While waiting for the golem materials to arrive, Jin talked with Beena.
“Beena, instead of just blowing air, what if we applied the principle of that refrigerator?”
As he offered the hint of an idea, someone else took the bait.
“I see! Wind blowing over ice is indeed cold! That would be comfortable even in summer!”
For some reason, Reinhard was the one who jumped at the suggestion.
With Reinhard joining in, the three of them began fleshing out the concept for an air cooler.
“In other words, we just need to blow air against something cold, right?”
“In that case, wouldn't this shape work better for this part?”
“True, and then this section should be…”
By the time the materials arrived, the three-person collaboration had already produced a prototype of the air cooler.
“Ah… we actually finished it.”
“...So we did.”
“...Is this really alright?”
It wasn't just Jin; even Reinhard had helped with this air cooler. It was only natural for Beena to feel a bit overwhelmed.
“It’s fine, isn’t it? I only helped out as a hobby,” Reinhard said.
Jin also told her clearly that he didn’t mind if she treated this air cooler as her own work.
“Thank… Thank you very much, Lord Reinhard. Thanks, Jin!”
As Beena offered her apologies and thanks, Reinhard smiled at her.
“Don’t worry about it. Besides, you have the makings of a fine magi craftsman, Beena.”
Beena blushed slightly at the praise, looking happy even as she modestly wondered if that were true.
“Alright, time to make the golem!”
Jin pumped himself up in front of the delivered materials. Meanwhile, Reinhard had brought in Schwarzritter and had just removed a magi-crystal for the control core.
“Right, time to get to repairs!”
Reinhard mimicked Jin’s enthusiasm. Having received a recommendation from the count, Beena was desperate to learn everything she could from the two of them.
Jin had yet to start his work, perhaps still refining his concept. Meanwhile, Reinhard began the creation of the control core.
“Writing in basic control system… Writing in operation control formula.”
Beena stuck close to Reinhard, determined not to miss a single step of the process.
“...Magi-sequence looks good.…Engraving Master-Slave mark.”
With that, the control core was completed.
“Okay, with this, Schwarzritter is back to normal. But just being back to normal is boring.”
The golems he had seen on Kunlun Island wouldn’t leave his mind. Reinhard wanted to push Schwarzritter to even higher performance.
“Besides, I don’t want to lose like I did the other day ever again.”
Having his control core overwritten by powerful external magic was a mistake that must never happen a second time. Since that incident, Reinhard had been constantly searching for a countermeasure.
“I wonder what material is best for resisting magic…”
He glanced toward Jin and noticed that Elsa was sitting beside him. He hadn't realized when she had arrived.
“Oh, Elsa, you’re here. That’s rare. You never used to come see me even when I locked myself in the workshop.”
When Reinhard said this, Elsa turned her face away with a huff.
“My, my, how cold.”
Saying so, he returned his gaze to the materials before him to browse. For now, he had armor turtle shell, grand lizard leather, and helm eagle feathers.
He intended to select the material most resistant to magic from among those options.
“It’s hard to do this alone… Hey, Elsa, could you help me out for a second?”
Reinhard called out to her, but Elsa ignored him, staring intently at the sketches Jin was drawing—his so-called golem concept.
Reinhard gave a wry smile and turned to Beena, who was standing nearby.
“Beena, sorry, but would you mind helping me with a little experiment?”
“Y-Yes! If I’ll do!”
Reinhard created samples from the three candidate materials, making them all roughly the same size.
“Alright, hold your palm face up.”
He placed a sample on Beena’s palm and then set a magi-plate on top of it.
“In that state… let’s see, write the magi-formula for Breeze into the magi-plate on your palm.”
“Understood.”
By observing the flow of magic as Beena wrote the formula, Reinhard hoped to find the material that would most attenuate the magic.
As it happened, asking Beena for help was the right choice. If it had been Jin, he would have likely written the formula effortlessly regardless of the material. Furthermore, if it had been Elsa, she couldn't use Craft Magic, so he would have had to experiment with normally activated spells. Since those activate in an instant, observing the magic flow would have been difficult.
“I see, the armor turtle shell is the most resistant to magic. I can probably use this.”
Muttering to himself, Reinhard thanked Beena and then opened Schwarzritter’s chest.
