JR 4.1

Have been so caught up writing DR that this almost suffered. LOL, anyway enjoy!

Puppet POV~~~~~

After Father dealt with the dragon, we made our way back into the village. I had a new mission to plan for even if it was rather straightforward. Father needed to know the information on the monster horde, and he was going to get it. With the construction of the tower, the attack on the Valley would be delayed if it was going to happen soon as the mana wave that radiated out would be quite apparent to anyone paying attention. 

I would have to plan for enemy scouts coming towards the tower while we made our way towards the horde. I just hoped the entire swarm didn’t attack at the same time. Even if they did, I felt we had at least a day or two in the worst-case scenario as we were in the middle of a forest, a horde couldn’t move quickly through the trees. 

I got Father to provide me with a decent amount of materials before he went to the top of the tower. He showed us how to get in if we needed to which was an entrance at the base of the various legs. I moved to an out of the way spot and started making some new drones. Typically, I just made drones that were good for scouting, but I wanted more combat oriented ones. I had examined the turret that Father made earlier and felt I could use some of the techniques in my own construction.

After nearly an hour of work, with plenty of failures in the mix. The Mark one was finally complete. It was quite large, at almost two meters long and a meter or so tall, the wingspan was nearly four meters as well. On the bottom was a single barrel form of the turret Father had used. It could fire roughly once every minute or so as it needed to use mana to recreate the shell that I copied from Father, only much smaller. 

I mentally connected to it and felt a type of strain that I had never felt before. The other drones I had made weren’t exactly big or complicated, so I must have never pushed myself to the limit before. I instinctively knew I could control maybe three more of these with my current strength. It made me realize I needed to get stronger since I had never really bothered to cultivate before because I naturally gained mana being in Father’s aura. I put the drone away in my storage ring, it felt nice to actually have something in it now. 

I made another drone that was roughly the same size as the last one. This one I added the creation spell inside the body of the drone. I changed the spell so that the formula created was more violate then the shell that the turret used. This way it could fly higher the other one, due to the lack of weight and the ‘bombs,’ I thought was what they were called would just fall on the enemy. 

The next two drones I added two turrets on the top and bottom. They were much smaller but had a more massive storage for ammo. These could fire much faster, and while they did less damage, they would probably be able to handle anything under tier 3. I looked over the drones and made sure everything was good. 

I reached into my chest and tapped the shard of crystal that was from Father’s core. I got all kinds of information from it whenever Father invents or does something new. It was getting kind of lonely while we were out of Father’s aura not getting the flow of information that I usually did, but the flood of ideas and knowledge I was experiencing was on another level since I have been in his aura today. 

I shook my head and turned back to the drones. I connected to the last one and sent the command to start to fly. Two rings of glowing energy appeared on each wing. I wasn’t too sure of the full science, as Father would call it, behind it but I believe he understood it as a hover pad. The energy produced by the ring would cause the air to be ionized and force the air to move, which resulted in the object to move. 

The drone lifted from the ground with what I felt was a nearly silent hum. It hovered there a few meters of the ground. I accessed the camera on the front of the drone and was able to see much more precisely than the other drones I had made from the basic materials I found on the ground. The image seemed to take a corner of my vision unless I focused on it. I decided to give it a true test. 

I pictured several spots in the air and sent a command to the drone to navigate to each point as fast as possible. When I was done, the drone took off in a gust of wind that nearly knocked me off my feet. It barely took it a minute to reach the fifth point in the course I had set for it. I watched the picture in the corner of my eye and was amazed at the view. I set it to circle for a bit as a test to see if the mana absorption I had set was strong enough to maintain casual flight. 

I looked around me and noticed I had enough materials to make one smaller drone. I decided to make a target of sorts to practice on. I had gotten decent at building them, so it only took me a few minutes. The only time-consuming part was feeding the materials into my chest and pulling the, as I like to call them, enriched parts out. Then took the time to assemble them.

