only confirmed his earlier thoughts that his system was superior, because it had just labeled whatever this was as insignificant. It also made him realize that once his system absorbed it, he would be able to control it completely.

That meant it might still retain the same features, but with his own system becoming the true administrative controller, there were bound to be special benefits.

Alec had already realized one thing about everything attached to the system—there were always rewards beyond his imagination, so in the first be he picked Y.

_ _

In a land not too far from Alec’s own, where humans had already been turned into slaves and were being drilled by the army of their new orc lords, a figure seated upon a throne deep inside a shadowed throne room suddenly rose in surprise.

The figure stepped toward its own rotating cube and tapped the air. A holographic map appeared below it, while the vibe levitated higher to give him a better access to the map.

And in real time, he watched eight green patches begin to cover all the grey lands around his own new land, the very lands he had already set his sights on.

“Orga!” he called out, as about ten seconds later a female High Orc immediately stepped into the room and dropped to one knee.

“My lord.”

“It seems the old man the king warned us about has made another move, send another team to eliminate the new lords he has brought in this time. Let the old man see that he cannot stop our advance,” the Orc figure, still cloaked in darkness, said.

The female high orc stood up and slammed her right hand across her chest in a salute motion.

“

As my lord wishes,” Orga replied before slowly walking out of the throne room with a smile on her face.