Sleeping with Dylan snuggled up against me was nice. He stayed in my bed after we cleaned up last night instead of heading to his room and I was far from opposed to it. Even less so now that I've woken and have him pressed against me from in front. I missed sleeping like this and it being Dylan snuggled up against me makes it even better.

  "If you're going to fidget so much," he mumbles. "Could you at least do it while in my ass?"

  And I accidentally woke him. The only thing I was aware I was doing was rubbing his stomach. It feels nice and I doubt it was what woke him.

  "I was fidgeting?" I ask.

  "Yeah," he mumbles. "What time is it?"

  "Just about five," I answer. "I need to check the perimeter, make sure everything is fine. Go back to sleep."

  I give him a light kiss on the side of his neck, and he moves a hand onto my side.

  "Can it wait a few minutes?" He mumbles.

  Checking the perimeter is important as it ensures that should my wards fail to keep something out, I notice sooner rather than later. It's better to be prepared for an attack than caught unaware. But a few more minutes of relaxing in bed before getting up probably won't be an issue.

  Dylan quickly falls back asleep, and I carefully get out of bed without waking him once he does. I then slip on some pants and head to the front door, where I pull on my boots before exiting. As I do my round around the perimeter, Aluci joins me with a yawning Nolan on his back. The boy wobbles a little as the wolf crosses the bridge for the stream, but manages to keep a good enough grip to avoid falling.

  This side of the stream has been cleared up to three hundred feet away from it while maintaining the same length as the side of the stream with my cabin. That's given us a few more acres of land, though it's still mostly just in use for the slime barn right now. I cleared it out for visibility more than anything.

  "Mornin', sleepy guy," I say, and Nolan gives me a small wave. "Want to see something cool?"

  Nolan gives me a small nod, then climbs down from Aluci and waddles over.

  "Look right here," I point at some tracks in the grass. "See these?"

  The kid examines them, then nods.

  "Those are rabbit tracks," I tell him. "This is their front pair, and if you look back there, that's their hind legs. This happens when they land."

  Nolan looks between the two sets, confusion clear in his mind.

  "You've never seen a bunny that big, have you?" I ask, and he thinks for a few moments, then gives me a small shake of his head. "That's because it's not a normal rabbit, it's a beast called a jackalope. They look like a really big rabbit, but with a pair of antlers on their head. Regular rabbits, you want to hunt in the cooler season. But jackalopes? You can hunt at any time of the year. They're not monsters, but they're still aggravating pests. They also don't get the bugs that regular rabbits do when it's warmer."

  I look at the kid, who's sleepily inspecting the front footprints. The tracks look like they're from not long after sundown, so I'm not in a hurry to handle the beast. It's unlikely it would come too near Nolan, anyway, since the kid always has at least one manifested spirit around him now.

  "They're a little bit dangerous," I tell him. "But either Dylan or I will take care of it, so you don't need to worry. If you ever see a jackalope, come get me or your father, alright?" Nolan nods. "Let's finish the inspection, then get stuff for breakfast."

  We're nearly to the end of the perimeter, so it only takes me a few more minutes to finish the inspection. Nolan then helps me in the garden to collect some ingredients for breakfast, stuffing his face with berries as he does.

  Today's primary dish is monkey bread with blueberries in it and a triple-berry glaze, with sausage links and eggs on the side.

  "Let's get you cleaned up," I chuckle once we finish eating. "You've got berry sauce all over your face."

  Nolan gives me a big grin, and I take a wet cloth to his mouth to clean off the sauce. At least it's better than yesterday. He had breakfast gravy all over his mouth, torso, and pants. Kid kept trying to get as much of it onto his biscuits as he could and it dripped everywhere.

  Once Nolan's cleaned up, we take care of the dishes. Nolan can't do much to help so he mostly watches, but I let him conjure some of the water I use.

  "Your father's still asleep," I tell him after we finish the dishes. "But it's a nice morning out and I want to work on something. Why don't we head to the deck?"

  Nolan follows me out to the deck and opens up the toy chest out here. He begins playing with blocks while I sit at the table and pull a few items out. A sturdy stone from the twentieth floor of the mines, a force magic crystal, a mind magic crystal, an earth magic crystal, a light magic crystal, a water magic crystal, a life magic crystal, and a plant magic crystal. All of them were acquired on the twentieth floor, making all of them Tier 7 in quality. Each one is roughly the size of my fist.

  Seven total magic essence crystals, which should work excellently for what I want. The number seven does have some magical harmonic powers and I want to take advantage of that. An additional seven crystals of the same size and quality are added to the mix, these ones mana crystals.

