Chapter 10

John tried guiding the free roaming souls back to their corpses but it did not work, they simply didn't respond to his commands. However he also noticed something new when trying to guide the souls. John focused his mind again, this time he imagined the mana nearby gathering into one point and after awhile he could feel the mana slowly move. Feeling surprised he got distracted and the feeling was gone. He tried again and after awhile the feeling of mana moving came again. John looked for the rabbit souls and he targeted the body of a soul, using his mind to grab all the mana nearby and squeezing them towards the soul. However his speed of moving mana was too slow and the soul kept wandering around, John had to let go and re-grab mana from a new spot each time the soul wandered too far away from the previous spot. After afew more futile attempts at pushing his mana into the souls, John stopped. It was clearly not going to work. The rabbit souls constantly moved about and John simply couldn't move the mana fast enough. Hmm, but there was something else not moving that he can try this on. John switched vision to the collection of corpses he kept on the 2nd floor, this time he picked the corpse of the boar to experiment on. John focused on the boar and imagine the mana flowing into its dead body, the process was slow and its a good thing the boar wasn't moving anywhere. As John continued gathering more mana into the body, it started changing slightly, the skin and flesh undergoing slight changes in color. It took a long time for John to finally fill up the boar corpse with his mana, during this process he became more proficient with moving mana and his speed increased slightly, when he felt he couldn't gather anymore mana inside the corpse, John stopped concentrating and inspected the corpse. The outer appearance had changed slightly but that was all. Hmm slightly disappointing?. Already his search for better materials had failed, the attempt to fill the rabbit souls with mana had failed, and now after spending all this effort this corpse experiment can also be considered a failure?. John felt fustrated and he continued to angrily inspect the mana filled corpse for signs of changes when he noticed the corpse was actually slowly changing !. Feeling excited, he realised what was happening and felt a great sense of satisfaction. Finally something is going well !. This corpse just needed time to evolve.

Next he tried to gather mana into 1 of his golems but the golem felt 'full' and the mana couldn't go in anymore, he tried gathering mana on various other things without success. John frowned to himself, there was nothing left for him to experiment with. Only the corpse reacted and it need time to evolve. So moving on to the next thing on his list, John ordered all his golems to stand around the hole in his ceiling, except for the 2 female bodyguards, 2 smarter golems and 6 other normal golems which he kept in his room. John then casted [Basic Lure] and [Improved Lure] side by side directly under the ceiling hole, he wanted to know just what is the difference between this 2 spells. Hmmm... It was unexpected but the power of the spells are very similar, their range seems to be the same too. The difference would be... John's mind focused for awhile before he understood. The basic lure gave out a simple lure while improved lure gave out a more complex lure. John casted another [Improved Lure] spell to see if the effects stack and they did!. The power and range of the spell increased significantly, however the complexity of the lure remained the same. John waited with rapt attention, eventually some sounds can be heard and a green head popped out of the ceiling hole, a goblin ?! The goblin took 1 look at the golems below surrounding the ceiling opening and ran away. John was speechless, ok maybe he had been fighting dumb animals too much until his own iq also went down. John ordered his golems to kneel down on all fours and try looking like rectangular lumps of soil. He then patiently waited again, hoping for another goblin to come. Awhile later there was a different sort of sound coming from the ceiling, before long a gigantic snake as wide as a man squeezed its body in. The snake hissed and tasted the air with its tongue, seemingly finding something to its liking and moving all the way in. Oh no no no, John gaped stupidly at the size of the snake... It was too late to dispel the lure spells !. The snake stretched its body all the way to the dungeon floor and its tail landed with a dull thump. It was huge and long and slithering through his golems. This was probably the best chance for him to take down this scary beast. With a mental command, all the golems stood up, surprising the snake! It was only a moment of shock but it was enough for the golems to quickly swarm the snake, half of them punching and the rest holding it down to lockdown its movement. At the same time, John concentrated on a point along the snake's massive body and started to push the mana there. Despite being surrounded by golems, the snake was still able to struggle, flicking its massive body left and right, shaking the group of golems so much that afew lost their grip. KEEP FIGHTING. John could feel the mana starting to slowly gather towards the snake but it was so slow! He wasn't sure if this will work.

The snake trashed around intensely, shaking off the golems despite their best efforts. The golem kept punching the snake but it didn't seem to have any effect. Suddenly the snake curled its massive body, John didn't know when it happened but it had somehow positioned its body in such a way that almost three quarters of his golems were encircled within its massive body. The snake tightened its curl, squeezing all the golems caught within. John hurriedly ordered his golems to stop punching/holding down the snake and resist the squeeze. The snake might be powerful but this time it tried to squeeze too many golems at once and struggled to keep them trapped within its deadly grip. Those golems outside the trap kept on punching the snake and John thought he could see a little reaction of pain but it wasn't enough, he needed weapons to cut open the snake. The golems held on precariously for awhile before the snake got tired and loosened its grip. At this moment the mana had finally start moving into the snake. The snake jumped the moment it felt the foreign mana trying to enter its body. John also encountered resistance for the first time, something was stopping him from pushing his mana in. The snake wasn't fighting his golems anymore but instead it was trying its best to run away, stretching its body upwards towards the ceiling hole. John gave a short order for his golems to hold back the snake and they surrounded the snake, pulling it back down with their sheer numbers. John mentally pressed hard against the resistance and he could feel small amounts of his mana pushing through the resistance and entering the snake. The snake shivered and made strange noises as John continues to force in his mana, it tried to escape again and again but each time John's golems pulled it back into the dungeon, allowing John to push in more of his mana into the massive snake. As more mana entered the snake, it helplessly started to feel lethargic, its body felt weaker and heavier, its movements started to slow down. If the snake manage to escape now it can still recover to full health with some rest but too bad there was a whole team of golems fighting to keep the snake trapped inside the dungeon. The more mana John forced inside the snake, the weaker the snake became, even the initial resistance became weaker and easier to break through. Perhaps the snake could sense its own doom approaching because it suddenly turned around and its head shot out, quickly looping around 3 golems and squeezing tight with its body. The trapped golems couldn't withstand the pressure and quickly exploded one after another. John felt angry and he shoved in as much mana as fast as he could, meanwhile the snake made another loop around 3 more golems, its body curling and constricting quickly, the golems disappearing into the folds of the massive snake body before muffled thumps were heard. As the snake uncoiled its body again, a wave of magical soil falling to the ground were all that remained of the golems. John was livid but he was too focused on forcing mana into the snake and didn't have the spare capacity to give new orders to his clueless golems who were still stupidly following his previous command, holding on to the snake to prevent it from escaping. This is the first time he experience the frustration of having dumb golems.