Construction Mage - Chapter 48: Choices

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“Good morning, Clay, I'm glad you slept well," a woman with dark green hair tied into one long ponytail greeted Clay as soon as he walked out from the makeshift guest room of his friend’s house.

“Good morning, Thalia,” he replied, rubbing his eyes. “Where’s Garrick?”

The woman grinned and moved over and swung the shutters open, allowing sunlight to flood into the house.

“It’s almost noon already. Garrick left a long time ago for the worksite.”

“Huh, oh. Well, I guess I did stay up pretty late last night.”

Thalia chuckled as she flipped through some pages of documents.

“Yes, rest isn’t to be neglected after what happened yesterday. You’re welcome to stay longer if you wish. No need to rush the repairs to your place.”

“Hmm, thank you, but I don’t plan on delaying the repairs. It’s just that I got this important order to finish as well.”

His words caused the woman to put down her work and look him straight in the eye.

“Ah, yes. Your royal patron, is it? I did hear about the arrival of the Third Prince. Are you sure everything is okay on that end? Not many good things are said about him.”

“Third Prince? So that’s who he is?! I thought he was like a cousin or something. Don’t all the main members of the royal family have white hair or something?”

“For the most part, yes. The Third Prince is the exception. It’s why there aren’t any good rumors about him. Many call him a bastard behind his back. It’s said he isn’t favored by the current king, either.”

“Not like royal politics has much to do with anything outside the royal capital. They can barely collect taxes with all the monsters in the way, right?”

“Yes, but that doesn’t mean you can take a member of the royal family lightly,” Thalia warned.

“Of course. That’s why I worked so hard on the toilets last night. I don’t want to keep him waiting for long, but I can’t ignore my housing situation right now, either. Speaking of, I’m heading out. Got to get some work done while the sun is up.”

“Take care. If it doesn’t work out, you can always help me out with my work, too.”

“Yeah, yeah. See you later.”

Exiting through the wood door, Clay found himself emerging onto one of the many side streets within the third ring. The sound of the bustling crowd quickly reached his ears, as the main streets weren’t too far off.

He made a quick stop at a street hawker for brunch before returning to the scene of his home.

The place wasn’t in any better condition compared to the day before.

I guess there’s no way everything would’ve dried in one night, huh?

Letting out a sigh to release some pent-up frustrations, Clay slapped himself on the cheeks to signal a new start.

“By Lestionora’s name, heed my call,

Let your power take shape for me.

By sacred vow and binding light,

Rise from the void and lend me your might.”

The fight the previous day hadn’t just offered him an immense amount of experience points. It also helped him learn how to control his summon and stay in the meditative state at the same time. Today, he did just that, as he put the earth elemental to work.

If he were to rebuild from the foundation up, he would have to break down what remained and both produce and buy new materials. To do things right, it was destined not to be a short endeavor. Thankfully, being able to remain in meditation the entire time sped things along.

It didn’t take too long for him to gather all his valuables, such as the majority of the toilet and magic crystals from the water heater, and bring down the outer walls.

Destroying was always faster than building. The most time-consuming part was to bring down the wooden beams supporting the thatch roof. Once that part was done, he simply needed to have the golem dismantle the walls.

Clay went into a trance and worked nonstop until the sky began to darken. By that time, his little plot of land had been flattened, returning to a clean slate. There were a few stacks of usable material, but no semblance of a shelter remained.

Tomorrow I’ll be building up the foundation, I guess. I’ll need to procure some proper lime mortar before then, but Garrick’s got me covered there.

Leaving the fourth ring, Clay headed straight not for his temporary place of residence but to the Delver enclosure in the second ring. With night soon falling, it was finally time for him to pay a visit to the white gazebo where the dungeon altar was.

He had been itching to go earlier, but in order to take advantage of the valuable hours of daylight, he persevered until evening.

Passing by numerous gazes from other Delvers, Clay placed his hand on the altar and called up his status screen.

Despite having twenty stat points to spend, his attention was first drawn to his only maxed-out skill, ‘Summon Elemental(I).’

[Possible upgrade available for the skill, Summon Elemental(I). Would you like to proceed now? (Yes/No)]

[Warning: Skill upgrade is final. Please make your decision carefully. Proceed? (Yes/No)]

Without hesitation, Clay selected yes.

[Analyzing stats…]
[…]
[…]
[Analyzing subject history…]
[…]
[…]

[Complete… Please select one of the following:

Geldrune’s Blessing: Increases the strength and endurance of the summon

Veldara’s Blessing: Increases the number of summons

Quorineth’s Blessing: Increases the autonomy of the summon]

With how these upgrades are worded, no wonder the church is so powerful nowadays.

Clay stared at the choices for a full minute, deep in thought. The choices presented before him were more interesting than he thought, and had a lasting impact on how the skill would fit into his kit.

The first option was the simplest. Strength and endurance meant the elemental’s ability as a frontline combatant would comprehensively improve. It would be able to hit harder and tank more damage. It would do wonders if Clay was to have it fight another one of those dark green slimes. After all, his elemental had barely managed to win, if he could even call it that. If there were other monsters present, the situation would’ve been a lot worse, as it was capable of taking out the summon from the battle.

Overall, he judged option one to be the best if he planned to have the summon fight on his behalf more often, especially against a few strong monsters. It would inevitably be a boon when he was ready to challenge the floor boss.

However, Clay knew fights against monsters wouldn’t always be one-on-one. Even in the depths of the first layer, monsters traveled in groups. The number of opponents would be a big consideration in his future battles. That was why option two appeared so attractive to Clay as well.

If he had two golems during the fight in the church, the fight would’ve never been so close. They would be able to hold different entryways, and even if one fell, there would always be another to buy time as he summoned another. 

In a way, the second option was the safest. He could command one to attack while the other shielded him. Even in his construction work, having an extra set of hands was huge. It was a far cry compared to the first option, where the golem would simply become stronger and likely even bigger. As he was only building a small house at the moment, there was no need for its increased strength and size.

Then, there was the third option. In terms of aiding him in his efforts to rebuild his house, this last option was likely just as useful as the second one, if not more so. It might pale in comparison to the other options in terms of immediate combat benefits, but having a more autonomous summon freed up Clay’s hands a lot. He wouldn’t have to micromanage its every move anymore. It was like having a party member who was fully loyal and did as ordered.

The only thing that made Clay hesitate was that he didn’t know exactly how much improvement each of these options provided.

I suspect choosing an option would level up the skill to its second tier. When it levels up, then it’ll likely improve the aspect I choose here as well. With that in mind, I’ve got to choose this one after all, don’t I?

With his hand hovering over his preferred option, Clay breathed in and made his choice.

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