“How’s your progress?” Lucas asked as he approached Macey who was sitting on a giant lily pad. Lucas stayed at the bridge, watching as the mana around Macey swirled away as she opened her eyes.

  Macey had been cultivating in the mana vein for a while now and was getting decent progress on her mana cultivation.

  “Great. Filled four mana circles and made three new ones,” Macey answered, revealing her amazing progress. “After a bit of training, I could apply for a rank up.”

  “That’s great to hear,” Lucas smiled. “I could also make you some artifacts.”

  “Thanks,” Macey smiled back.

  After talking a bit more, Macey asked something that caught Lucas off-guard.

  “Has my family reached out to you recently?” Macey asked with a conflicted look on her face.

  Lucas figured she just missed her family. “Not that I’m aware of. Wouldn't they try reaching for you directly first?”

  Macey shook her head. “Don’t mind it. Just mention it if they try contacting you,” Macey said before returning to her cultivation.

  As Lucas headed for the watch tower, he ran into Althea who seemed to have been observing his interaction with Macey. She shook her head at him. “You need to learn to understand women more.”

  Lucas just looked at her in confusion.

  “You need to look into marriage,” Leona stated after Lucas approached her for advice after explaining his interaction with Macey. “You’re gaining fame. Even if you don’t establish your own house, they’ll try building a connection with you through marriage.”

  Lucas cringed. “I’m not exactly good with these kinds of things.”

  “What’s holding you back?” Leona asked. “With how our world works, there’s a lot more women than men. No matter how you look at it, more men take up dangerous jobs here in the empire and often die young,” Leona stated. “Trust me. I know. I’m in the military, remember?”

  “You give horrible advice.”

  Leona shrugged. “Don’t worry about it too much and enjoy yourself. Overcomplicating relationships won’t do you any favors. If anything, I want you to have as much wives as possible.”

  Lucas looked at her in confusion. “Why?” he asked in concern.

  “I’d certainly like more of you running around,” Leona answered.

  “Okay...”

  Leona walked away to assist her soldiers in their cultivation before resuming her own. Left alone, Lucas sighed and began heading towards the parking area. But instead of getting into a car, Lucas approached a giant golem with helicopter wings.

  The Iris: Helicarrier. The largest golem Lucas ever made and was designed to transport four people at most through the sky. But that didn’t mean the golem couldn’t be loaded with a bunch of cargo.

  Lucas had created this type of golem to transport materials and people from the city to the mana vein without the risk of monster attacks from the ground. Thanks to it, the problem of transportation was resolved and there was continued use for the golem in the future.

  As the golem took off, Lucas took out his phone to check his messages. Most of them were orders and inquiries regarding the mana vein, so Lucas skipped past them until he noticed an email from Joshua.

  It was a file that contained the list of people that attended the market event. Lucas went through the list of vendors, checking their names and the catalogs of their products. It took about an hour until Lucas found the name he was looking for.

  Wanda Altir, a graduate of rune smithing and is currently a freelancer. After getting her name, Lucas tried looking up information on her. She wasn’t affiliated with any houses and is even in a strained relationship with the Everbloom family.

  Lucas made a note to contact her later. When the golem landed on company grounds, Lucas quickly made his way to the main building. Upon entering, Lucas was greeted by the sight of his golems hard at work. He passed them and went into the elevator and rode it up to his personal workshop.

  Exiting the elevator, Lucas approached his most recent project, a new golem. It didn’t have a monster lord’s core, but it was made from the materials from a dart tortoise, a monster with one of best defenses in the world.

  The Iris: Panzer. This golem’s purpose was to act as security for the company with its powerful artillery and impenetrable defense. In hindsight, he should have completed this golem before heading to the mana vein, but he was here now and he already had a bunch of golems on site, and he was going to finish it now.

  Grabbing the disc, Lucas went towards the pile of scales and shells at the corner of the workshop and activated the disc. He watched as the golem formed, towering over him and almost reaching the ceiling, making him glad that he requested that.

  The golem had a bulky and roundish body thanks to the shell covering its entire back and the joints in its limbs. The golem was equipped with canons and missiles, but lacked any form of mobility, making it completely suited for siege defense.

  Lucas proceeded to make a total of five of the Iris: Panzer.

  He positioned one on each side of the company grounds and one at the rooftop of the main building.

  Once that was done, Lucas began working on artifacts for Rose since her birthday was getting close. He couldn’t get her a gift on her last birthday, so he planned on making it up to her this year.

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  Lucas grabbed the divine energy battery.

  “Time to get started.”

  Chief looked down from the top of the iron walls of the mana vein, observing the approaching group of unknown individuals.

  They actually believed that they were approaching undetected, but the numerous detection mines buried in the ground already alerted the watch tower of unauthorized individuals heading for the mana vein.

  Chief’s purpose was to fight to protect everything that its creator held dear.

  “And failure is not an option.”

  Chief leapt off the wall and crashing down in front of the group. The shockwave caused their stealth to get undone, making them glitch into existence.

  “State your business before I end your pathetic lives,” Chief said as it readied its axe.

  The group of humans did not answer and began attacking instead. They fired their weapons while maintaining distance, but none of their attacks could even scratch Chief’s defenses, only fueling its skill. With a savage war cry, Chief taunted all the humans. The ability clouded their judgement and caused them to abandon the thought of maintaining distance from the powerful golem and charged in while firing their weapons.

