MJ Makes a Surprise Appearance in the Magic Tower

Early the next morning, before Lilia had even dragged herself out of bed, Rhode began studying construct spells again.

Although these spells and Mage Hand were both summoning spells, they were fundamentally different.

Mage Hand was like driving a car manually. If you wanted the car to turn left, you had to turn the steering wheel left. In short, you had to keep controlling it.

A Construct, on the other hand, was more like an AI-powered creature. Once you summoned it, you only needed to give it an instruction, and it would act accordingly without requiring constant direction.

You could also switch it to manual mode at any time-which really just meant continuously giving it new instructions.

Precisely because it had a wider range of applications, there were two special traits that could not be overlooked, aside from the greater difficulty of learning the spell.

First, all Constructs required materials to make. Even something as small as a simple magic broom consumed a small handful of Magic Dust.

Second, a Construct needed to consume mana continuously to remain in existence. That mana could come from the caster or from some kind of energy source-an arcane core, for instance.

In most cases, larger Constructs required cores. Otherwise, the caster's mana would not sustain them for long.

In other words, the bigger and better the Construct, the better the Magic Materials it needed—which meant money.

That was also why, ever since Rhode had frightened himself with the Magic Mech he had drawn, he had shelved the idea of making anything that large.

He could not afford to burn through arcane crystals and enchanted thorium ingots, but Magic Dust and Arcane Sigils should be manageable, right?

The Magic Tower had plenty of those.

So Rhode's current research focused on how to build the most useful small Constructs with the fewest possible materials.

Of course, making a Construct with a single function was easy for Rhode now.

A magic broom, for example, simply swept the dust out of the study. It consumed very little material and very little mana.

In fact, the mana consumed by a magic broom summoned by Rhode was practically negligible-his own mana regeneration was so fast that he recovered more than it used.

But making a Construct that could patrol or fight on command was a little harder.

The spellbook only described a few very basic behavior patterns, with nothing covering those functions.

So Rhode needed to research and test them.

After all, he could visualize the spell as a spell model and analyze it. If something went wrong during testing, he could simply modify the model and test it again.

It was like... debugging a computer program. Fix a bug, test it, fix another bug, test it again.

And so, Rhode first used a handful of Magic Dust to summon an Arcane Golem.

Its structure was simple. A torso, head, hands, and feet were connected by mana, making it look like a rudimentary robot.

As for its size, naturally, it could not compare to the devastating weapon he had designed before. It was roughly like...

Going from ╭(└`\⊙/`┘)╮ to ╭(°)╮.

In practical terms, it was about the size of an adult, with no eyes, nose, ears, or anything of the sort, because it did not need them.

Its entire body also glowed blue, a feature Rhode had designed to indicate that it was running normally.

If anything malfunctioned, or it encountered an instruction it could not execute, the blue glow would turn red, making testing easier.

Rhode stepped back twice, looked at the Arcane Golem, and began issuing commands.

"Raise your left foot."

The Arcane Golem raised its left foot and held it there.

"Raise your right foot."

The Arcane Golem began flashing red.

Oh, right. A humanoid thing couldn't lift both feet at once.

With its current intelligence, it could not figure out on its own that it should lower its left foot before raising its right.

"Put your left foot down, then raise your right foot."

The Arcane Golem's glow returned to blue, and it obeyed.

"Put your right foot down and raise both hands high."

The Arcane Golem obeyed again.

"Stick your butt out." The Arcane Golem began flashing red again.

All right, a relatively primitive magical construct like this still couldn't understand such an advanced instruction.

Rhode shook his head and dismissed the Arcane Golem.

He intended to optimize the spell model. Otherwise, something this dumb was hardly fit to show anyone.

Suddenly, the door opened, and Sally came in carrying a plate of breakfast.

She came to the Magic Tower very early every day, and Rhode had just asked her to help prepare breakfast.

But why was she giving him such a strange look now?

Sally said nothing. She set down the plate and left with her face flushed.

Damn, had she heard that instruction I just gave the Arcane Golem?

Did she think I was some kind of creep?

It's not what you think!!!

Forget it. She was already gone.

Rhode modified the spell model while eating breakfast, then summoned the golem again to test it.

"Left straight punch."

"Right hook."

"Three circles to the left, three to the right."

"Twist your neck, wiggle your butt."

"..."

Before he knew it, more than an hour had passed, and even Lilia was awake.

"Rhode, you're up so early today," she said.

"The early bird catches the worm," Rhode replied.

"Then what worms did you eat today?"

"I didn't eat any worms. I summoned this." Rhode pointed at the Arcane Golem beside him. "I'll have it catch bugs for me from now on."

"This thing? I used to see them all the time. They're no fun." Lilia shook her head.

She was a well-traveled elf, after all.

Or, more accurately, elves were probably just too familiar with magical things.

But although this Arcane Golem looked the same as the ones Lilia had seen before, it was actually different.

Through all this testing, Rhode had gradually grasped some of the logical rules governing these Constructs, or rather, the principles behind their design.

Essentially, he had to work from the caster's own understanding and adjust the spell model, building it much as he would code an intelligent program.

As he continued adding depth to the spell model's structure, the Arcane Golem's understanding would gradually improve, allowing it to perform more complex movements in response to Rhode's commands.

"Then watch closely. Have you ever seen one do this before?"

Rhode smiled at Lilia, then instructed the Arcane Golem, "Do Michael Jackson's moonwalk from 'Billie Jean.'"

"Rhode, I don't understand. Who's Michael Jackson? And what's a moonwalk?" Lilia tilted her head as she asked him.

Just then, Sally came back into the room to clear away the breakfast plate, and she, too, witnessed an astonishing sight.

The Arcane Golem suddenly raised an arm and placed its hand against its head.

It lifted its hips and began to shake.

A particular rhythm seemed to surround it, and it moved nimbly in time, constantly swinging its limbs and twisting its hips.

Forward.

Back.

Forward.

Back.

The continuous twisting felt strange, yet the movements of its limbs neatly masked the oddness of its hips, lending it an almost magical quality. Its movements somehow looked perfectly coordinated, drawing anyone who watched for even a few moments deeply in.

And as it danced, Rhode hummed something, the melody seeming to match its movements perfectly.

"It... it's dancing!?" Sally exclaimed.