The Golem Mage

Though this wasn’t his City Heart, it was still connected to him, so it acted as a conduit which allowed him to communicate with his real City Heart, that was why he knew he could do this, and this wasn’t even the limit of what he was able to accomplish from here.

“Now you’re going to lead me to where his City Heart is. Since he’s dead, that means the token is up for grabs,” Alec said to the mage whose injured hand was still throbbing with pain.

“Huh?”

The mage stared at Alec in shock, he had secretly been hoping Alec would forget about that , so that he could go after his dead colleague’s token instead, then sacrifice it for energy points, that way, he would be able to build a proper defense and summon troops to protect himself once the horde arrived, if he even still have left over energy point he might have healed his hand.

After crossing paths with a madman like Alec on his first outing, he had no intention of heading back out again, with his hand in its current condition, fighting properly would be difficult, and even if he somehow managed to hunt Tier 5 beasts, he doubted he could kill enough to earn the points he needed to survive.

So he had been clinging to that small hope, but now that Alec had brought it up himself, he was completely dumbfounded.

Alec, on the other hand, normally wouldn’t have bothered chasing after something like that, but now that he had rough stone walls surrounding his territory, his City Heart had already informed him that any life signature coming within five hundred meters of his city would trigger a system alert.

And with the durability of those walls, it would take far longer than usual for an ordinary Tier 6 mage to break them down and gain access to his cube.

“My lord, you see... I would like to make a proposition. Why don’t you take me under your wing? My hand is already ruined. I’m not trying to blame you, I’m just saying that in my current condition, I won’t be able to survive in the slightest...”

“Will you take me to his City Heart, or should I just kill you and search for it myself? From what I can tell, and from how quickly the two of you found my base, it means your base can’t be that far from here. I don’t mind making the trip. I already have a good defense, you know,” Alec said as he lightly pushed his bone katana upward with his left thumb.

“No problem!! I’ll take you there.” the mage said as he realised that Alec was getting blade triggered again.

_ _

Twenty minutes later, Alec was back at his base, as he walked over, the gate opened on its own, and he made his way toward the cube, with a sweep of his right hand, the bodies of demonic beasts and a circular golden lord token appeared before him, resting atop at least three Tier 6 corpses and five Tier 4 demonic beast carcasses.

“Convert to energy,” Alec said.

[+ 805,000 Energy.]

“Woah...” Alec muttered in surprise.

He quickly began calculating in his head, he already knew that a Tier 6 body was worth around a hundred thousand energy, based on that, he came to the conclusion that a Tier 5 body should be worth at least ten thousand energy.

However, he hadn’t brought back any Tier 5 corpses—only Tier 4s, which meant each of them was likely worth about a thousand energy each.

After doing the subtraction, he finally arrived at one conclusion: the lord token alone had been worth at least half a million energy, at that point, even Alec couldn’t really blame those two for trying to steal his token.

Their only mistake had been going after someone stronger than themselves, in this realm, just like back on the Five Kingdom Continent, only the strong truly had the right to decide who is right and wrong.

This concept is what had made Alec always believed that power was what he needed if he ever wanted to be able to continuously protect the people he loved and live a carefree life, and what had just happened only cemented that belief even further in his heart.

[Status]

Energy: 897,000

Army: -

City Heart: (1000/1000)

“Upgrade the walls to Level Two, add four arrow towers at the edges of the city walls, and build a mid-rank army barracks for me.” Alec began barking out orders while scanning through the things he could purchase from the store, because he only had a few minutes left before the so-called wave began.

Since he didn’t have his golems at his disposal, he simply wanted to make sure he was fully prepared for it.

In truth, one of the main reasons he hadn’t allowed the man with the hole burned through his hand to stay was because he didn’t want him seeing that Alec could do things that should have been impossible.

It was only after Alec arrived at the dead man’s base and noticed the difference between that base and his own that he realized something wasn’t adding up.

He had immediately turned to the injured mage and demanded an explanation.

The man was forced to remember again that this was supposed to be Alec’s first time here, the moment that thought returned, he cursed under his breath, wondering what kind of rotten luck he had run into.

Other people were meeting clueless newcomers who didn’t know what they were doing, while he had ended up facing someone who felt more like a demon.

Though he had never done something like this before, the one who died had persuaded him into it, he had only agreed on the condition that they wouldn’t attack anyone directly, but would simply steal the token and retreat.

Yet now, as he thought back on what he had done and how foolish it all sounded, he couldn’t help feeling that he had been incredibly stupid as if they had been successful they would have been responsible for someone’s death indirectly.

Even so, he still explained to Alec that every base was different and tailored to suit the lord connected to it, that was when Alec finally understood why the man hadn’t looked surprised when rough stone walls erupted from the ground in an instant, and when he was done Alec casually produced three Tier 6 demonic beast corpses for him.

That made the man drop to the ground in full prostration, tears in his eyes as he thanked Alec over and over again, thinking about it now, Alec realized the man must have seen him as some kind of benevolent person, though that was only because he had no idea Alec had simply been figuring things out as he went, if not he wouldn’t have given three if he know the token only cost 500k energy.

Still, when Alec remembered the man’s injured hand and the fact that he had acted as a guide, explaining everything he didn’t understand, he finally decided to let the matter rest.

After all, he was still in a far better position than the mage was.