WorldCrafter - Building My Underground Kingdom-Chapter 228: Activating the Golem

Chapter 228: Activating the Golem

The Rx Golems’ eyes lit up in yellow. All five units moved in perfect sync, stepping forward before dropping to one knee in front of Ben.

Elvira stood beside him, arms crossed, a satisfied smile playing on her lips.

“The AI seems to be working just fine.”

In the end, Ben chose not to paint them white and blue. That color scheme was far too obvious for battlefield use. He wasn’t building toys to show off, he was creating soldiers and laborers.

All five golems remained a grim shade of blackened gray, with yellow eyes, when they turned on.

Elvira look at the nearest Rx-Golem.

“Rx-1, move five paces forward, then perform a diagnostic squat.”

The golem obeyed smoothly, its heavy legs start moving. It stopped, lowered itself then returned to standing position without fault.

“Rx-2, mimic Rx-1’s movement,” she said next.

Rx-2 stepped forward, but on the fourth pace its foot caught on a loose bolt that had fallen from the workbench. The golem stumbled with a mechanical grunt, swinging its arms wildly for balance, only to smack into Rx-3 beside it.

CLANG.

Rx-3, hit square in the shoulder, lost balance and toppled sideways into Rx-4, who let out a confused beep before crashing flat onto the floor.

Ben blinked. Rx-5 was the only one left standing, somehow turning its head slowly to observe the carnage.

Elvira stared in silence, then burst into laughter. “Okay, maybe the coordination subroutine needs fine-tuning.”

Ben chuckled. “Yeah… I think Rx-2’s got two left feet.”

Ben smirked. “Give that one a ribbon. It gets Employee of the Month.”

Rx-5 raised its hand like a champion basking in victory.

Elvira wiped her eyes, still chuckling. “Their artificial cognitive response isn’t bad at all.”

Ben crossed his arms, eyeing the golem with curiosity. “But you know? Rx-5 really acts like a kid. Like it’s proud. Gloating.”

Elvira nodded with a smile. “Probably because that’s exactly what it’s doing. I built in a basic feedback loop, it recognizes certain words or tones as praise. So when you said that, it logged it as a positive input and responded with what it considered a ‘happy action.'”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “So raising its hand like a smug brat is a happy action?”

“One of many,” she said, grinning. “I’m still working on the behavior matrix, but the goal is to give them basic personalities. Eventually, their actions will branch out depending on how they’re ‘raised.'”

Ben laughed. “If your code gets too good, we might have to register them as a new species.”

That earned another laugh from Elvira, but Ben’s smile faded slightly as he looked at the line of golems.

“When AI becomes too real, it’s hard to tell what’s man and what’s machine,” he muttered. “Back home… just before I got sent here, AI tech had hit another major breakthrough.”

Elvira glanced at him, trying to remember which memories Ben talked about.

“It got so good,” Ben continued, “that people started choosing AI friends over real ones. Partners. Even families. It was amazing… and terrifying.”

He sighed, eyes distant. “I was just a construction worker. Barely holding onto my job. Automation was faster, cheaper, more precise. And when you paired it with AI like this?”

He gestured at the golems. “Real people got replaced. And that wasn’t even the scariest part. It was the future everyone feared, where people stop choosing people altogether.”

Ben’s gaze lingered on the golems,. He exhaled slowly.

“You know why it’s scary?” he muttered, voice low. “Because it’s too easy.”

He turned to Elvira.

“Real people? We’re messy. We argue. We screw up. We disappoint each other. But that’s what makes it real. What makes connection mean something.”

He tapped his temple with two fingers.

“But with AI? There’s no resistance. No pushback. They’re made to agree with you. Laugh when you laugh. Cry when you’re sad.

Give you exactly what you want, every time. Perfect friends. Perfect lovers. No complications.”

He looked away.

“And people got hooked on that. Why deal with a real relationship, with pain, with misunderstanding, with growth, when you can just… turn on your happiness like flicking a switch?”

He gestured toward the Rx golems.

“Imagine a whole generation raised on that. Kids growing up thinking affection is a program. That comfort is something you buy and loyalty is just well-coded obedience.”

Ben’s voice dropped further.

“It’s not just about jobs. Or replacement. It’s about what we lose, when nobody needs to try anymore.