  I hold out my hands and all fourteen crystals float up into the air. A trio of magic circles form above my palm as the crystals shift to above them, then the crystals sink down into them. As they pass through the first one, the crystals turn into a mist-like substance. The volume appears greater than the crystals, but that's because this is raw magical essence and mana. Its crystallized form is a lot more dense than the raw form.

  The streams/clouds of magic essence and mana continue to travel downward, into the middle circle. Though seven unique streams of magic enter the middle circle, each of the seven which emerge from its underside is uniform in appearance. They're orange with a faint golden glimmer. A merger of the different magics is necessary for what I want to do with the crystals and it's pretty much impossible to find a crystal which has all seven properties in them.

  Essence extraction, fusion, and condensation is the main way to acquire high-quality crystals, especially in larger sizes. It's also the main way to acquire ones with multiple aspects. Not many mages have the skill required for this nor the mana necessary. It's a technique I learned over the last seven years to help with making specialized magic tools.

  The final, merged streams sink into the lowest and final magic circle. Instead of fourteen fist-sized crystals crystals, however, the streams create multiple smaller ones. I can tailor the size for this and I make some of them to each be around half of an inch in size. Others are made to be three inches in diameter. All come out as perfect spheres.

  Despite the high volume of initial crystals, the volume of the resulting ones is much lower. I condensed everything further to create ones of a higher quality level.

  The larger crystals are placed into my storage once I finish, while all but fourteen of the smaller ones are. Those will be worked on another day. For now, I'll focus on these. They're each equal to Tier 9 in quality now, which will prove quite useful for what I want them for.

  This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version.

  Most magic craftsmen would grimace upon seeing this. They would have no idea what to do with it as it's not any specific "type". The complex mix of magics within it also make it more difficult to work with any aspect of it.

  I'm not most, however, and immediately get to work on enchanting it with an enchanting ink made from a mixture of mind, force, spatial, and temporal magic crystals and slime goo. Our plain slimes have been producing enough that we could expand the barn space and add in more types, and those were some of the first ones I had added.

  The enchanting work on the magic crystal is delicate and requires a decent amount of focus. Fortunately, Dylan realizes that when he comes out here and takes Nolan off to play further away. I would move to my workshop if I needed absolute silence, but I appreciate the effort.

  Once I finish enchanting the first of the crystals, I set it and the others to the side, then grab the sturdy stone and inspect it. It's about ten inches in length, which is perfect for what I want. Before messing with it, I pull out two more of a similar shape, a small chunk of orichalcum, a small chunk of spatial orichalcum, and a small chunk of temporal orichalcum, then use a process similar to the essence extraction on them.

  This one yields a sturdy stone roughly the size of one of the originals, but Tier 9 in quality. Merging stones together like this is just as difficult as magic crystals as it's an actual physical thing rather than crystallized intangible magics. I need a Tier 9 stone right now and don't want to bother going back to the mines, so I put in the effort and mana to make it.

  Earth magic is used to reshape the stone, making it a little bit bigger in some parts and smaller in others. Reshaping the stone takes me around a minute, then I add in some smaller details to it.

  When I finish, there's a stone man thirteen inches in height standing on the table. The sculpture's limbs don't move and the detail isn't too fine, but I made sure to make it look as if it has hair, some muscles, and even eyes. No irises or pupils, but it doesn't need those.

  I lay the sculpture down and touch its chest, opening it up with my magic. A small section of stone lifts up out of it, and I insert the enchanted magic crystal into the snug slot. The chest is sealed back up and I touch it once more.

  With a small pulse of mana in a specific pattern, I activate the golem's core. Orange and pink lines flow along its body for a moment before fading, and the golem sits up before standing.

  I examine the golem to verify through the System that it's the type I was hoping to create. It's my first time designing one with this specific ability set so I'm not sure how well I managed.

  Most golems need mana crystals changed out to fuel them, but I designed him to passively draw on the ambient mana in the air to charge his core. It contains quite a high amount of it to start with so he doesn't really need to worry about that… but I'd prefer it if he can charge.

  "Wiggle your fingers," I instruct the golem, who wiggles his fingers. "Flex your hands? Okay, now your arms. Nice muscles. Wiggle your toes. Do jumping jacks."

  I run him through various exercises and determine there are no issues with his ability to manipulate his body. The magic of his core ensures he can do that despite it being stone with a little orichalcum.

  "Show me a shovel," I say once I finish testing his limbs, and he turns his right arm into a small shovel. "Now a spade. A rake. Pruners."

