Living Machine

Eisen activated his Leatherworking Crafting Space and tightly held the piece of leather meant for the Automaton's torso together around the belly, before slowly stabbing through one of the sides with his needle to pull the waxed threads through the soon-to-be skin, simply but tightly sewing the leather together on the underside along its whole torso.

After finishing attaching the large piece of leather on the Wolf automaton's body, Eisen moved on to attaching one of the smaller pieces to the tail, and then did the legs next.

Up until now, it was all relatively easy to do, simply sewing the piece itself together, and then sewing it to the pieces of leather immediately adjacent to it. This didn't require a lot of fine work, but simply patience, which Eisen had more than enough of.

The parts that did in fact need a little bit more skill to do properly were the paws and the head, since they were smaller and slightly more complex than the other body parts. After Eisen sewed on the paws, he even added small ovals of thicker and stronger leather on the bottom to protect the skin while the Automaton would be walking or running around.

The last part that Eisen would now need to put leather onto was the head. He first added leather around the main part of the skull, leaving the snout and ears exposed, and connected it to the leather that was already around the neck. After that, Eisen added leather around the top and bottom of the snout, and all around the ears.

There were now some loose areas, where Eisen wasn't able to fully attach the leather. These were around the mouth and eyes. What Eisen did to make sure they were properly attached, was to basically tack the edges to the outside of the Automaton's body through adding some small brass pins and using transmutation to make sure everything fit properly. This would later be covered by fur anyway, so it didn't matter if the pins were still slightly visible.

Now, the Automaton was covered in a layer of strong leather, slightly darker than a wolf's regular exposed skin, but still making it look like someone simply shaved a wolf that went through a lot of operations in its life.

But now, it was really time for the fur, and Eisen already had a great idea on what to do. He walked over to the wolf's hide, and pushed out his mana, completely enveloping the whole surface area of what used to be an animal's skin, including the fur, which was what Eisen wanted just there.

Eisen tried to concentrate only on the fur, to basically only copy it instead of the whole hide. It took a while of going through every part of it and making sure that it was truly only the hairs that Eisen copied, but in the end, Eisen achieved his goal.

He then immediately pushed out some of his mana and formed the multple mana copies of the fur, piecing them together to create the proper shape before overlaying it with the Wolf Automaton, all the way down to creating the roots that would properly keep the hairs in the leather.

After that, Eisen grabbed the leftover brass ingots, and held one of them onto the Automaton's skin, activating his transmutation to make the hairs of mana pull in some of the brass ingot in his hand to create brass fur.

The old man did this for every part of the Automaton's body, until a wolf shining in a beautiful golden color stood in front of him. That was also a reason why he chose to create this Automaton out of Brass, beside it being a good material for it. Since Brass could be mistaken for gold on first sight, Eisen thought it fit well with this being a test given to him by an Ancient Gold Dragon.

He would have made it out of gold, if it wasn't such a bad material to work with. It was great in small amounts for decoration, but it was far to heavy and soft to use properly for real equipment. So, Brass was the best choice.

But at that moment, Eisen didn't think about any of this anymore. He simply wanted to push his mana into the Beast Golem Core to make it pair with the Automaton Body, and see if it properly worked. Before then, he slowly poured the lubricant that he brought with him down the throat of the wolf's body to fill the tank up and then closed the hatch to make sure it couldn't flow back out.

Then, Eisen slowly placed his palms on the Automaton's back and poured his mana out of his body, moving as much of it as possible toward the heart in its center.

At first, Eisen thought it didn't work, but then he heard some rattling, cranking and creaking when the gears started to move, as well as the sound of the lubricant flowing through the pipes.

The Brass hairs stood on end and looked as if they were needles, but then soon enough settled down to make them look like proper fur. A light shine appeared in the mana crystal eyes, while the automaton's new muscles kept bulging and then relaxing, over and over again before settling down as well, seemingly showing that the Golem Core was able to pair with its new body.

With an incredibly excited grin on his face, Eisen looked at notifications that popped up behind the Automaton.

[Wolf Automaton (Golem)]

[Quality - Perfect][Rank – 3]

[DP – 1500][MP – 10]

[STR – 75][AGI – 90][INT – 10][WIS – 1]

[Description] A special type of Golem called an Automaton created by the Omni Craftsmaster Eisen. It's main structure is made completely of Brass, and has different mana crystal constructs supporting it and giving it multiple bonus functions. The golem core has been enhanced with runes made of a beast gem, giving a bonus to the beast-like body, and allowing it to move more beast-like. This is also supported through the complex recreation of a wolf's heart. The Mana-Crystal muscles allow it to be stronger and more agile. The Brain synchronizes with the fake-soul of the golem core and allows the automaton to have a growing Wisdom stat, since it can now store knowledge. This knowledge is collected through the mana crystal eyes, nose, ears and tongue. The wisdom stat will start of low, but can grow over time. The Agility stat will lose or gain effectiveness depending on the amount and quality of the lubricants passing through the automaton's body.

[For creating something of overwhelming quality with the use of five skills, you gain +2 to STR, END, AGI, INT and WIS]

"Yes! It works! It actually works! This is amazing!" Eisen yelled out excitedly and kneeled down in front of the wolf automaton with a big grin on his face, moving his fingers through the cold brass fur while looking at the automaton with awe, and ignoring the doubled bonus stats from breaking through five of his skills.

After a few minutes of simply checking if everything was truly alright with the Automaton, Eisen stood up again, walking over to the table where Caria was playing around and setting her down on his shoulder, before looking at the Automaton.

