Wizard: Building a Golem Legion From Zero

The Jade Plane.

This was a Plane exceptionally rich in biological resources. The entire world resembled a boundless, primeval jungle where canopies blotted out the sun and vines grew as thick as city walls. Countless Magical Beasts made their home within it.

This was the territory of Rose Garden Academy, the newest partner institution of the New Western Education Group.

Outside the academy’s main gate, Olden, the dean of Briarstone Academy, watched several figures disappear into the light of the Teleportation Array, then turned to Hector, the head of New Western’s Jade Plane branch, who stood beside him.

"Why did the higher-ups from Weisren Heavy Industry suddenly show up?" Olden frowned. "We didn’t get any notice beforehand."

Hector wiped the cold sweat from his brow. "I don’t know either, Dean. They called it ’skipping the pleasantries and going straight to the site.’ I was just telling some apprentices to move teaching materials when I looked up and saw five people standing in front of me. And it was the big boss, Allen, leading the group himself! The place wasn’t even clean..."

...

「At the same time.」

In the depths of the Jade Plane, in an uninhabited region three hundred kilometers from Briarstone Academy.

Ancient trees towered into the sky, each trunk so thick it would take more than a dozen people to encircle it. The ground was covered in a thick layer of moss and ferns, and the low growls of distant Magical Beasts occasionally echoed from afar.

Allen and his group of four were standing in a naturally formed basin.

It had all started the day before.

After finishing his business with the Aiselan Kingdom and the Association, Allen had returned to the company headquarters in Hub City to give Rhine a new body.

But just as he had taken the brand-new, dark-silver "Puppet" from his storage space, Vera pushed the door open and walked right in on him.

"What... is that?" Allen still remembered her expression vividly.

As the head manager of Weisren Heavy Industry, Vera had seen Gabriel and Cyclops, so she had already developed a certain tolerance for the words "Second-level Wizard." But those were Golems—steel behemoths dozens of meters tall that you could tell weren’t human just by looking at them.

But this body before her—1.95 meters tall, with Rhine’s face and human proportions—lay quietly on a platform, yet it emitted an aura powerful enough to distort the ambient Magic Power.

"A new body for Rhine," Allen said.

"Somehow... it feels like it’s on the level of a Second-level Wizard?"

"Mm-hm."

Vera was silent for three seconds.

’After all these years of painstaking work, she had only just reached the peak of a First-level Wizard, while becoming a Second-level Wizard was still a distant dream.’

’And Rhine, a former First-level Wizard who had already died once, could become a Second-level Wizard just by swapping bodies?’

The shock of this was far more intense than seeing some powerful war machine.

Without a word, Vera turned and summoned Colin and Lina, using the grand-sounding excuse of "jointly witnessing a great leap forward in the company’s technological capabilities."

Allen looked at his three core executives, their faces all but screaming ’We want to watch this live,’ and felt a bit resigned.

He had already been planning to find a site for a field test to collect firsthand data on the soul’s interaction with the new body, so he let Vera pick the spot.

And so, this impromptu "executive team-building" trip came to be, doubling as a "surprise inspection" of their newest business venture.

The Jade Plane had plenty of Magical Beasts, lots of space, and it was a good chance to inspect the new branch.

Killing three birds with one stone.

The only downside was that the head of the New Western Jade Plane branch got royally chewed out.

Since they were already there and his own executives were interested, Allen decided to deploy Cybertron on the spot.

"Partial deployment."

At Allen’s command, the air within the basin beneath their feet began to distort.

A research and development zone of about five square kilometers emerged from the void, solidifying from illusion into reality as blue wireframes were rapidly filled in with solid metal.

This was the first time Colin had witnessed such a scene with his own eyes.

He opened his mouth, wanting to say something, but in the end, all he could manage were two words: "...Holy shit."

Lina’s Emotion Spectrum Vision activated uncontrollably. To her, Cybertron was a colossal, cold, perfectly ordered blue radiance, so dense it nearly seared her senses.

Vera was more worldly, but even she had never been inside before.

The trio followed Allen through the fortress gate, their gasps of amazement unceasing, like kids in a candy store.

Metal floors, automated transport rails, Rune-laced light strips, space-folding corridors... Colin stopped every few steps to gawk and touch everything, while Lina was left speechless by the expensive equipment in the dozen or so laboratories in the R&D zone.

Allen led them into the laboratory exclusively used for Puppet fabrication.

Rhine lay down on the central platform, his gaze fixed on the new body beside him.

"Boss, is this for me?"

"You think it’s ugly?"

"No... It just looks incredibly expensive."

Rhine’s brown eyes shifted, and he lowered his voice to ask, "How much does it cost?"

"Five million, three hundred thousand."

Rhine fell silent.

In his past life as a First-level Wizard, his entire net worth hadn’t exceeded 100,000 Low-Level Magic Stones.

"...Boss, right now, the most worthless thing I own is myself."

"Cut the crap. Close your eyes."

The soul transfer began. Rhine voluntarily severed the sensory link to his old body. The warm-hued mist of light within his incantation core was precisely guided by Allen into the heart of the new body’s "Palace of Thought."

The luminous mist descended into its new vessel like a drop of ink into clear water.

Jarvis gave a real-time report of the connection rate: "47%... 68%... 91%..."

The entire process took only thirty-seven minutes, completed swiftly thanks to the direct soul transfer.

Rhine opened his eyes.

The moment his new visual system activated, the world transformed. He could now even perceive the Earth Vein Magic Power flowing deep within the ground beneath him.

He slowly sat up, raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, then unclenched it.

"How does it feel?" Allen asked.