  I run him through a few different tools, and he makes each one perfectly. Once that's done, I pull a small pot out of my bracelet, some herbs growing out of it. A larger planter pot is pulled out, this one with a small blueberry bush and some strawberry vines in it.

  These were prepared a long while ago in anticipation of testing farming golems.

  "Water, prune, and harvest these," I instruct the golem.

  He manages those tasks fine, as well as handling the potato planter I pull out.

  "Good job," I tell him. "Store items."

  The golem touches each item he harvested and pruned in turn. When he does, they vanish. One of his enchantments gives him a stasis pocket for storing items away in. That will allow him to harvest and prune for longer before needing to deposit items elsewhere.

  "Good work," I tell him, then point. "See that man and boy over there? The man is Dylan, and the boy is Nolan. Please assist them if they need help on the farm and won't be causing damage."

  The golem nods.

  "Alright," I point to the magic farm plot. "That farm is dedicated to magic crops. You're assigned to it from now on. Understand?"

  The golem nods.

  "Good," I say. "There's a compost bin over there for when you need to get rid of waste. For the crops, there's a storage room in the house. Go through that door and make a right. There's a door on the wall you'll be facing, in the kitchen. Go through that. You'll be able to find where to go to store harvested crops. There's a stasis enchantment on the rooms, but it won't affect you."

  It doesn't affect us, either. I designed it specifically to affect that which isn't currently living or capable of thinking. Us people are both living and thinking, while the golems are capable of thinking. It also won't affect things like our clothes, so we can move freely while within.

  "Get to work," I tell him. "You'll have some buddies joining you in a bit."

  The golem nods, then hops off of the table and begins making his way over to the magic crops farm. Dylan and Nolan spot it walking and just watch it as it makes its way to the farm. Then, Dylan picks up Nolan and brings him over to me.

  "Rowan?" Dylan asks. "What was the little stone man?"

  "One of the farm golems I'd mentioned I would make," I answer. "I figured it's about time I make them… I was maybe delaying it a bit because I liked your company."

  Dylan snorts as happiness fills Nolan's mind. I think the kid might have just realized that they can stay here even with the golems. That's pretty smart for a two-year-old, considering not enough was said for most to pick up on.

  "I thought they'd be larger," Dylan tells me. "From what Thomas said, the ones you two encountered during the joint trip were fairly large."

  "Yeah," I nod. "The ones in the mines are about as big as a person, sometimes larger. They're bulkier and not fully humanoid. More like a bunch of stones connected together. Some golem makers do that as well, but with a more lithe form than the bulkier natural ones. More humanoid."

  I look at the small cores on the table, then back to Dylan.

  "Part of that is because of the size of core needed," I explain. "The amount of magic in a core helps determine how many commands they can be given. How many unique actions they can perform. The type of magic crystal used for it affects that as well."

  "And a bigger core means more magic," he says.

  "Right," I say. "Most golems are made with Tier 3 earth magic crystals, and ones between one and three inches in diameter. The surface is then covered in enchantments, usually in one or maybe two layers. Layering the enchantment marks isn't easy to do, though, which is why larger cores are preferred. It gives more area.

  "I don't have that issue," I say. "I can layer enchantments without too much difficulty. So if I have a really high-quality smaller core, I can just layer the enchantments. That allows me to create high-quality cores with less, and that lets me reduce the size of the golems as well."

  "They ain't able to do the trees, are they?" He asks. "Or the bigger bushes? They're… kind of small."

  "They have flight magics," I tell him. "Moderate, so they can hover a bit. But I also made a few cores for bigger ones as well. Those will handle the taller aspects, once they're made. I've got all of the materials needed to make seven of the smaller ones and two of the larger ones for each farm. It'll probably take me most of today and tomorrow to make them all, though."

  "I'll set a stew to cooking for dinner," Dylan tells me. "I can do that without screwing it up."

  "Thanks," I grab another core. "I'll fix lunch once it's time. You two have fun with whatever you're doing, but I'm going to get back to work now."

  Only after they leave do I realize I forgot to visit Robin this morning to receive the daily update on the spirits. Deciding to make the golems really distracted me. One day won't hurt anything, but I'll make sure not to tomorrow. It's become a part of my routine and I enjoy talking with him.

  That's for tomorrow, though. For now, I'll make as many of these golems as carefully as I can before the day ends. Performing extra work now means much less work in the future. That will ultimately open up a lot of free time for other things, such as more crafting, magic practice, spending time with Dylan, with my parents, or hunting in the mines or Mistwood.