"Follow me." Eisen commanded and watched as the Automaton slowly turned its head in his direction and set one foot in front of the other, slowly moving forward. It was still moving quite clumsily, and despite its outer appearance that might suggest it being some kind of actual living creature, from its movements you could definitely see that it was a machine in the end.

But still, that would hopefully soon change with the help of the specialized beast golem core and the automaton's mana crystal brain. Since something like that would only come from learning, Eisen decided to let it be for now, and show Ailren his creation.

Eisen opened the wooden door and stepped outside of the workshop for the first time in days and was immediately met with the bright shine of the mountains upon mountains of gold coins and gems.

The old man walked through the paths between those piles of treasure until he found Ailren lazing around on one of them again.

"Ah, Eisen! What brings you out here?" Ailren asked while lowering his giant head to be on level with Eisen. The craftsman crossed his arms while filled with pride, and stepped aside to reveal the Automaton behind him. "Well, I completed your test, Ailren."

With a seemingly confused frown, Ailren looked at the wolf and then back to Eisen. "This is something you created? Are you sure you did not simply use necromancy? It looks so life-like." The gold dragon said with surprise and was enveloped with steam before turning into his humanoid figure.

"Thank you, I worked quite a while on it, as you noticed. It's an Automaton, basically a mechanical Golem. It's completely made of brass and mana crystals. Inside of the body are a number of gears and tubes, and it has a metal skeleton. I used some leather as a skin replacement, and gave it brass fur as well. And it actually has all five senses, since I gave it eyes, ears, a nose and a tongue, and it can store all of that info in a mana crystal brain that I enchanted as well. The claws and teeth were enchanted to make combat easier. That's about it, really. If you want I can explain things in more detail." Eisen exclaimed excitedly while squatting down next to the automaton and running his fingers through the metal fur again.

"There is no need, dear Eisen, I can already see that this is quite an impressive creation. But let us see what it can do, shall we?" Ailren asked and nodded at Eisen, signaling him to show what the Automaton could do.

"Of course. But be aware that this is technically a Golem, and my Golemancy skill is still at Rank 0, so you know, it might not be able to move around in great ways. Anyway. Automaton, run to the wall over there, and come back." Eisen commanded and pointed toward a part of the wall that was in direct sight and could be gotten to in a straight line from their current position. Immediately, the Automaton sprinted forward as quickly as it could.

It stopped in a way that let it just barely not hit the wall, and then it turned around and came sprinting back to Eisen. The Automaton was able to move quite fast, and you were able to see an immediate difference between its movements on its way to the wall compared to when it came back.

It seemed like the effect of the Beast Golem Core already started showing itself, as it apparently began getting more and more used to its new body.

"Now, try to jump over that pile of gold." Eisen commanded with his hand waved at a relatively small amount of treasures, one that was still nearly the height of Eisen, and the automaton ran off toward it and jumped at the last second, nearly instantly reaching the height necessary to jump over the shiny mountain.

When Eisen heard that it landed on the other side, he commanded it to come back again.

Like this, Eisen had the Automaton do a few different simply tasks, basically just small tricks, and then showed different parts of its body to Ailren.

Things like how sharp its teeth or claws were, or where exactly he put the sensory organs in the automaton's head. And soon enough…

"I've seen enough. This is obviously far beyond what I could have expected coming into existence within such a short amount of time. I hope for you to show me what it will be like in the future. And I am more than happy to tell you that you passed my second test." Ailren explained with an impressed smile, and a notification popped up in front of Eisen.

[Quest Successful – Ancient Gold Dragon's second test]

[Description] After passing the Ancient Gold Dragon Aylrentyrth's first test, you now have to take his second test. For that, he asked you to make something great to impress him. As long as you work diligently and do not abuse his hospitality, there is no time limit.

[Reward] You will be allowed to take the Ancient Gold Dragon's third test

[Failure] You will never be allowed to take another Ancient Gold Dragon's test

[Time Limit – None]

[Congratulations! You passed the Ancient Gold Dragon's second test!]

---------

[Eisen]

[Race - Giant-Dwarf Halfling][Occupation – Omni Craftsmaster][Level - 71]

[HP – 1854][MP - 1876]

[STR - 104][END – 104][AGI – 103][INT - 105][WIS – 106][CHA - 10]

[Titles]

-[Casanova]

-[Original of the Mechanical Arts]

-[Limitbreaker V]

[Skills]

-[A Dwarf's Hands][Rank - 2][Level – 89]

-[A Giant's Strength][Rank - 2][Level – 68]

-[Alchemy][Rank - 2][Level – 31]

-[Appraisal][Rank - 1][Level – 7]

-[Blacksmithing][Rank - 2][Level – 39]

-[Cooking][Rank - 0][Level – 68]

-[Crafting Space][Rank - 1][Level – 81]

-[Dismembering][Rank - 0][Level – 1]

-[Drawing][Rank - 1][Level – 6]

-[Enchanting][Rank - 2][Level – 11]

-[Flame of the Earth Magic][Rank - 1][Level – 51]

-[Golemancy][Rank – 0][Level – 19]

-[Leatherworking][Rank – 2][Level – 16]

-[Lockpicking][Rank - 0][Level – 1]

-[Mana Copy][Rank - 1][Level – 26]

-[Mana Double][Rank - 2][Level – 46]

-[Mana Manipulation][Rank - 2][Level – 36]

-[Swordsmanship][Rank - 2][Level – 74]

-[Tailoring][Rank - 2][Level – 41]

-[Taming][Rank - 0][Level – 11]

-[Tool Connection][Rank - 1][Level – 61]

-[Woodworking][Rank - 0][Level – 49]