“Faster!” Perci yelled out as Lucas weaved through golems that tried to catch him.

  Practical experience could go a long way, so they came up with the idea of giving Perci access to bunch of golems. Under his control, the golems attempted to capture Lucas as he trained to handle moving in high speed.

  It was going well until two golems blocked his path, forcing Lucas to take a sharp turn, only to get caught by a golem that seemed to have been waiting for him.

  Lucas was tossed to the ground as the wind was knocked out of him.

  “I may not be a team player, but predictions are my strong suit,” Perci stated as Lucas got up. “That should be enough for today. I believe you have some matters to attend to,” Perci pointed to Althea who entered the training room.

  “It’s time to start interviewing mages,” Althea informed him.

  Lucas nodded. “I’ll be right there after taking a shower.”

  “Got it boss,” Althea gave him a thumbs up.

  After taking a shower and putting on some decent clothes, Lucas headed to the interview room. He wasn’t going to be conducting the interview himself, but he will be there to observe and give his opinion.

  When he arrived, Althea began the interviews by calling in the first candidate. A young man wearing a custom-tailored suit came in with confident steps. “I am-”

  “Resume,” Althea demanded, her demeanor turning serious.

  The young man was taken by surprise. “I didn’t bring such a usele-”

  “Next!” Althea yelled.

  “What?! I will not be disre-” the young man was interrupted by a golem dragging him out of the interview room. Any attempt to try and use magic was shut down by a golem aiming a canon at him.

  Three more arrogant candidates followed, all of them being quickly rejected. The first decent applicant they had come in the shape of a skinny middle-aged man named Winston.

  “Morning,” the man bowed as he handed Althea his resume.

  Althea skimmed through his resume before handing it to Lucas. She began asking him questions, while Lucas read his resume.

  The man was a Viscount-ranked mage, but he was a non-combatant that specialized in plant magic. Lucas could see a significant benefit in his abilities. During the interview, Althea asked him about his accomplishments, which the man was only able to answer one. He had been able to cultivate a high-quality flower that was later used for an elixir.

  Althea didn’t seem impressed with his resume, but Lucas was interested on the man’s abilities.

  Lucas signaled to Althea that he approved of the man. She nodded and placed him with the candidates that were due for a background check before deciding if they were going to get hired.

  Unfortunately, the following candidates returned to being arrogant youngsters from houses that were fresh from the academy. Lucas didn’t know why they decided to apply for a company with that kind of attitude, and didn’t just stay in their houses.

  After several worthless applicants, another decent one came next. A young man with round glasses named Peter.

  Reading through his resume, it stated that the young man was a fresh graduate from a magic university and had a few experiences going on missions. Which made it weird for Lucas to refer to him as a young man as Peter was in fact older than him by two years.

  Peter had a decent resume for someone his age, so Althea placed him in the same group as Winston.

  After that, the interviews continued with the majority of the applicants being the arrogant type, while a few decent, but average ones being mixed in.

  But when the last applicant came in, it managed to lighten up Lucas’s mood.

  “I hope I’m qualified for the job,” Macey said as she went into the room.

  “Four of them?” Samira asked as she entered the observation room.

  “Yes, ma’am,” a CDA agent answered as he showed three video feeds.

  One of a young man with brown hair and amber eyes, a young woman with blonde hair and blue eyes, an older woman with long brown hair and blue eyes, and lastly, a little boy with black hair and eyes.

  “All four of them are emitting irregular mana signatures,” the agent stated. “Just to be sure, we ran them through a facial recognition system and came out blank for all of them.”

  Samira scratched her forehead in frustration. Transmigrators... four of them. Usually, these kinds of people would be granted with one or two powerful blessings from a deity. Likely mana based or a physical enhancement. They don’t start out strong, but given some time and they will.

  Of course, they won’t just hunt them down. The CDA needed to figure them out first. If they were decent people, they could be a big help to the empire, but if they weren’t, that’s where Samira came in.

  The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

  “Keep watch on them. The moment they try abusing their blessings bring them in. Send some field agents to each of them for observation,” Samira ordered.

  “Yes ma’am!”

  A month had passed, and the development of the mana vein was finally completed. The whole area had been walled off and turrets had been placed to defend the walls. Lucas also created dozens of the Iris: Gunslinger to guard the perimeter from monsters and intruders.

  “Congratulations on being the youngest person to be the owner of a mana vein,” Leona stated. “I pity you cause the moment this becomes public. A lot of people would come knocking.”

  “I don’t like answering doors,” Lucas replied with a groan.

  They were looking over the whole mana vein from a watch tower located at the center of it. The very top served as Lucas’s office, though he’d hardly use it since he’ll mostly be at the company.

  “This place looks more like a golem base,” Leona commented as she noticed the sheer number of golems in the mana vein. The workers equipped with a variety of tools, and the guards equipped with lethal artifacts. “You really didn’t hold back.”

  “I’ve heard of people going to war for mana veins,” Lucas stated. “I’m just making sure I’m ready for one.”

  Leona looked him over. “It’s ironic that someone that doesn’t cultivate mana became the owner of a mana vein.”