The interior of Schwarzritter was not a simple hollow space; various fillings were packed into key areas. For example, the fists were filled with steel to improve the impact of his strikes, and the toes were reinforced with adamantite to increase the destructive power of his kicks.
The entire torso was filled with a sponge-like substance.
“U-Um, Lord Reinhard, what is this?”
Beena couldn’t stay silent after seeing a material for the first time and asked Reinhard about it.
“Hm? This? This is called Gula Schwamm. It’s a magical beast that lives on the seafloor. When the carcasses are dried, they become soft and elastic like this. It’s a perfect material for protecting magi-devices like the control core, which is essentially the heart of a golem.”
However, he finished the explanation by noting that it was extremely conductive to magic.
Reinhard then removed the magi-device from within the Gula Schwamm and installed the control core he had just processed.
“Alright, Link… Good. Now, link this to the operating system again.”
After finishing the adjustments, he returned the magi-device to the golem and covered the surrounding area with armor turtle shell. Schwarzritter was already heavy to begin with, so the added weight was negligible.
“The rest is just fine-tuning.”
With ninety-nine percent of the work done, Reinhard began the task of removing scratches and dents from Schwarzritter’s exterior.
＊ ＊ ＊
“Alright, I’ve decided.”
Jin, who had been considering his concept by drawing pictures on a wooden board that looked like nothing more than scribbles, seemed to have finally settled on his course. He clapped his hands together and stood up to gather his materials.
At the same time, Reiko, who had been silently by Jin’s side until now, also stood up.
“Father, what shall I bring for you?”
“Yeah, first, please get me iron and zinc.”
“Zinc?”
Elsa, who had just been watching until then, spoke up at the unfamiliar word. Noticing her, Jin gave a brief explanation.
“Ah, zinc is a metal that looks like lead but isn't lead.”
In this world, it was used to make brass.
Jin didn't know what would happen if he mixed zinc into iron, but he knew that plating the surface with it would prevent corrosion.
“First, I’ll mix carbon into the iron to turn it into steel.”
He could supply the carbon from the carbon dioxide in the air. This was a method unique to Jin, who knew of its existence. He set the carbon content to about 0.8 percent and used it to construct a skeleton.
Even though it was a skeleton, it was far more simplified than a human’s. For instance, it had no ribs or pelvis.
“Something like this. Alright, Heat Treat. Hardening. Plating.”
Using Craft Magic, he applied the same processes as quenching and tempering, then applied Hardening. Once the strength was increased, he applied zinc plating to improve corrosion resistance.
He applied adamantite plating to the sliding parts of the joints to prevent wear.
His goal was a joint configuration similar to a human's. By creating an internal skeleton and then building the exterior like armor around it, he could achieve movements closer to those of a human. This was quite difficult with an exoskeleton like that of an ordinary golem.
“It looks a bit creepy.”
Elsa honestly voiced her thoughts upon seeing the skeleton.
The simplest golems, which had hollow interiors, performed all their movements using magic, which meant their magic efficiency was surprisingly poor.
Every golem Jin made had an internal skeleton and was equipped with magical muscles for movement. Purely magical movement was close to what one might call telekinesis, but by using magical muscles, they would expand and contract when given a spark of magic, which improved magic efficiency significantly.
“Now for the magical muscles. I suppose sandworm leather will do.”
“I know that one,” Elsa said.
Sandworms were maggot-like magical beasts that lived in the desert. Usually, they fed on the magic in the ground, but if their territory was disturbed, they would come to the surface and attack. It made sense that Elsa knew of them; their leather was a specialty of the Shouro Empire.
Like most materials from magical beasts, it reacted to magic, so it had various uses, such as material for armor, scabbards and hilts for magic swords, and robes for mages.
He tore it into thin strips and bundled them together to create magical muscles.
Just as Jin reached this stage, Reinhard finished his repairs and modifications on Schwarzritter and came over to see how Jin was doing.
Reinhard in his engineering nut mode, and Jin (who was usually like that), didn't give a single thought to the rights or rewards for the things they were creating. A bystander might have worried if this was really okay, but people who purely love the act of creation are often just like that.
Though, the serious, official version of Reinhard was a different story.