I took control of this one, and the strain doubled. I also was worried as the image from this one took another corner of my vision. I would soon lose much of my ability to see easily if I took control of too many. I sent this one up and set as complicated a course as possible with twists and turns. I also tried to place an evade setting, but I wasn’t really sure if it would work until a bit later. 

I ‘let go’ of the target and was pleased that it didn’t immediately fall from the sky. I sent a command to the Gatling drone to hunt it down. It took off, and the other drone seemed to respond to the threat in some way, as it also accelerated. It started making twists and turns that I felt would have ripped an animal or creature apart had they attempted it. 

The Gatling followed close behind, and the turrets on the top and bottom swirled to get a bead on the target. They fired, but the target would spin and barely dodge the bullets. This kept up for nearly three minutes, and it seemed the turrets were getting better the whole time as they fired fewer bullets as the flight went on. 

Suddenly, the Gatling put on a burst of speed and managed to overtake the target. Then as if it hit the brakes in midair, stopped several hundred meters in front of the target, while it looked like it came to a perfect stand still. A torrent of bullets flew from the turrets and blanketed the area that the target was flying into and ripped it to shreds. 

I reconnected to the drone and had it return, once it was back I touched it with my ring and stored it away. I was pleased with the result of my weapon test. I left the secluded area and went to find the others. They were each doing their own thing. 

Z2 was training. She seemed to have gotten pumped after having seen Father today, so she was extra motivated to improve. It looked like she had pulled some of the other automata from the dungeon and were fighting them. I counted nearly two dozen around her, but she was dominating them with her speed. 

I heard, read and investigated a few things in the times that I went to the town back at the Valley and I was pretty sure that Ice was supposed to be strong and deadly, but it was relatively slow. Z2 seemed to have thrown that out the proverbial window. She was moving like a shadow, the automata would strike where they thought she was and would only hit air or the ground. 

It seemed that she was honing her evasion skills as she wasn’t returning any of the strikes sent her way. I noticed nearly half a dozen times when she could have decapitated or sliced a limb clean off, but she only used her weapon to deflect or block attacks she couldn’t dodge. 

I moved on and found Natsuko and Natsuo where they sat with their legs in the water. I moved up to them to see what they were doing. She noticed I was about to ask and went ahead and said, “Enjoying the water, duh!” Natsuko said as if it was apparent.

“Water… energy… good…” Natsuo added.

“Energy?” I asked and stuck my leg in the water after I removed my boot. I felt a current of mana start to flow into me. I quickly undressed most of my clothes and put them in my storage ring. Then I jumped into the lake and felt the energy wash over me. I wanted to dive deeper as I felt the energy get stronger, but the heat also went up, and even I couldn’t take much after a certain depth. 

I went as deep as I could and got into a meditative pose like I had seen some of the mortals do in the town. I started to circulate the energy through my body. The rush of energy felt good through my body. I knew I didn't have veins like mortals did, but I had strings of metal that served to distribute mana throughout my body. 

I understood that mortals had something like a pool they used to judge how much mana and individual could retain inside their body. I was born with the knowledge of how to use mana instinctively, so it was a new experience to actively focus on these parts of my body. I circulated the mana through the wires until it arrived at an empty space, somehow I knew that I needed to fill this space. 

I must have stayed under the water for several hours before the emptiness was full. I had no idea if my pool was large or small compared to mortals, but I felt quite refreshed after having pulled in so much mana. I returned to the surface and noticed that it was night. There was still quite a bit of activity going on though as the automata never had to sleep or rest unless low on mana.

A small force of automata that looked like they were ready to go to war stood in formation nearby. Z2 was inspecting them with a severe look. I got out of the water and channeled some mana into drying off. I walked over to see what was going on.

“Puppet, Father didn't want to bother you, but these guys will be coming with us,” she said when I was closer. 

“How long can they stay out before running out of mana?” I asked as I looked them over.

“Father said their good for a day but that we could recharge them easily enough.”

“Good, they will make our mission a bit safer.”