Chapter 256: A Little Hobby Comes in Handy

"Vha’resh... nokh tal." The Bleeding Desolation opened its bloody mouth and roared in an unfamiliar language.

Its voice still sounded like thousands of voices mixed together, disturbing and frightening to hear.

The clay monster didn’t back away. Instead, an opening appeared on its smooth face, forming a mouth as it answered.

"Khess... ul’vaar."

For a while, their auras were the only things clashing. Neither creature moved closer as they continued speaking, almost as though they were arguing.

Some distance away, Magna had found a patch of firmer mud where he wouldn’t sink. He had landed there and canceled his wings to save mana while waiting for the fight to begin.

By now, though, he had been waiting for quite a while. All he had witnessed was an argument in a language he couldn’t understand.

"Come on, ladies. Just start already."

The longer they talked, the more he worried that they might settle their problems peacefully, then decide to gang up on him.

He couldn’t beat even one of them right now. Having both after him would only make things worse.

Yet he was too curious to leave before seeing the outcome. More importantly, the material forming between them was giving off a stronger golden glow as their auras continued to clash.

The mana inside it was still increasing.

Magna no longer doubted that it was something special. Watching more of it form only made him greedier, tempting him to take some without being noticed.

His edit spell could turn one material into another, but that didn’t mean he could freely create anything he wanted. Producing something like Phoenix Feathers or Dragon Scales from ordinary mud would require an enormous amount of mana to make up the difference.

If this material was as rare as he suspected, however, he might be able to use the spell’s equivalent exchange function. Perhaps he could turn it into one of those legendary materials without paying such a high mana cost, then use it to upgrade his clothes.

That made collecting it worth considering. The problem was finding a chance to approach without drawing either monster’s attention.

He needed them to start fighting, but neither seemed willing to make the first move.

’Should I just give them a little push?’

Magna watched them continue their argument, wondering what he could do to make it worse.

If they were human, he could stir things up with something like, "She called you a puddle pretending to be a Desolation," or, "She said you’re what happens when a nosebleed develops an ego."

That surely wouldn’t work here, so he had to find another way to turn them against each other.

After thinking for a while, he came up with something worth trying.

First, he checked his mana reserve. After everything he had spent on his wings, he still had 23% left.

’That should be enough.’

Even if it wasn’t, he still had some replenishing pills in his pockets.

He glanced at the Desolations once more. Seeing that neither showed any intention of moving, he headed farther away to find somewhere he could work without attracting their attention.

Once he felt he was far enough, Magna pointed at the muddy ground and cast his edit spell.

Green light poured from his finger, forming words that spread across a small patch of mud.

<System.Override>

<Access.Granted>

<World.Edit>

He began changing the mud’s properties, keeping the adjustments simple to avoid wasting mana.

He only needed to harden it into a metal-like material and give it the right shape. There was no reason to add any special effects.

Rather than trying to make the whole thing at once, he cast the spell repeatedly, shaping one small part at a time. Pieces resembling the outer sections of a model kit began to pile up beside gears, springs, and wires.

Magna paused occasionally to check them, comparing their shapes with the blueprint he was picturing in his head.

What he was making was a mechanical robot. It wouldn’t need electricity, since he planned to use an old-fashioned clockwork mechanism powered by a wound spring.

Buying robot and anime model kits online and assembling them had once been one of his hobbies. Later, he had taken it further, printing his own parts with a 3D printer to build mechanical robots and figures.

Now, that hobby was finally proving useful in a situation he would never have imagined.

"Good. I haven’t gotten rusty."

Looking over the finished pieces, he bent down and began putting them together.

He started with the internal mechanism. Gear by gear, he fitted the springs, wires, and winding key into place so the parts could move together. Once that was ready, he attached the outer pieces to form the body around it.

Creating all the parts had taken around 20 minutes and cost him 7% mana. Since he had only hardened and shaped the mud, the cost had stayed manageable.

The assembly went even faster. Within another 10 minutes, the scattered parts had become a mechanical copy of one of the flying bugs that had chased him earlier.

It looked almost identical to the original. The color, the shell covering its head, and its long, thin legs were all there, along with a pair of flimsy wings on its back.

He had even matched its size, making it a little larger than his head.

Of course, looking like a bug wouldn’t be enough if it couldn’t move like one.

Magna turned it upside down to reach the winding key beneath its body.

Click, click, click.

He turned the key until the spring was fully wound. When he released the mechanism, the wings on its back began beating rapidly.

Their buzzing sounded surprisingly close to the real thing. Even the legs moved with the mechanism, shifting beneath its body as the wings beat.

With all those little movements, it almost looked alive.

Now he just needed to see whether it could fly.

Magna lifted the figure and let it go.

Instead of hovering, it immediately shot forward, flying quickly in a straight line just as he had designed it to.

He laughed, pleased with the result, then hurried after it before it could get too far away.

After catching it, he carefully released the spring’s tension with the winding key. The wings slowed to a stop, allowing him to set the figure on the ground.

That was one finished, but a single bug probably wouldn’t be enough for what he had in mind.

He pointed at the mud again and began casting his edit spell.