  Chief used the opportunity to unleash a powerful swing of its giant axe, decimating everything around it. Humans, trees, rocks, everything was cleaved by the axe. The group of humans were wiped out, and Chief grabbed one of the corpses for its report.

  Lucas arrived home to see Shina face down on the dining room table, letting out a weak groan every few seconds.

  “Something wrong?” Lucas asked as he sat down next to her.

  “My final project...” Shina answered without looking up. “We still don’t have someone to interview. It was extended since most of the students also failed to interview someone, but my group still lacks progress.”

  “What are the requirements for the person you need interview?” Lucas asked, wondering if he could help.

  “They need to at least been featured in an article once and can be researched on the internet,” Shina replied.

  “What about me?” Lucas suggested.

  Shina looked up with a raised eyebrow. “What about you?”

  “Interview me.”

  Shina looked at Lucas like he was crazy. “Your brother’s the famous golem maker!” Valeri yelled from the kitchen.

  “What?! Iris?!” Shina’s head snapped to Lucas. “And you never bothered to tell me?!” she grabbed him by the collar.

  “I didn’t know how your project worked,” Lucas said as Shina shook him.

  Shina wasted no time informing her friends that they finally had someone for the interview and to get everything ready. She even rushed out the house. “Be at my school early in the morning!” she yelled as she left.

  Because of this, Lucas decided to stay home for the rest of the day to help her out. Going to his room, Lucas sat on his bed and began his aura cultivation, refining what’s left of the aura fog within his system.

  With the completion of his second circle and the stabilization of the third, Lucas got a significant boost in power. He'll need to practice using his second attribute, but that could wait.

  His cultivation continued overnight and was only interrupted by his phone ringing and Lucas saw that Althea was the one calling. “Hello?”

  “Hey. I just got a call from House Lumiouse regarding the golem crafting ticket they bought in the auction.”

  “I forgot about that,” Lucas muttered. “Have they decided on what golem they want?”

  “They want a golem capable of making a barrier that could cover a whole building,” Althea stated through the call.

  Lucas raised an eyebrow. “I could figure something out.”

  A large barrier wasn’t a problem to make. In fact, Lucas expected them to request a war machine like the Winterbelle family.

  “Anything else?”

  “Well... I heard a dimensional rift might open near you sister’s school,” Althea revealed.

  Lucas stared at his phone in shock. “Which sister?”

  “The older one,” Althea replied. “Leona told me to mention it to you since the government is keeping it a secret, so it’s not public information. They just found out now.”

  “Thanks for telling me.”

  “Anytime boss,” Althea said before dropping the call.

  Lucas checked the clock and saw that it was already five in the morning, meaning he needed to head to Shina’s academy as soon as possible for more than one reason.

  Considering the military was keeping things quiet, there was big chance that the dimensional rift was opening from a dimension that they already had a record on. That usually meant the cause was no longer a hostile reason.

  But Lucas couldn’t risk it.

  He tried calling Shina to find out where she was as he got ready to leave. The missed calls did not put him at ease, so Lucas hurried even more. After grabbing everything he needed, he got in his car and drove off.

  Shina’s school, Lunaris academy was a technical university that leaned towards science more than magic, producing top researchers and crafters. If Lucas had attended a university, Lunaris was likely his first choice.

  Lucas rushed to the academy, while doing his best to not break any traffic laws. When he arrived at Lunaris academy, he sighed in relief when there was no sign of a dimensional rift opening.

  Lucas tried calling his sister once again, but she still wasn’t answering. Considering the time, she was likely still asleep. Lucas slumped down on the ground in exhaustion. Once the relief settled in, Lucas felt the drain of an all-nighter and driving all the way to Lunaris finally hit him.

  “Thank god...” Lucas sighed.

  But his relief was quickly taken back when the dimensional rift opened behind him and sucked him in.

  “Your lap dogs are proving to be quite the nuisances,” a wisp of blue flames spoke as a man with long silver hair watched the multiple mirrors around him show scenes of his organization acting without his authorization. “They’re plans aren’t even succeeding Primo.”

  Primo sighed. He couldn’t deny the ego’s words. He created the Viper runners as an organization that does his bidding since an unregistered king-ranked mage would attract to much attention. Something Primo was avoiding until all his preparations were completed.

  “They need a reminder of who’s the only one in charge.”

  Lucas groaned as he sat up from the ground. The first thing he noticed when he looked around was that surroundings were all a certain shade of red. Looking around further, Lucas noticed that he was in what looked like some back-alley parking lot.

  Lucas took note that the buildings had a modern appearance, but the cars that were parked around him had a more vintage or retro design to them. But other than the fact that everything was a shade of red, including the sky, it didn’t seem like another dimension.

  “Fucking pieces of shits. I’ll make sure they all rot in the pits.”

  Lucas heard the grumbling coming from the entrance of the alley. When he turned to the source of the voice, Lucas’s eyes widened.

  It was a tall woman with hot-pink-skin with an hourglass figure. She sports a long, black-tipped spade-shaped tail and a pair of black-tipped horns on top of her head. She also has a pair of bat-like wings on her back.

  Her eyes have white-outlined light pink irises, yellow sclera, slit pupils, long and thick eyelashes protruding from them, and a small beauty mark under the right eye. She also has knee-length hair colored in ombre-white, with pink undertones from lighter to darker towards the tips, and a darker-colored stripe across her bangs.

  She wore a black and white minidress that hugged all her curves and pushed up her gifted chest.

  They're eyes locked on each other.

  “Well~ What do we have here?”