  “That reminds me. Do you know about aura and other types of energy that can be cultivated?” Lucas asked.

  Leona rubbed her chin in thought. “I’ve heard about it, but I don’t know much.”

  “Is there anything you know about aura at all?”

  Leona hummed. “Well, there’s monsters that use aura,” Leona revealed. “There’s been a few attempts to acquire aura cultivation methods in the past, but with constant failure, everyone eventually gave up.”

  “How long ago was that?”

  Leona shrugged. “Over a century? I’m not sure. It was around the continental war.”

  History wasn’t Lucas’s strong suit, but he at least knew about the continental war. It was the war that unified the whole continent and created the Vulcan empire.

  The current emperor didn’t like talking about it.

  Lucas sighed and decided to discuss a different topic. “When will the military send their mages?”

  “We’ll notify you once we decide on who gets to go,” Leona answered. “We can’t exactly send just anybody to a mana vein.”

  Lucas nodded in understanding.

  “By the way...” Leona trailed off as the massive steel gates of the mana vein opened as a dark gray minotaur entered while dragging the corpse of a high-ranking monster. “I refuse to believe that’s a golem.”

  “I call it Chief. A monster lord variant from the Dread knight minotaur species,” Lucas stated.

  “A dread knight minotaur is a high-ranking monster that leads a herd of minotaurs,” Leona responded. “Encountering one normally meant you won’t survive. Additionally, why do I feel like it’s stronger than it should be.”

  Lucas smiled. “That’s a secret.”

  The essence of golem magic is bringing an inanimate object to life, granting it minor sentience to be able to follow orders to a certain extent.

  In the current era of magic, golem magic had branched out to two main methods. The first method leaned more towards the traditional method of using the environment to form a golem. It requires more mana and is a method limited to mages.

  The other method leaned more towards science and engineering. A crafter would already create the body of the golem, taking a more mechanical appearance. Then they would either request the assistance of a mage to bring the golem to life or use a complicated structure of runes and enchantments to activate the golem.

  “Well done Chief,” Lucas said as the golem placed the monster corpse into the warehouse where some golems began butchering it.

  Chief, Lucas’s latest golem with a monster lord’s core. Taking the form of a bulky minotaur with dark gray fur that was made of biozonite taking the form of a mixture between obsidian and steel.

  An interesting fact that answered the question on why dread knight minotaurs were commonly spotted near volcanoes.

  “It is my duty,” Chief replied with a deep and gruff voice.

  Chief was also the very first golem that included the newly discovered soul runes. With the inclusion of the soul rune that improved his control of an artifact by allowing him to inject a portion of his soul into it, Chief came with even more features.

  One of them being able to communicate verbally.

  If it wasn’t for his method of crafting, Lucas would probably count as a summoner at this point.

  “You can go do your patrols now,” Lucas said.

  “As you command,” Chief bowed before marching out of the warehouse.

  Through their soul connection, Lucas could also feel Chief’s overwhelming power. It's common knowledge for anyone that studied monsters that monster lords had four abilities. One of them would always be a form of energy like mana, aura, divine energy, or other type of cultivational energy, while the other three would be activation skills.

  Since Lucas receives an already constructed script of their body and abilities, Lucas didn’t know the full details about his monster lord golems. But with the new addition of a soul connection, Lucas now had access to the inner workings of his powerful golems.

  As an example, through their soul connection, Lucas gained knowledge of Chief’s strength and defensive based abilities. The type of energy Chief used was aura that had the attribute of momentum. This meant that every attack Chief throws out will gradually get stronger and stronger until the golem overwhelms its opponent.

  For its first ability, Chief would unleash a war cry that would mentally force its enemies to target it. Chief’s second ability was a reinforcement type skill that greatly enhanced the golem’s strength and defense. Its last ability was a damage absorption skill that can also discharge all the absorbed energy to stun its enemies.

  But that wasn’t all. Upon activation of core break, Chief can use a finishing move. With the boost from core break, Chief charges and generates a lot of power and momentum to land a devastating blow upon impact.

  With the addition of the soul rune, the golems were also no longer limited to the script within their magic circle and could adapt to situations thanks to their improved sentience.

  “I really need to find that runesmith,” Lucas muttered.

  After the success of creating Chief, Lucas tried looking for the woman that he bought the soul rune from, but the market event was already done, and Lucas didn’t even get her name.

  He tried asking Joshua about the participants of the market event, and he said he’ll try asking for the list of registered booths. Hopefully it works since Lucas wanted to include the soul rune to his other golems.

  With a sigh, Lucas turned his attention to his latest project instead. It was a battery that absorbed the divine energy from the core of the angel monster lord that Lucas defeated with his golems.

  Unlike aura, divine energy is well known, but it was strictly limited to religious groups that worship a deity. In exchange for their faith and worship, the deity provides them with divine energy which they could use to power blessings.

  The effect of the blessing differentiates depending on the deity. Some could heal, buff, and even revive someone that recently died, but only those with a significant amount of divine energy could perform powerful blessings, so most of the time, those worshippers are locked within their churches to accumulate divine energy.

  “And I’m making a battery of divine energy...” Lucas muttered. “They’d probably call me a heretic.”