PICK ME UP, ANOTHER LOBBY!

Party 2 held the initiative.

Zecht and Norn were engaged on a furious 2-on-2 battle with Trudy and Darius.

Maddock and Luan chased the injured Shanny and Jonah throughout the field.

While Tarran prevented me from casting my spells with his barrage of arrows.

With a calculated opening assault, Party 2 broke through our formation and dictated the battle according to their plan.

My comrades were not lying.

Party 2 had definitely become stronger.

[Shield]

I intercepted Tarran's arrow coming my way.

While keeping me pinned, Tarran was still quick enough to aim all over the field and aid his comrades. Inflicting injuries to my own with his projectiles.

[Maha Agn-Shield]

Just when I thought he was distracted, he noticed my casting and quickly fired at my head.

With each arrow loosed, he took a step nearer toward me, intending to draw myself in a close-quartered combat.

['Tarran (★★)'s Rapid Fire has levelled up to level 3!]

Goodness the boy was talented!

Who would had thought a small errand child like him could turn out to be this strong?

Perhaps I would not have to feel too guilty of pulling this move.

I retrieved the glowing brown stone in my pocket.

[Elemental Attribute, Activation]

My mana penetrated through the surface of the rock and the object floated away from my palm.

Tarran saw me doing this and hurriedly sent an arrow at the glowing stone.

[Shield]

He was surprised seeing me casting another spell while casting one already.

The boy probably did not know I could multicast.

The marbled floor beneath the floating brown stone began to crack. It fragmented into palm-sized pieces, hundreds of it.

The fragments flew to the air and piled on and on around the rock until they formed into a hunched humanoid form which sized as two grown men tall.

Both my comrades and Party 2 were shocked to see this manifestation.

"G-golem?!"

Zecht shouted distraughtly.

['Serafina (★★★★)' has obtained the skill, 'Golem Summoning'!]

With the glowing brown stone as its core, the towering moving statue stood tall.

It immediately set its two glowing eyes toward the archer boy.

Standing his ground, Tarran aimed his bow to the large figure.

Before he could release his arrow, I swirled my hand and caused the golem to disappear.

['Serafina (★★★★)'s Hands that Twists Space and Time has levelled up to level 3!]

I chanted the spell.

[Teleport]

The golem instantly reappeared behind the boy, its giant fist ready to flatten him to the ground.

"Tarran, look out!"

Norn screamed.

The former errand boy hurriedly leaped to his side, barely dodging the pillar that had just created a deep crater on where he used to stand.

The golem's body twisted on its hip like a wooden puppet and swung its rocky arm aside to chase its opponent.

Tarran pushed himself off the ground and jumped backward.

The golem gave chase and repeatedly attacked him with its fatal strikes.

But the boy managed to avoid every single one by a hair's breadth.

['Tarran (★★)' has obtained the skill, 'Nimble Movements'!]

Dear goddesses, how many skills would this boy get from this battle alone?

Even so, Tarran might be able to avoid the golem, but he could no longer provide support to his comrades.

And sooner or later, whether he would like it or not, he would commit a misstep and it would be over.

Zecht and Norn believed this would happen because they soon retreated from Trudy and Darius and charged toward the golem.

Crash!

Using their every might, the 3-star pair struck their heavy weapons onto the golem's arms.

The weight of their force managed to crumble the golem's limbs to pieces.

But just as the 3-stars rendezvoused with Tarran, the brown stone at the golem's core shined brighter and the crumbled pieces remerged themselves into the shape of the arms once more.

"The core! We need to destroy its core!"

Zecht shouted.

Tarran immediately took aim, but an arrow quickly flew at his direction instead.

Clang!

Norn parried the projectile.

She was facing Darius whom already nocked another arrow toward the Party 2 trio.

Seeing his comrade was protecting him, Tarran took another aim.

He suddenly wavered once he saw the faint barrier enveloping the golem's core.

Of course I would cast a protective shield on the core. I was not a fool.

They could not take the golem head on. They needed to reposition themselves and set up a pincer attack.

But Trudy had already placed herself on the other side of the golem, blocking their escape.

Meanwhile, Maddock and Luan dropped to the ground with their weapons already released from their grips.

Since Tarran had stopped sending his arrows, Jonah and Shanny managed to pluck the arrows stuck on them and recompose themselves.

Once they had done that, Maddock and Luan could no longer stand a chance. Not against two heroes who had survived a Quintal Trial.

With Zecht, Norn, and Tarran cornered by the golem and Trudy and Darius, as well as Maddock and Luan whom had been felled by Jonah and Shanny, Party 2 finally ran out of options.

I gently walked toward Zecht with a teasing smile over my face.

While leaning my shoulder on the golem facing him and his comrades, I spoke to the leader of Party 2.

"I believe it's our win again."

The match was over.

Everyone finally dropped their guards.

"Incredible! I didn't know you could create golems, Serafina!"

Norn called out.

I hovered my hand over the brown stone and it released itself from the golem and returned to my palm.

With its core released, the golem fragmented to hundreds of pieces and gently crumbled to the ground.

"This would be my first time making one. I had spent the last while in the magic hall creating this one golem core."

I said.

The others began to gather around me. All were curious by the moving rock figure.

"So how do you control it? I heard golems act according to their mage's wishes."

Darius asked.

"I can dictate its every movement using spells. But I've casted enchantments so it could fight autonomously."

I told him.

"If it has a mind of its own, how does it know the difference between friends and foes?"

Zecht asked.

"There are ways to make a golem know the difference. I can put mana markers on my comrades so the golem would think of them as similar presences as me, its creator. I can also make it only target monsters, not humans, through a magic formula. There are even formulas for specific types of monster."

Everyone stood agape upon my explanation. It was definitely their first time seeing or learning about golems.

"Do you plan to use this bad boy in the Quintal Trial?"

Shanny asked excitedly.

"After seeing how many enemies we faced on the fifth floor? Oh yes, definitely! I plan to use more than one, actually. This is just a prototype to test how well my golem core works."

"Well it's nice to know we would have strong golems by our side all through the Quintal Trial."

Trudy said with a relieved breath.

I did not let her dwell in that feeling long, though.

"Unfortunately, there are limitations to my golem. The most significant one would be the golem could only fight for thirty minutes. After that long, the core would run out of mana and it would crumble to dust from being used for such a long time."

"Can't you do something to make it fight longer?"

Jonah asked.

"The quality of the elemental stones I used to create the golem core was not that excellent to begin with. Even if I poured all of my mana into the core, the stone could not withstand it. Thirty minutes is what we could afford currently."

I stared at the brown golem core in my hand.

The brown stone I used as the base for the golem core was created through amalgamating several elemental stones which was a process aided with various intermediate to advanced spells as well as certain types of ingredients and materials.

I managed to create five brown stones.

It took weeks to produce them alone. Let alone the time to enchant them further until they develop into proper golem cores.

I completed this process during the first two weeks of our Quintal Trial preparation. Around when master had created the necessary promotion stones for the 1-stars and I was free to use the elemental stones stocked in the storage. 

"We can't deploy the golems recklessly during the Quintal Trial. We'll use them when it counts."