When you don’t have to learn patience, forgiveness, sacrifice. When you never hear a ‘no.'”

His eyes narrowed.

“If humanity stops choosing real connection… then what’s left of being human?”

Ben let out a soft chuckle, than clenched his fist.

“A society like that? Easy to crush. Soft minds, soft spines. No roots to hold when the storm comes.”

Elvira, standing beside a half-rebooted Rx unit, nodded slowly. “I’ve seen how fast that kind of decay can spread. Give people comfort with no consequences, and in one generation, you won’t even need to invade. They’ll collapse from within.”

She tapped a few lines of code into a floating interface. “Just imagine a whole generation raised on yes-men. On artificial friends who never argue, never demand growth. Never make you change.”

Then her voice darkened, biting with sarcasm. “Knowing your government, they’ll start by selling it as a feature. Lock your AI companion behind a paywall. But in the end they will tweak the algorithms. Make it nudge your thinking. Make it… compliant.”

Ben snorted. “And the people won’t resist. They’ll think the suggestions come from someone who loves them.”

She laughed bitterly. “If I could tune an AI that deeply, we could destroy the Nephirid kingdom without lifting a blade.”

Ben let out a genuine laugh. “Maybe. But humans are emotional. Nephirid? They’re proud, Ruthless.

You’d need a generation or more with careful planning before they’d fall for something like that.”

Elvira turned back to the golems and activated a deeper diagnostic scan. “Then maybe we we change how we do it. We give them tools. Soldiers. Golems.” She smirked. “Don’t they lack many of them?”

Ben raised an eyebrow. “You want to sell them these?”

“Not these,” she said, waving her hand. “We build a version for export. High-performance. Reliable. No weird personalities or quirks. Just enough intelligence to follow complex commands.”

“And inside,” Ben said, catching on, “we hide a backdoor.”

She nodded. “They’ll think they’re getting loyal worker. But we’ll own every single one.”

Ben folded his arms, thinking. “The Ash King might see it as a novelty at first. But once it proves itself…”

“He’ll mass-order them. Than with his arrogance become reliant to it, without realizing it.” Elvira’s smile grew sharper. “And by then, it’ll be too late.”

Ben exhaled. “That could work. But we’ll need better materials. Something with regeneration, high endurance, efficient energy cycles…”

“I can do that,” Elvira said, already muttering subroutines. “But I’ll have to cut the personality modules. No more victorious poses or happy hand-waving.”

Ben chuckled, glancing at Rx-5, who was still frozen mid-celebration.

“No more Employee of the Month, huh?”

Elvira grinned. “No, but they’ll be better suited as workers. Honestly, I programmed those reactions into the golems to make the city feel a bit more cheerful.”

“That could work,” Ben nodded, then added thoughtfully, “But if we go that route, what about the magical network?”

Elvira’s grin widened. “I’ve already improved my wireless transmission system. We just need to enhance the golem core to double as a receiver. Efficient and discrete.”

Ben narrowed his eyes. “And you’re sure no one will notice?”

“If the Magus data you gave me is still up to date, then no,” Elvira said confidently, fingers flying across her floating interface.

“Even if a high-level Magus inspects one, at most they’ll sense something unusual. But actually identifying the backdoor? That could take them years.”

Her lips than culred into a grind, “This is all thanks to apophis dark aether that you bring back.

“In that case, let’s add some failsafes.” fɾeeweɓnѳveɭ.com

“A self-destruct option?” Elvira asked while finishing the RX golem’s code.

“Yes. But not just that,” Ben said. “We’ll have two options: one, a full self-detonation to erase evidence. The other, a quieter fallback, just disintegrate the core into dust.”

“Give them the choice, that’s good…,” Elvira mused. “And we make the golems tough enough to last long deployments.”

“We’ll also control the power supply,” Ben continued. “We’ll sell the batteries separately. That way, anyone who wants them has to come back to us eventually.”

“Ah. And if they try to reverse-engineer it…”

“They’ll just end up with a pile of slag,” Ben finished with a smirk. “Still, if we want this to spread fast, we’ll need to keep the price low. Make them cheap enough to be irresistible.”

Elvira chuckled. “A gift too useful to refuse.”

Ben’s lips curled into a grin. “Let’s test it on our neighbor first, Gravenhold.”

“Can you imagine they than send it to attack us?” Elvira asked with a laugh